Forget the DMZ - South Korea’s most heated dispute is with Japan over a few rocks in the ocean, says Andrew Farrell
Trawling through the world’s foremost newspapers, you could be forgiven for thinking that war was imminent on the Korean peninsula. In one prominent European newspaper last month, an article quoted a foreign academic in Seoul urging people to buy a map of the peninsula because the whole political climate could be about to change.
Needless to say, nothing really happened. Gunfire was exchanged in disputed waters off the West Sea and the North protested loudly over joint US–South Korean drills in the region. All parties sat down for talks, but not a huge amount was accomplished. In other words, it was more of the same from the two Koreas.
The level of scaremongering and sensationalist reporting has driven foreigners living in South Korea to despair, while at the same needlessly worrying friends and family at home. But the situation in Korea is not at its most intense in 30 years, as some publications would have you believe. This becomes fairly obvious when you read local news and speak to people on the ground. As I have written before, the response is a disgruntled shrug of the shoulders as if to say ‘we’ve seen it all before’.
Despite this, the Republic of Korea was forced to take its eye off the North recently after three lawmakers from Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party turned up at Gimpo airport in Seoul to pursue the Japanese claim to the disputed Dokdo Islands in the Sea of Japan.
Relations between the neighbours had already hit a low in July when the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a one-month boycott against Korean Air, in response to the airline’s decision to conduct a demonstration flight from Incheon to Dokdo.
The islands, also known as the Liancourt Rocks, play a huge role in shaping Japanese and Korean relations. South Korea administers the islands, and the only permanent residents are Korean. But the Japanese, who refer to the islands as Takeshima, still claim the rocks (and no doubt the suspected wealth of minerals beneath them) and have in the past stated that their position in this matter will never change.
Historians have been arguing for years over who were the first administers of the islands due to ambiguities and inaccuracies in early historical records and maps, but since 1954, the Republic of Korea has stationed its coastguard there, and attempts by the Japanese to refer South Korea to the International Court of Justice have proved fruitless.
The US has long remained neutral in the dispute over sovereignty but in July 2008, then President George W Bush overturned a decision by the US Board on Geographic Names to alter the status of the islands from South Korea to ‘Undesignated Sovereignty’ and also change the name from Dokdo to Liancourt Rocks. The Board on Geographic Names said their initial change was to firmly prove their neutrality on the subject, and it did not represent a shifting in the US Government’s position. But President Bush’s move was telling.
Demonstrations, both in Japan and South Korea, have been commonplace for decades now, with one Korean man even setting himself on fire in protest at Shimane prefecture’s decision to hold a ‘Takeshima Day’ in 2005. And then, earlier this month, three politicians – who had previously been warned that they would be denied visas to enter South Korea – landed in Seoul in the hope of visiting Ulleung-do Island, beside Dokdo.
Their visit sparked outrage in the arrivals hall of Gimpo’s airport. And while many may call them ultra-right-wingers, they are members of one of the world’s most successful political parties, one that ruled Japan almost continuously for 54 years up till 2009.
It is believed their antics may affect future economic co-operation between the two countries, especially if Japan continues to push through its claim for the islands. It seems we haven’t seen the end of this dispute.
Andrew Farrell works as an English language teacher in Korea.
