Update: Crisis averted, for now. Japan has agreed to call off its planned “survey” after South Korea agreed to hold off proposing Korean placenames for the Dokdo area.
Is this just posturing or are South Korea and Japan about to come to blows over a group of small rocky islands in the East Sea?*
From today’s Chosun Ilbo:
Vice Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan met with Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi in Seoul on Friday to discuss Japan’s plans for a hydrographic survey in the waters surrounding Dokdo.
From the outset, Minister Yu demanded that Japan give up its plans for the survey mission. He said the waters surrounding Dokdo are part of Korea’s exclusive economic zone and not a place Japan can enter unannounced and take a survey of the seafloor, adding it was impossible to treat the issue as anything but a matter of national sovereignty.
Yachi responded Japan’s plans for the survey were in accordance with international law, and said that Korea must promise that it will not register new place names with the International Hydrographical Organization.
Yu told reporters Japan’s plan was to turn the Dokdo islets into a disputed area. “It is intolerable that it tries to affect the issue of territorial claims over the Dokdo islets,” he said. “In any case, we have to mobilize every resource, even force, to block their attempts.”
The Korea Herald tries a bit more upbeat spin. But it’s a tough sell:
Prior to the meeting, the Korean vice foreign minister told reporters that “Korea will risk mobilizing physical forces to stop Japan conducting the survey.” Yu stressed that negotiations can begin only after Tokyo agrees to abandon the survey plan. “I am certain both sides are anxious to avoid a physical clash, which is why Yachi was sent,” he said.
According to this Chosun editorial and the article from the Herald, this issue isn’t about Dokdo/Takeshima at all, but about Korean plans to propose the new place names for typographical features near the islands.
Korea accepted the meeting only after Japan agreed to suspend its maritime exploration during the talks. Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said the government’s utmost priority is a peaceful resolution of the dispute. “Through intensive talks, the government intends to reach a sensible outcome,” he said during a visit to National Assembly Speaker Kim Won-ki.
But mixed signals came from Tokyo when Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso said prior to Yachi’s departure that “Japan will have to push ahead with the survey unless Korea changes its plan to propose Korean place names.” The precondition laid down by Tokyo for withdrawing the ocean survey is that Seoul cancels its plans to propose Korean names for the seafloor topography beneath Dokdo’s waters. Japanese names currently prevail.
Here’s an excerpt from the Chosun’s take, which adds some saber rattling of its own:
The plan in Tokyo has long been to eventually take the Dokdo issue to the International Court of Justice. The tactic would use the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, where the conflict mechanism is simple, as a stepping stone.
The planned hydrographic survey in seas near Dokdo is a small part of the big picture. The government has neglected the matter for 27 long years, ever since the Japanese government in 1978 registered Japanese names for sea regions it now intends to re-survey with the International Hydrographical Organization.
That Japan is ready to continue its provocation is not due to the “silent diplomacy” referred to by the president but to a totally “unprepared diplomacy” that has failed to anticipate the tactic. If the government is so incompetent, the people must take over.
Each citizen must make it clear that they are willing to safeguard the Dokdo islets and repel Japan’s stealthy invasion.
Is this for real? Or could we be looking at another game of global chicken?
*a.k.a. Sea of Japan.
