‘US won’t accept Japan’s claim to Dokdo’

Donald Kirk

This is the seventh in a series of contributed articles by international and Korean experts shedding light on Japan’s claim on Korea’s easternmost islets of Dokdo and other affairs that prove Japan’s lack of remorse about historic misdeeds it has committed. ― E.D.

The furor over Dokdo adds one more reason why both Korea and Japan need separate alliances with the United States.

Although the alliances are clearly for defense against North Korea and its two enormous Korean War allies, they also mean Japan cannot possibly threaten Korea’s position on Dokdo as long as it’s bound to the U.S. in a mutual defense treaty.

Koreans, for their part, can be sure that the U.S.-Korea alliance precludes the remotest chance of the U.S. and Japan somehow ganging up on Korea over Dokdo.

The Japanese can go on claiming Dokdo forever, but that claim is not going anywhere in any practical sense while the U.S. focus is on sizing up whatever North Korean leaders have in mind during the era of Marshall Kim Jong-un.

Beyond that, everyone’s got to worry and wonder what China’s up to in the entire region and whether Russia, having just forgiven North Korea most of its debts, is also reasserting its influence after a long period of dormancy.

Under the circumstances, Koreans can forget about Dokdo except when it comes in handy for domestic political reasons and possibly in negotiations with Japan on all levels from commercial to cultural. In that sense, Dokdo remains a useful tool in politics and diplomacy.

Japan, however, can preempt Korea’s claim in one simple and obvious way that would totally strip it of significance. The Japanese could recognize Korea’s possession of the Dokdo islets and concede at last that they really belong to Korea.

That might sound simple except for one or two severe problems.

Domestically, Japanese leaders are under constant attack from rightist extremists who have managed to stir up passionate memories of Japan’s days of glory as an imperial power.

It was right-wing extremism that lit the fire over Dokdo a few years ago when Japan’s Shimane Prefecture suddenly remembered, it’s ours, or at least it was from 1905 to 1945, and claimed it as remote “Takeshima.”

Until then, Dokdo was off the radar screen. In numerous trips to Korea going back many years, I’d never heard of the place. No one mentioned it. Kim Dae-jung during his presidency from 1998 to 2003 widened cultural and trade relations with Japan. I’m not sure if he referred to “Dokdo” at all.

Beside wanting to appease Japanese rightists, Japanese leaders have to consider a much more dangerous “island problem,” namely that of the Senkakus, a cluster of five small islands and a few rocky outcroppings that are technically part of Okinawa, the island prefecture far south of Japan’s main southern island, Kyushu.

The Japanese logic here would be, if we concede Dokdo, then that might weaken our hold on the Senkakus, and surrounding waters, against Chinese claims. One concession could lead to another ― and create the image of mighty Japan caving in everywhere while the Japanese economy suffers and the whole country is weakening.

Here’s a counter-argument, though. If Japan were to concede to the status quo on Dokdo, namely Korean sovereignty, would the Japanese not have reason to expect that perhaps Korea would adopt a less “neutral” stance on the Senkakus?

Diplomats will say, no, it can’t work that way. Certainly Korea and Japan are not going to shake hands on a deal that has the Japanese saying, “You take Dokdo,” or Takeshima, as the Japanese call it, and the Koreans responding, “thanks, and we recognize the Senkakus as inviolate Japanese territory.”

One reason is Japan and Korea also face two or three other simple but apparently insoluble problems. Except when Japanese leaders are obtuse enough to visit the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo memorializing Japanese war dead, including those convicted of heinous war crimes, the issue of the comfort women is the most dramatic.

It would not cost Japan very much to yield to the claims of the comfort women, an aging and dying group forever memorialized by a bronze statue of a demure young girl in hanbok seated across a narrow street from the Japanese embassy.

The Japanese cannot stand that reminder of the bad old days, but as things now stand the Koreans are no more likely to force removal of the statue than they are to give up Dokdo.

Under the circumstances, an adverse opinion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Dokdo might be the easiest way for the Japanese to relinquish their claim. What if Korea were to acquiesce to Japan’s demand to bring the issue before the ICJ? Would the Japanese have a chance of winning? Not likely.

For that matter, would the Japanese really want to win the Dokdo/Takeshima case in the ICJ?

For Japanese leaders, loss of the case before the ICJ would offer a face-saving way out of the whole problem ― an excuse to defy rightist demands.

Japanese leaders could then say, sorry, we did our best but we have to abide by the ICJ. The Dokdo issue would be history and Korean-Japanese relations could enter a new era.

Donald Kirk, www.donaldkirk.com, has been covering confrontation, war and peace round the region since the 1960s. The former Seoul correspondent for the International Herald Tribune has written several books and thousands of articles on military and economic issues in the Asia-Pacific. He can be reached at kirkdon@yahoo.com. <The Korea Times/Donald Kirk>

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