Tangled Relationships - Observer Research Foundation

ORF Occasional Paper
Takeshima/Dokdo Islands
More seriously, in 2012 territorial disputes over the contested Liancourt
40
Rocks led to a setback in relations. Known as Takeshima (Bamboo Island)
in Japan and Dokdo (Rock island) in South Korea, these islets measure
about 19 hectares in area. They are located almost 200 kilometres from
both Japan and South Korea in the Sea of Japan. These uninhabited rocks
are generally insignificant, except in the minds of South Koreans and
Japanese, where they have invited brinkmanship. Tensions between South
Korea and Japan over Dokdo have been simmering over the last couple of
years, reaching a peak in early August 2012. The then-President of South
Korea, Lee Myung-bak, became the first leader to visit the islets. President
Lee added salt to Japanese wound by announcing that if Emperor Akihito
of Japan ever wishes to visit South Korea, he first needed to apologise for
Japan's colonial rule of the Korean peninsula. This led to a flurry of
invectives from Japan, with then-PM Noda denying that Japan's imperial
army ever forced Korean women to work as comfort women, which
infuriated South Korea. Tensions grew to the point that South Korea
planned military exercises on the disputed islets and both countries
cancelled a currency swap deal earlier agreed upon. The quarrel reached
ludicrous levels when PM Noda sent a letter of complaint to President Lee,
41
who declined to accept it. President Lee sent the letter back to Gaimusho
via a Korean diplomat, and Japan refused to accept it. Eventually, South
Korea was able to mail the letter to Gaimusho.
In its 1951 peace treaty with Allied Forces, Japan relinquished most Korean
territory occupied during WW II. However, Japan insists that the islets
were exempted, since they were declared as part of Shimane prefecture in
1905, five years before the Japan annexed the Korean peninsula. In 1952,
South Korean President Syngman Rhee unilaterally took control of the
12
www.orfonline.org