Japan Should Acknowledge Dokdo Is Part of South Korea

It is regrettable that Japan has continued to lay claim to South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo. The volcanic outcroppings in the East Sea between the two neighbors are unequivocally part of Korean territory. All historic documents show that the islets have belonged to Korea since ancient times. A detachment of the Korean Coast Guard is currently stationed on Dokdo to defend it.

Japan's sovereignty claim over the islets is none other than an attempt to revive its past militarism and imperialism. The Japanese navy defeated Russian forces off Dokdo in 1904, setting the stage for colonizing the Korean Peninsula for 35 years until the end of World War II. We have no choice but to express our deep concern about the Japanese move that runs counter to the universal values of peace, reconciliation and co-prosperity.

On Wednesday, President Lee Myung-bak urged Japan not to describe the islets as part of its territory in Japanese textbooks. The urge came during Lee's meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda in Sapporo on the sidelines of the Group of Eight (G8) summit held on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido on July 7-9. The latest row over Dokdo surfaced in May when Japan's Ministry of Education reportedly planned to describe Dokdo as its territory in a revised curriculum handbook for teachers that will be completed by July and used starting 2012.

The ministry is scheduled to decide on whether to include the description regarding the islets on July 14. President Lee and his policymakers cannot sit on their hands and allow Japan to disregard South Korea's protest against the move. If the neighboring country decides to make a territorial claim over the islets called Takeshima in Japanese, South Koreans would give vent to anti-Japan sentiment, plunging the Lee administration further into a political crisis.

This might bring about more trouble to the Lee government, which has been hit hard by public protests against the Korea-U.S. beef trade deal. More worrisome is that ties between Seoul and Tokyo could be further strained, hampering Lee's efforts to forge a future-oriented relationship with the former colonial ruler. During a summit meeting in Tokyo in April, Lee and Fukuda agreed to build a new partnership in the 21st century. Lee stressed the past should not block the road to the future although historical truth cannot be ignored.

It is really disappointing that Japan has turned their back on Lee's goodwill gesture by trying to block the road to the future with its illegitimate territorial claims. We have to realize how difficult it is to come to terms with past atrocities committed by the Japanese military during WWII. Friendship and reconciliation can never be achieved without the aggressor's true reflection of and sincere apology for its past brutalities.

There will be no future for Korea-Japan ties as long as the island nation tries to revive the ``glory of the Rising Sun." Japan should give up on its reckless efforts to gloss over its wartime atrocities and distort the two countries' shared history in school textbooks. Only after that can Japan move toward true friendship and partnership with not only Korea but also other Asian countries.