'Cyber Diplomats' Mark 10 Years of Campaigning for Korea

A group of self-appointed "cyber diplomats" who seek to rectify what they see as inaccurate information about Korea in foreign countries has published a white paper on its decade-long activities.

The group, the Voluntary Agency Network of Korea, or VANK for short, announced Sunday it will distribute 3,000 copies of the paper marking its 10th anniversary, titled "Discover Korea in the World's Textbook."

The anniversary coincides with March 1 Independence Movement Day. The paper lists what the group says are errors in textbooks, encyclopedias and websites it has rectified, and describes the process of persuading academics overseas. It also covers the group's activities asserting Korea's territorial rights to the Dokdo islets, the name "East Sea" for the waters between Korea and Japan, China's Northeast Asia project, which attempts to co-opt early Korean history, the issue of "comfort women" drafted as sex slaves by the Japanese army in World War II, and worship of Japanese leaders at the militarist Yasukuni Shrine.

"More and more people are trying to get Korea known abroad. One of them is Kim Jang-hoon, who published an advertisement in the New York Times asserting Korea's sovereignty over the Dokdo islets," VANK head Park Ki-tae said. "The white paper aims to help such people act more effectively."