[Editorial] Japan’s ‘Invasion Gene’

Japanese Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Yachi Shotaro came to Seoul yesterday, and Japan, for the time being, has decided not to send its waterway research vessel to the East Sea, signaling a break regarding the imminent tension between Korea and Japan on the Dokdo Islets. However, Japan is still repeating absurd demands that include calling for Korea not to submit the Korean name to the waters around Dokdo to the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) Seabed Naming Commission.

Japan’s demand is a challenge to the sovereignty of Korea over Dokdo, so we cannot accept it at all. Dokdo, clearly territory of Korea, cannot use “Tsushima Seabed” as the title of the oceanic area around it. Japan’s claim is barely a trick to make Dokdo a disputed area in order to change the name of Dokdo to the Japanese title of Takeshima.

Japan is not trying to clean up the dark legacy of its imperial conquest era, otherwise known as the “invasion gene.” Before the 1904 war with Russia, Japan slyly put Dokdo as part of the Sinema Prefecture; in 1978, it covertly put a Japanese name on the seabed around Dokdo; and currently, it is halting Korea from exerting its natural right to change the name. In other words, Japan has not changed a bit. Japan was also the same during the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty that completed Japan’s defeat of the Pacific War, when it overturned a unilaterally favorable opinion on Dokdo toward Korea, and left Dokdo as a disputed territory.

The Japan’s act of pushing forward the survey of waters between Dokdo and Ulleungdo, which is inside of Korean EEZ, in order to prevent Korea from changing the name of the seabed, is an extension of such actions. The distance between Dokdo and Japan is 85 nautical miles, twice farther than the distance between Dokdo and Korean peninsula, so that even many Japanese do not doubt the fact that Dokdo is a traditional territory of Korea, and even old Japanese books say so.

Both in historical fact and in international law terms, Dokdo is Korean territory beyond any doubt. Nevertheless, the Japanese government incites its textbooks to write Dokdo as Japanese territory, and threatens Korea’s sovereignty with plans to send a survey vessel. This represents the reason why we consider Dokdo as a historical issue as well as the reason why Korea cannot back down.