Gov't to state Japan's ownership of Takeshima in education guide

Monday 19th May, 01:20 PM JST

TOKYO —

The education ministry plans to clearly state in a supplement of the government’s new educational guideline for junior high school students that an island in the Sea of Japan claimed both by Japan and South Korea is an ‘‘integral part of Japan,’’ ministry officials said Monday.

The supplement, which will refer to the island called Takeshima in Japanese and Dokdo in Korean, will be compiled around June or July for use from fiscal 2012, the officials at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology said.

The supplement, although nonbinding, serves as a guidance for teachers and textbook publishers.

The ministry is also considering touching upon a group of islands in the East China Sea in dispute with China in the supplement by saying that Japan has ‘‘no territorial disputes with China concerning our territory,’’ effectively declaring that it belongs to Japan.

The islands are controlled by Japan but also claimed by China and Taiwan. They are known in Japan as the Senkaku Islands, in China as Diaoyu and in Taiwan as Tiaoyutai.

All geography and civics studies textbooks take up disputes over Russian-held islands off Hokkaido, known as the Northern Territories in Japan, as the current version of the guideline urges teachers to encourage students ‘‘to pay attention to issues involving our nation’s territories’’ including the islands.

But only a few textbooks take up disputes over Takeshima Island as the current version has no reference to the disputed island, prompting some lawmakers of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to request that the new guideline clearly state that Takeshima Island belongs to Japan.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said Monday the government has yet to decide how to describe territorial issues in the supplement, while reiterating Japan’s position that Takeshima Island is Japan’s original territory.

‘‘As the Japanese and South Korean leaders agreed to build future-oriented relations, we don’t mean to play up this issue politically,’’ the top government spokesman said at a news conference, referring to the summit of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and South Korean President Lee Myung Bak in April in Tokyo.

In Seoul, South Korea’s President Lee Myung Bak on Monday urged Japan to refrain from claiming disputed islets in the Sea of Japan as part of its territory.

Lee ordered Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Yu Myung Hwan to ask Japan to change the plan if in fact the Japanese government’s move is found to be true, Lee’s spokesman Lee Dong Kwan said.

Following Lee’s instructions, Yu called in Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Toshinori Shigeie to seek an explanation about the issue.

According to the ministry spokesman, Yu termed Japan’s move as ‘‘an unreasonable attempt to undermine our territorial sovereignty over Dokdo, which is an integral part of our territory.’’ He also said it ‘‘runs contrary to South Korea’s efforts to move toward the future in relations with Japan.’‘

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Latest 15 of 19 Total Comments Show All

Scrote at 05:10 PM JST - 19th May

If it's a Japanese island, why can't I travel there without a passport?
Farmboy at 06:19 PM JST - 19th May

Non-disputed? Interesting.

http://www.geocities.com/mlovmo/page4.html
NeoJamal at 07:51 PM JST - 19th May

an unreasonable attempt to undermine our territorial sovereignty over Dokdo, which is an integral part of our territory

My darling, any act of a politician is expedient and hence reasonable. Just wait for the June Polls, then you can decide whether the move was worth it or not.
some14some at 08:00 PM JST - 19th May

Let it be there in the education guide books... headache for students appearing in test/exams.
franz75 at 09:12 PM JST - 19th May

It always has been Korean territory. Case closed.
fingerless at 10:10 PM JST - 19th May

If they want the island so bad, Japan can have the rock full of bird droppings and Korea takes the fish, gas and oil. Problem solved.
OssanULTRA at 12:05 AM JST - 20th May

The issie is not a "closed case" by any means in either countries favor. Eventually this stupid pair of rocks need to come under joint control for the sake of Japan-SKorea relations. Hardheads on both sides of the issue need to shut up. The harder task may ulrimately be reaching a mutuially satisfactory agreement and joint enforcement of a sharing of the natural resources of the area.
medievaltimes at 01:22 AM JST - 20th May

Allow me to tell a story (related to this issue, mods)...

A Japanese friend of mine went to Saipan a few years ago. He took in the sights and went to the battlefields of WWII. When he saw the Japanese monuments he was shocked to discover many of them had been defaced, damaged or stolen. He found the American monuments were untouched.

How could this be??? He learned in school Japan was saving Saipan and the rest of Asia from the western imperialists during the war.

A native scuba guide told him directly but in a polite manner, Japan treated the locals in a savage and barbaric way. This was a source of bewilderment for my friend. He knew the friendly guide he had been diving with for several days would not make these terrible grapic stories up. But at the same time my Japanese friend had learned in school for many years otherwise.

The guide went on to explain although the locals love the Japanese tourism money, they hate the Japanese denial of history.

The lesson to be learned here is....Japanese history is all fine and dandy...in Japan. But once you try to apply it outside the country it doesnt always seem to work too well.

It is 2008 but yet Japan still has major historical problems with most of Asia.

When is Japan going to learn that denial and saving face at the expense of moving forward is akin to shooting themselves in the foot?
OssanULTRA at 03:18 AM JST - 20th May

I fail to see the relevance of this Saipan story to the article about the Takeshima/Dokdo rocks. I wouldn't be surprised if the MODS removed it.
timorborder at 06:09 AM JST - 20th May

This makes me laugh. Isn't possession nine-tenths of the law? Just out of interest, what is the US view on all this? While the US is (or was) firmly in Japan's corner vis-a-vis the Northern Territories dispute (against the former USSR and more recently Russia), which side does the US support in all this?
OssanULTRA at 06:27 AM JST - 20th May

If I recall correctly, these two rocks were called the Liancourt Rocks (or someting like that) and when Japan was defeated in WWII and all posessions on the Korean Penninsula were taken away, these rocks remained, at least on US maps, as Japanese. We used them for bombing excercises for a while and there was a terrible accident involving our bombing South Korean fishermen that had gotten too close. At the time this was a cause, understandably, of Korean anti-American sentiment. The US policy on these rocks seems to have been to not talk about it since.
KyouNoNippon at 10:12 AM JST - 20th May

OssanULTRA what year was that?
pathat at 01:19 PM JST - 20th May

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liancourt_Rocks

International dispute There are conflicting interpretations about the state of sovereignty over the islands in pre-modern times. A Korean claim is partly based on references to a Korean islands called Usan-do (우산, 于山) in various historical records and maps. According to the Korean view, these refer to today's Liancourt Rocks, while the Japanese side argues that they must refer to a different island, today called Jukdo (죽도 竹島), a small islet located in the immediate vicinity of the nearest larger Korean island Ulleung-do.

Japan officially incorporated the islands as part of its territory in 1905, shortly before it occupied Korea itself as a protectorate.

The present-day conflict largely stems from conflicting interpretations of whether Japan's renunciation of sovereignty over its occupied territories after the Second World War was supposed to cover the Liancourt Rocks too. A decision by the Supreme Command of the Allied occupation powers (SCAP), Instruction #677 of January 29, 1946, listed the Liancourt Rocks as part of those territories over which Japanese sovereignty was to be suspended, but the final peace treaty between Japan and the Allied powers, the Treaty of San Francisco, did not mention them.[citation needed]
nigelboy at 01:33 PM JST - 20th May

Just out of interest, what is the US view on all this?

Rusk Memorandum on 1951

...As regards the island of Dokdo, otherwise known as Takeshima or Liancourt Rocks, this normally uninhabited rock formation was according to our information never treated as part of Korea and, since about 1905, has been under the jurisdiction of the Oki Islands Branch Office of Shimane Prefecture of Japan. The island does not appear ever before to have been claimed by Korea.
sdpat11 at 02:32 PM JST - 20th May

Remember that Japan and Korea used to be one country during the era of the Great Japan Empire until the empire lost WWII to the allies. The victors divided up the empire as they pleased in a brual fashion like they did to Autro-Hungary after WWI. Soviet Union took northern territories and northern half of the peninsula. The U. S. took the four main islands and southern half of the peninsula. China took a huge chunk of Kando (Former Korean territory of Manchuria).

The U. S. and Soviet Union lifted the allied rule in 1948 for Japan, instituted their puppet regimes on the Korean peninsula, and China never returned Kando to Korea. Both Japan and Korea suffered brutality for losing the war. This territorial dispute between the two countries do not help a thing. When are they going to team up and reclaim the northern territories, Kando, and the Pacific islands lost to the allies?