President Lee does something no Japanese prime minister will ever be able to do

President Lee Myungbak has done what no South Korean leader has and what no Japanese leader can: he has planted his feet on Tokto (Dokdo).

From AFP:

South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak paid a surprise visit Friday to islands at the centre of a decades-long territorial dispute with Japan, which recalled its ambassador from Seoul in protest.

Lee was making the first-ever visit by a South Korean president to the rocky volcanic outcrops in the Sea of Japan (East Sea), roughly midway between South Korea and its former colonial ruler Japan.

Disregarding Tokyo's warnings that the visit would strain already prickly relations, Lee toured the main island and shook hands with coastguards as a South Korean flag fluttered in the breeze.

"Dokdo is indeed our territory and a place worth staking our lives to defend. Let's make sure to safeguard it with pride," pool reports quoted him as saying.

TV footage showed him posing for a photo in front of a rock painted with the slogan "ROK (South Korean) territory".

The South has stationed a small coastguard detachment since 1954 on the islands known as Dokdo in Korea and Takeshima in Japan.

The Tokto issue is one that, for a variety of reasons (including many not of South Korea's own making), will simply not go away until either Japan or South Korea (or North Korea) drops their claim or at least stops pushing it.

I am completely in support of the ROK claim to the Tokto Islets (known in Japan as Takeshima and sometimes internationally as Liancourt Rocks) ranging from the historical to the political to the practical*, but in 2005 I complained about the shrill response of Korean leaders to incidents in Japan that had been meant to provoke and should instead have been met with a low-key, ho-hum reply.

No finger-chopping, screaming, claiming Tsushima, etc., will do any good either for the collective Korean psyche or for Korea's position on the issue. In fact, it tends to erode the positive impression Korea™ has cultivated over the past few years.

ROK President Lee Myungbak visits the country of his birth. ROK President Lee Myungbak visits the Tokto Islets, rocky outcrops in the East Sea (Sea of Japan) firmly under South Korea's control since regaining them after liberation.

What works — and this is what I've been saying all along — is acting from a position of strength. Simply put, South Korea firmly has absolute control over the islands and the surrounding territorial waters and it should simply demonstrate that whenever Japan gets uppity with their anachronistic, ahistoric, and politically ill-advised claim.

I advised that South Korea should allow limited tours to the islets, and that's what happened. I have suggested (and it's under consideration) declaring all of Ullŭng-gun County (of which Tokto is a part and which includes all of Ullǔngdo Island) a national park.

And now President Lee Myungbak's visit to Tokto is another example of this. This is something that no Japanese prime minister can do, and it underscores the futility and pettiness of Tokyo's ongoing claim.

Good on you, Mr Lee. But be prepared for at least a little blowback: Tokyo has to do something to appease their political rightists and when they can't do anything in kind then they might be a little desperate.

...

Korea's underwater gold rush

The article is about two weeks old, but the New York Times had a story (covered in their July 9, 2012 podcast) on the recent surge in underwater mineral exploration, in which South Korea is a major participant:

Mr. Dettweiler has now turned from recovering lost treasures to prospecting for natural ones that litter the seabed: craggy deposits rich in gold and silver, copper and cobalt, lead and zinc. A new understanding of marine geology has led to the discovery of hundreds of these unexpected ore bodies, known as massive sulfides because of their sulfurous nature.

These finds are fueling a gold rush as nations, companies and entrepreneurs race to stake claims to the sulfide-rich areas, which dot the volcanic springs of the frigid seabed. The prospectors — motivated by dwindling resources on land as well as record prices for gold and other metals — are busy hauling up samples and assessing deposits valued at trillions of dollars.

''We've had extreme success,'' Mr. Dettweiler said in a recent interview about the deepwater efforts of his company, Odyssey Marine Exploration of Tampa, Fla.

Skeptics once likened mining the deep to looking for riches on the moon. No more. Progress in marine geology, predictions of metal shortages in the decades ahead and improving access to the abyss are combining to make it real.

Environmentalists have expressed growing alarm, saying too little research has been done on the risks of seabed mining. The industry has responded with studies, reassurance and upbeat conferences.

Robotic prospectors are less grizzly
and ultimately cheaper than their human
counterparts, but are also less likely to
inspire Jack London-esque novels.

The technological advances center on new robots, sensors and other equipment, some of it derived from the offshore oil and gas industry. Ships lower exploratory gear on long tethers and send down sharp drills that gnaw into the rocky seabed. All of this underwater machinery is making it more and more feasible to find, map and recover seabed riches.

Industrial powers — including government-supported groups in China, Japan and South Korea — are hunting for sulfides in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. And private companies like Odyssey have made hundreds of deep assessments and claims in the volcanic zones around Pacific island nations: Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, New Zealand, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

On the surface of it (no pun intended), this sounds great: one could easily argue that the oceans, not space, is the last frontier, but environmentalists warn that we really don't know the true effects (and external costs, those not paid by the commercial actors but rather borne by others not sharing the profits) of mining the ocean. We had enough troubles with driftnet fishing, derisively described as "strip-mining the ocean," but this might result in actual strip-mining of the ocean.

And with clashing claims over Tokto, the Kurils, and islands in the South China Sea, this new semiprecious and precious mineral rush could lead to maritime territorial fights.

A miscalculation could result in a sort of "reverse alchemy," with the search for gold turning into battles with lead.

...

The Los Angeles Dodgers of Dokdo

[source]

Southern Californians, as of late, have been subjected to a near daily soap opera surrounding the divorce of the McCourts, the uber-rich couple that own the L.A. Dodgers, and the resulting forced sale of the iconic baseball franchise.

I love me the Dodgers — though I'm first and foremost an Angels fan — but I haven't really followed the McCourt saga. Where it got interesting for me, however, was when it was announced yesterday that one of the handful of suitors for the boys in blue is a well-known Korean company:

A consortium led by South Korean retailer E-Land is among the short-listed bidders vying to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers, Yonhap news reported on Monday.

The Dodgers said late last week that a preliminary round of bidding had been completed and all parties would be notified of the results.

The E-Land consortium is one of the short-listed bidders for the Dodgers, Yonhap reported, quoting an unnamed industry official. [Reuters]

With legendary has-been Park Chanho having put Dodger Stadium on the Korean tourist map, there is already an affinity toward the Los Angeles club. One wonders, though, what kinds of tie-ins with Korean stuff we might see if E-Land takes over the Dodgers.

They could sell kimchi dogs,
 although that name would
 probably lead to considerable
 misunderstanding. [source]

We should expect thunderstix, a Korean invention already popular down the 5-Freeway in Orange County. Maybe Kimchi Night, where all ticket holders are given a panchan-sized portion of the pungent stuff (though this brings the danger that it might be thrown at the players if the spectators suddenly have a bout of Shakespearean scorn).

Maybe hot dogs with kyŏja. Or the best idea ever at a baseball stadium: 2000-won beer.

[UPDATE: No, comely cheerleaders and bat girls would make 2000-won beer the second best idea ever.]

We might even see a nightly parade of K-pop stars throwing out the first pitch with their stick-like girlie arms. And maybe some of the female stars might try it, too.

Perhaps the first North-South summit involving the Prodigious Progeny can be held while he and the leader of South Korea take in a Dodger game (though that sounds eerily close to the climactic scene of Shiri, and Kim Jong-un is better known for liking that other b-ball... maybe Lotte can buy the Lakers).

But my bold prediction is a name change. Just as Arte Moreno decided that the name "Anaheim" didn't have enough cache as a team moniker and so he decided to change the name of the Orange County home team to "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim" [obligatory spitting on the ground in disgust] to raise awareness of the Angels franchise, maybe E-Land will decide that the Tokto issue needs its profile raised, and we shall see what's up there in the title.

Stranger things have happened.

UPDATE 2:
Apparently E-Land's bid has the backing of former Dodgers president and owner Peter O'Malley (who knew there were so many Irish Angelenos?), and vice-versa:

Peter O'Malley's bid to buy back the Dodgers is supported by financing from the South Korean conglomerate E-Land, two people familiar with the Dodgers' sale process said Monday.

If the O'Malley bid is successful, E-Land Chairman Song Soo Park would become a major investor in the Dodgers, one of the people said.

The ownership group also would have investors from Los Angeles. O'Malley has had discussions with Tony Ressler, a minority owner of the Milwaukee Brewers and co-founder of Los Angeles-based Ares Capital, according to a person familiar with the talks.

Foreign investment is not necessarily an obstacle to MLB ownership; the Seattle Mariners' ownership group includes a significant Japanese presence. In November, O'Malley told The Times that he wanted to lead an investment group in which he would return as the Dodgers' chief executive. ...

Under O'Malley, the Dodgers were pioneers in international baseball, particularly in Asia. In 1994, three years before O'Malley sold the team to News Corp., Dodgers pitcher Chan Ho Park became the first Korean player to appear in a major league game. ...

E-Land has expanded its business interests from fashion into such areas as hotels and resorts, restaurants and construction, according to the company website.

According to the E-Land website, the company opened its first U.S. retail store in 2007 at a mall in Stamford, Conn., under the brand name "Who A.U." The slogan for the brand: "California Dream."

This really would be a California dream. Although a lot of people would be asking of E-Land, "Who are you?"

...

South Korea to build KTX linking Tokto with mainland

Well, no.

But there are massive development plans in the works, including a 200-meter tunnel connecting the two main islets, a breakwater to allow ships to dock, and an underwater observatory. All this is expected to be finished a year or two before the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyongchang, not far from where one would take a boat to get to Tokto.

Surprisingly, authorities in Tokyo had the Japanese Ambassador to South Korea, Masatoshi Muto, lodge a protest over all this construction on a set of islets they have claimed since essentially taking over Korea during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 but haven't effectively occupied since quitting Korea at the end of World War II in 1945.

I say "surprisingly" because apologists for modern Japanese policy as it relates to past Imperial Japanese acts tell us that it's only the Koreans who get their panties in a bunch over Tokto and no in Japan could care less. (By the way, I was being sarcastic.)

Frankly, it's the environmentalists who should be up in arms. Tokto is relatively pristine, justifiably making it a part of a provincial or national park covering all of Ullŭng-gun County (which would include Ullŭngdo Island), but turning it into tourist trap kinda sorta undermines that.

...

Wikileaks: US ambassador says Koreans "behaving irrationally" on Tokto

And they "may do something crazy"! So said the US ambassador to Japan, in 2006.

From the Wikileaks site itself:

Classified By: Ambassador J. Thomas Schieffer. Reason: 1.4 (b)(d).

¶1. (S) At 11:00 a.m. on April 20, the Ambassador spoke
with VFM Yachi, at Yachi's request, regarding simmering
tensions between Japan and the ROK over a planned Japanese
maritime survey near the disputed Liancourt Rocks (reftel).
He explained, briefly, that the ROK intended to propose to an
international commission in June that features on the bottom
of the sea in the disputed area be given Korean names. Japan
wants to survey the area in order to make a counter-proposal
at the meeting. Korea, Yachi stated, may use force to block
the survey ship. Yachi further noted that he might travel to
Seoul the following day, April 21, to try to resolve the
matter peacefully.

¶2. (S) The Ambassador stated the United States understands
that Japan is within its rights under international law. The
Koreans are behaving irrationally, and the United States is
concerned that they may do something crazy, causing a major
problem. Everyone needs to back off, he stressed, to enable
the matter to be resolved peacefully. We do not want our two
allies shooting at each other, he asserted. The Ambassador
advised that he might get in touch with FM Aso later in the
day.

¶3. (C) Yachi thanked the Ambassador for his concern and
said he would do his best. He requested that the Ambassador
send an Embassy representative to the Foreign Ministry to
hear Japan's position on the issue.
SCHIEFFER

I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall during that conversation. While I think that South Korea in 2005 and 2006 did collectively need to just chill despite noise made by Tokyo over the islets long claimed by Korea and firmly in South Korea's hands for over half a century, I think Japan was out of line for trying to conduct such a survey in what are essentially territorial waters of the Republic of Korea or the EEZ that they generate. South Korea had no choice but to react with a show of force.

Korea is not "crazy" or "irrational" for being adamantly opposed to the Japanese attempt, and it's most unfortunate that the then-newbie US ambassador to Japan would editorialize as much. I seriously doubt the good Ambassador John Schieffer to Japan had any more direct knowledge or informed clue of what the South Korean side might do than anyone reading K-blogs back in 2005 and 2006.

I note that, five years later, no such "crazy" thing has happened from the Seoul side to bear that out.

...

Japan Times on the three right-wing Japanese lawmakers trying to make their way to Tokto

No animals were harmed in the making of this protest.

Tokto (aka Dokdo) is a big deal in South Korea, and Japanophiles and Korea critics are constantly telling us that no one in Japan really cares about the islets. Yet here we have opposition legislators trying to spark a Seoul-Tokyo row by entering the Republic of Korea and consequently being barred from entry before they even left, not to mention the Japan Times printing it as the top story of the day:

South Korean officials told the three that their visit could "trigger actions that would threaten public safety" and sought their swift return to Japan.

The lawmakers remained unconvinced and called on the officials to provide detailed explanations for denying their entry.

The trio were planning to inspect Ullŭngdo (Ulleungdo), the administrative and military base for the South Korean-controlled islets called Dokdo by South Korea and Takeshima by Japan, on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The lawmakers said they do not intend to renew Japan's territorial claims to the disputed islets, but the South Korean government said the refusal was based on the immigration control law.

"Takeshima is Japanese territory," Shindo told South Korean media at the airport. "Our positions are different and we need to talk to each other on the issue." He also warned that Seoul's decision to deny them entry would evolve into a "big diplomatic problem."

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano had expressed Japan's "deep regret" over the unusual step taken by South Korea and said Tokyo was making a last-ditch effort to urge Seoul to let the lawmakers in.

"The lawmakers intended to inspect the island legally and in light of our friendly relations, we very much regret that South Korea took such a measure," Edano said at a press conference.

I was on the fence about blocking these political agitators from entering, but when even the JT acknowledges they were essentially on some sort of reconnaissance mission (and not even of the territory they're claiming!), I say they're lucky they were just turned around at the airport.

LAT on South Korea's renewed annoyance at Japan

I've already covered it in this post, but John Glionna of the Los Angeles Times brings it to a larger audience than I can:

For two decades, the weekly protest has come as sure as the changing seasons: a handful of graying Korean women picketing Tokyo's embassy here, demanding an apology and compensation for being forced into sexual slavery during Japan's World War II-era occupation.

But soon after a magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami last month killed more than 20,000 people and caused nuclear mayhem in Japan, something changed here. The so-called comfort women felt moved to hold another kind of rally: a vigil for Japanese victims.

"We hate the sin but not the people," said Lee Yong-su, 85. "We hope Japan will stand on its feet soon."

Suddenly, there was a sense that a bitter nationalistic rivalry might be replaced by something the Korean peninsula has rarely felt for its former conqueror: empathy.

South Korea was the first country to send a rescue team to the disaster area. The Korean Red Cross has raised $40 million, one of the largest nongovernment contributions to Japan after the quake. The newspaper Chosun Ilbo, which has often been critical of Japan and its policies, raised $10 million. Even the comfort women chipped in $15,000.

Many compared the moment to the brief window after the 9/11 attacks when many hoped that Democrats and Republicans might finally put aside their differences.

That, of course, didn't happen. And in the case of South Korea and Japan, the rapprochement also appears short-lived.

The two countries seem to have fallen back into old habits — like a couple in an abusive relationship where one has lorded over the other. They've gone to counseling, tried all the couples therapies. And just when one spouse is about to forgive the other, another unforgivable event comes to pass. Once again, signals are misread, and the relationship is back at a dysfunctional impasse.

I would emphasize that the South Korean view of Japan is highly dichotomized: among most SoKos, there is a mental separation between individual Japanese and the Japanese government itself. Despite Tokyo continuing to lay claim to territory they grabbed at the beginning of their brutal four-decade rule over Korea, there is still great sympathy and concern for the people of Japan who have been affected by the Tohoku earthquake, the ensuing tsunami, and the on-going nuclear crisis.

I just wish that both sides would stop doing things to poke the other in the eye, because with China rising and North Korea raving, we need to see more things like this.

Like a good neighbor...

Reuters has an article on some South Koreans thinking twice about their financial outpouring of support for Japan after Tokyo pushed its claim to Tokto (Takeshima in Japan) yet again:

At first, Korean pop singer Kim Jang-hoon, dubbed "the angel of donation" for his habit of donating many of his concert proceeds to the poor and campaigns to promote his country, asked his fans to put aside their decades-old animosity toward Japan over Dokdo in the wake of the 9.0 March 11 disaster that has left nearly 28,000 dead or missing.

Many ordinary South Koreans responded generously, and a dozen K-pop stars donated more than $5 million.

But the mood soon darkened after a Japanese education panel authorised the publication of school textbooks that assert Japan's claims to the islets, which act as a stark reminder of Japan's brutal colonial rule over Korea from 1910-1945.

For many, this meant all donations were off.

Yeah, I agree that Tokyo really should have just let it go, at least this once, but I think that when it comes to responses like this...

A Seoul district office that raised about $10,000 for Japanese disaster relief changed its mind and sent most of the funds to a civic group promoting Korea's claims to the islets, which are also a symbol of South Korea standing up to its neighbour.

"I asked myself, why did Japan do this at this tragic moment. We had to discuss what to do next with this fund," said Ra Tae-sung, an official at the office in southwestern Seoul.

... I'd like to point out to whatever ku office that was, that the people in Japan who are suffering and in need of help from South Korea and other countries are entirely different from the right-wing politicians who feel obliged to keep bringing up Tokyo's historically questionable and currently unenforceable claim to the Tokto Islets and the seas surrounding them.

Outsized nationalism

With the Japanese whatever Ministry approving textbooks reiterating Japan's claim to the Tokto/Takeshima islets (despite all the crap going on in Japan), I was expecting at least some blowback (despite all the crap going on in Japan), but this is un-freakin'-believable.

A silicon breast implant manufacturer in Ch'ŏngju [Cheongju] has designed breast implants shaped like the East Island and West Island of the "disputed" Tokto Islets (Dokdo/Takeshima) at the center of the diplomatic row du jour between Seoul and Tokyo.

"Truly patriotic women will see this as the must-have items to show their love for their fatherland," says synthetic chemical developer and sculptor Shin Kyutaek of Silico-pia Enterprises. "After surgery, the flesh around the implants will smooth out the accurately contoured shape of the implants. Instead of looking rough, they will be very, very perky."

With mounds shaped like these, the Japanese 

won't be able to resist grabbing your Toktos. 

Waterworld

The ugly dispute between Tokyo and Beijing over the waters surrounding the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, precipitated by an incident in which the captain of a fifteen-person Chinese fishing vessel was held in Okinawa after apparently deliberately ramming a Japanese Coast Guard vessel that was pursuing him, is now over.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Japan will release the Chinese fishing captain [Zhan Qixiong] whose detention after straying into disputed waters had enraged Beijing and spiraled into the worst diplomatic crisis to rile the long-contentious neighbors in years, prosecutors in southern Japan said Friday.

The abrupt announcement from Japan came as mounting pressure and threats from Beijing stirred fears of serious economic repercussions for the island nation.

"Considering the future of Japan-China relations and the possible consequences for the Japanese public, we decided that keeping the suspect in custody and continuing the investigation was not appropriate," Toru Suzuki, an official from the prosecutors' office in Naha, Okinawa, told NHK TV in Japan.

Even the Japan Times hints that Japan may have been caving in:

Toshikazu Inoue, a professor at Gakushuin University, said the release of the captain came at the worst possible time for Tokyo diplomatically, given that Japan was forced to yield to China.

"(The captain) should have been deported immediately after the incident occurred," Inoue said. "Or if not, he should have been thoroughly subjected to Japanese law and been indicted and put on trial — releasing him at this time was the worst possible thing to do."

Inoue said now that Japan has buckled, China might ease off. On the other hand, Inoue warned that China might continue to take the initiative on the territorial issue by using its increasing clout to exploit recent turbulence in Japanese-U.S. ties.

The Economist minced no words about how and why Japan gave in:

Japan’s prosecutors chose not to indict Mr Zhan on the grounds that his act was not premeditated, according to Kyodo, the Japanese news agency. But the real reason was the vehemence of China's reaction. Since the fishing crew and its captain were arrested, China has continually ratcheted up the pressure to have them returned. It cut diplomatic communications and even arrested four Japanese nationals, allegedly for filming in a restricted military area. China’s response seemed to take an especially nefarious turn when it apparently suspended its export of rare-earth minerals, which are vital to making electronics components used in everything from handheld gadgets to cars. On September 23rd China emphatically denied that it is blocking exports. And this may be true: there probably isn't a formal directive. But in a country where informal rules abound, exporters know that it can pay to withhold shipments—in solidarity with a government that is angry at its neighbour.

That's some serious crap right there, although I think threatening to withhold rare earth metals will eventually backfire in a big way, since it will simply lead other countries to step up their own mining efforts. My understanding is that China dominates these markets not because it is the only country that has these rare earth metals, but because it's the only country that had a viable mining business for them going on when their demand started to go into high gear. If they really keep threatening to manipulate the market in such a fashion, whether out of political spite or economic gain, how long before that all starts to change?

Anyway, news of the resolution brings to mind several points, many with repercussions for South Korea. For starters, this entire incident has actually made the Tokto-related vocal outbursts mixed with passive-aggressive posturing seem positively mature and diplomatic.

The diplomatic row between Tokyo and Beijing points to a very serious problem of which people with an interest in peace and stability in the region should take heed. Japan has several lingering and protracted territorial disputes with its neighbors (not just the Koreas but also Russia, China, and Taiwan) stemming from its imperial expansionism in the three-quarters of a century before the end of World War II. Make no mistake: these disputes are a perennial source of headaches for Japan, politically and, increasingly, economically. And as China becomes richer and richer, it has tried to assert its own version of regional hegemony, which is basically that they are the Middle Kingdom and rightful lords over the region and anyone in their sphere should prostrate themselves as they face the almighty Beijing. The corollary of that is that you will be slapped down for insolence if you dare question their legitimacy and/or dominance.

And those two problems, kiddies, are a dangerous combination. The waters around China are peppered with powder kegs, one of which could easily explode with grave consequences were the Pax Americana not in place. Clearly one of the things that needs to happen — and must happen before Pax American were ever to end — is for Japan to start settling these disputes in a peaceful manner. And to be honest, that is probably going to mean either expensive horse-trading or recognizing that the other side of the dispute should probably pretty much get what they're demanding (consider it the cost of waging a massive war in which most of the rest of the world doesn't see your side as the victims). [The Tokto dispute might be the easy one: Japan gives up claims to the islets it calls Takeshima in exchange for a treaty whereby South Korea recognizes an EEZ determined by Ullŭngdo, not Tokto, and a tacit approval of Japan's EEZ around the Okinotorishima Atoll out in the Pacific.]

China's shamefully shameless behavior during this recent dispute has also provided further evidence that China's neighbors should be wary of China's swagger. While the long-time hegemon in the region has been the United States, protector of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand, among others, it has been a relatively benign hegemon more interested in these allies getting rich and expanding trade with the US and each other than with any territorial designs.

China, on the other hand, is demonstrating more and more that it's primarily interested in turning the fence used to hem itself in into a chain of satellite tributaries bowing to the Chinese suzerain's every whim. It has resorted to kidnapping and hostage-taking of Japanese in this case, straight-out destruction of a US embassy in the past [left], and currently the deliberate and systemic demonization of Korea among the netizenry. It can't be said too often: China is China's biggest problem, and the sooner everyone — including China — realizes that, the better. Toward that end, I wonder if Japan and South Korea (and Taiwan) shouldn't start trying to diversify the destination of their investments, goods, and services. India's nice, I hear.

At the very least, I hope Seoul is paying attention to the ham-handedly unsubtle way China bullied Japan into kowtowing. I don't know if anyone at the Blue House or Yŏŭido is gloating, but they sure as hell shouldn't be. Hopefully they remember how Chinese fishermen have acted toward ROK maritime police when they were caught illegally trawling in South Korea's EEZ.

[UPDATE: I forgot about a 2008 incident, mentioned at ROK Drop, in which Chinese fishermen murdered a ROK Coast Guardsman.]

Of course, the incident with South Korea is different from that with Japan in one key way: the South Korean EEZ in question (to my knowledge) is not disputed waters, whereas those off Senkaku/Diaoyu certainly are. One could argue that the Chinese — who do not recognize Japanese claims to the islands — had no legal right to pursue Mr Zhan's ship in the first place, though that doesn't justify ramming the Japanese coast guard vessel, for which they may have been in their rights to detain him. At any rate, this is all the more reason to address my earlier point: this kind of incident is inevitable, and absent a regional hegemon acting as a ground plug, it could easily spark a much wider and deadlier incident.

And finally the incident spawned this Marmot's Hole commentary tidbit about China and South Korea:

As for Korea, that ship has sailed. It’s now only a matter of time before the peninsula effectively falls into China’s sphere of influence, even as it remains rich and free.

I find it rather telling that many of the Korea bashers who hammer away at the ROK-US relationship (e.g., fighting the FTA, advocating an end to the military alliance or USFK presence, decrying South Korea as free riders, etc.) and wish to dismantle the Pax Americana that has ensured stability in Northeast Asia for the past fifty-seven years, are the same ones who gleefully report that Korea has already fallen prey to Big Brother China (or should in the future).

Someone in Korea must have really done a number on some of these folks for them to be wishing something as nasty as Chinese domination on a whole country (or two).

Well, at least they said "please."

And now a mini-rant on suicide and Tokto

KoreaBeat has his hebdomadal list of Naver's most-read stories last week, including these two:

5. Three girls from the same high school committed suicide.

6. Seoul will soon hold a festival to celebrate the nation's love of Dokdo.

South Korea would be better with less of stories like #5 and #6.

Although I firmly believe Japan's 1905 terra nullius claim to the islands is a throwback to its illegitimate imperial expansionism and Korea is the rightful owners of the islands, I've been saying for years that the response must not be so shrill and overblown.

We've got 'em, we own 'em, end of story. That's the way it should be in terms of response. Really, if there is that much extra money floating around to have a festival over Tokto, maybe it should be funneled into suicide prevention and promotion of treatment for depression and anxiety. Hmm?

UPDATE:
I wonder if perhaps I relied a bit too much on the KoreaBeat's simple headline. Upon actually reading the link, it appears that the Tokto story is about the Seoul Metropolitan Government not allowing (or canceling) the use of Seoul Plaza for the Tokto-ya Sarang-hae ("Tokto, we love you!") Festival. In fact, the cartoon below seems to suggest that. Hmm...

In fact, this is suggested by the headline (‘독도야 사랑해’ 행사 서울광장서 하지 마!, or, 'Tokto-ya Sarang-hae' Sŏul Kwangjang-sŏ hajima!), which reads "Tokto-ya Sarang-hae event, don't use Seoul Plaza!"

If I am right (and I concede that I could be completely misinterpreting things in my groggy state on this blustery Sunday morning in Honolulu, then this is part of a growing trend of politicos growing a backbone on this issue, where they were once afraid to say anything that would give fuel to the pro-Pyongyang chinboistas or right-wing nationalists who would use their Tokto unorthodoxy as a club to beat them with later.

UPDATE 2:
KoreaBeat agreed with my point and changed the headline:

6. Seoul denied use of Seoul Plasa to a festival to celebrate the nation's love of Dokdo.

Faces of the Day: Japanese Ambassador to Seoul Toshinori Shigeie and ROK Foreign Minister Yu Myunghwan

Boy, does this ever look pleasant.

Both these gentlemen are simply doing what their job description requires of them: Mr Yu has no choice but to call in Mr Shigeie to protest Tokyo continuing to claim land long controlled by South Korea, and as long as Japan makes its claim, Mr Shigeie has no choice but to listen and possibly put forth Tokyo's claim.

I hope these two can get together later in the week when the cameras aren't around and share a good stiff drink and belt out a few songs together on a karaoke box in some downtown noraebang. Not that I encourage drinking. Or noraebang.

For more on this, see the links in story #4 of today's Daily Kor.

Don't expect this to happen with Tokto anytime soon

It seems a dispute over a small island between India and Bangladesh that first emerged from the sea in the 1970s has been resolved: the island sank back into the sea. Some say this is because of rising sea waters, which are attributed to global warming:

Global warming appears to have finally resolved a dispute that gunboats never could: An island midway between India and Bangladesh that became a catalyst for military threats in the 1980s is now submerged under the rising sea. The Bay of Bengal island, which India called New Moore Island and Bangladesh referred to as South Talpatti, has ceased to exist, the Jadavpur University's School of Oceanic Studies declared this week.

Sugata Hazra, director of the program, said he started looking at satellite imagery recently after reading news reports that the island, which peaked at 1.3 miles long and 1.1 miles wide, was actually becoming larger. Close examination failed to reveal anything. He then checked with local fishermen.

"They confirmed the island had gone sometime back," he said. "We raised the alarm that we'd better take stock of how much loss is occurring."

The tiny island was first noticed after a severe cyclone in the early 1970s. Both countries soon laid claim amid speculation that there might be oil or natural gas beneath its sandy shores.

Now lest you think this would be a good solution for the competing claims on the Korea-held Tokto Islets, bear in mind that the kind of rising sea level you'd need in order to put Tokto under the surface would also submerge hundreds of millions of people in places like Los Angeles, New York City, almost all of Florida, a huge chunk of Europe, and pretty much all of Bangladesh, just off the top of my head.

Plus, there's nothing to stop a dispute about geographic features that are underwater anyway, witness the case of China's stance on Iǒdo (Ieodo).

Happy Takeshima Day!

I'm always willing to entertain the other side of an argument, so as a public service, and in honor of Takeshima Day, here is Shimane Prefecture's comprehensive argument on why Tokto Takeshima belongs to Japan:

Although there is no record of the exact date of Takeshima's discovery, the islands have been known to Japanese people since the beginning of the Edo Period (1603-1868) at the latest.

In the year 1618, Jinkichi Oya and Ichibei Murakawa of Yonago City received permission form the Shogunate Government to sail to Ulleung Island in order to catch abalone,sea lions, and to cut down trees and bamboo for lumber. On their way to Ulleung Island, they used Takeshima as a midway port, and also hunted and fished there. In 1661, the Oya Family and Murakawa Family were granted official permission to travel to Takeshima by the Shogunate Government.

The Shogunate Government prohibited visits to Ulleung Island in 1696 owing to a conflict between Japan and Korea, but visits to Takeshima were not banned. In 1836, a man named Imazuya Hachiemon was punishued because he sailed to Ulleung Island “on the pretext of visiting Takeshima”. Knowledge of Takeshima was maintained throughout the Edo Period by recording the islands in books and on maps.

After the Meiji Restoration, large numbers of fishermen began to visit Ulleung Island again, and Takeshima was used as a midway port. Since the end of the second decade of the Meiji Period (1868-1912) people of the Oki Islands have hunted and fished for abalone, sea lions and other marine life on Takeshima.

Given the historical background of Takeshima, there is no doubt that it belongs to Japan.

So there you have it: We knew about it for a long time, so it's ours. Never mind information to the contrary, like the fact that Japan's 1905 claim of alleged terra nullius negates all of the aforementioned. Some in Japan, of course, know this quite well.

Maybe we'll do better tomorrow

Well, if you're either a women's soccer fan or a sports jingoist who thinks that national pride and geopolitical stature rest on the performances of the country's athletic teams, you won't be happy with this result. Japan's women's team beat South Korea's, 2-1, to win the East Asian Football Championship:

"We kept the momentum until we scored two goals, while South Korea were still tuning up. But after that, they started to play more aggressively and it became a difficult game," said Japan coach Norio Sasaki.

Japan got off to a flying start when Ono received the ball in the Japanese field and then dashed forward, getting past the Korean defence line into the area to fire a sizzling shot for the first goal in the seventh minute.

The home side quickly made it two up when Ono sent a straight pass to midfielder Mami Yamaguchi, who hit home into the right side in the 17th minute.

South Korea started to play much better after the break, starting with Cho So-Hyun's header that went wide, and almost controlled the game until the end.

The People's Republic of China defeated Taiwan, 3-0, thus proving the supremacy of the One-China Policy and justifying Beijing's attempts to squelch Taipei's attempts to assert the rogue province as a nation on part with other nations.

Wow. Who knew sports could be so geopolitically useful? Anyway, the men's championship will be held tomorrow, when the South Korean national team will defeat the Japanese team on their home turf in front of a television audience of tens of millions of ROKers snowed-in on a major holiday, thus proving that Tokto is eternally and irrevocably the territory of Korea.

Forcing the party line in Japan on "Dokdo"?

This is a bit disturbing.

While writing this comment at Brian's, I had planned to quote a Japan Times article from 2005 that, as I stated in my "Woe is Tokto" post, seemed to support the Korean side in the Tokto-Takeshima issue. This was what I quoted from them, by cut-and-paste in 2005:

The islets were placed under Korean sovereignty in 1900. Shimane incorporated the islands into the prefecture in 1905, after Japan seized them during the Russo-Japanese war.

It always seemed to me that this was an acknowledgement by the JT back in 2005 that Japan didn't have a claim prior to the 1905 war when the Imperial Japanese military grabbed control of the islands. In fact, I think I had posted a link to that "smoking gun" in a number of places.

But when I looked at the same link today, this is all I could find about the historical basis of the claims:

The prefectural government says that Feb. 22 this year marked the 100th anniversary of the issuance of a prefectural notice that declared the islets part of Shimane in line with a Cabinet decision. Also in 1905, the signing of the Korean-Japanese Convention gave Japan full administrative control over Korea's foreign affairs.

So the JT expunged the part they had written about Tokto already being under Korean sovereignty, as well as about the islets being seized in war, but it did acknowledge that Japan had control of Korea's foreign affairs (though it plays down the nefarious reasons why Japan had that control). This is not my imagination, as Marmot's Hole contributor Kimbob quoted the same thing.

[UPDATE: My earlier thought, that the second quoted passage had been added after the first one was removed, was incorrect. After comparing Kimbob's reprint of the article in its entirety with the one online now, I realized that the first quoted passage, which strongly supports the Korean position, was simply deleted, with nothing else added or subtracted. Un-freakin-believable.]

Though, frankly, I wouldn't imagine a major Korean newspaper taking Japan's side on this issue (at least not saying the Japanese position has merit, anyway), I would be furious if they later re-edited what they'd written like this.

To my knowledge this was not done immediately afterward, but fairly recently, like within the last year (Japan Times does not allow Wayback Machine searches). And if that's the case, that kind of (probably) right-wing governmental pressure is somewhat alarming in a country like Japan. I have myriad criticisms of the press in Korea as a whole, and I have no illusions that the Japanese media is squeaky clean and impeccably honest and ethical, but this kind of thing should not stand.