Can Japan make 1st conciliatory move? Not likely

Can Korea reconcile with Japan? From Korea’s perspective, Japan should first show it is reflecting on its past misdeeds as a colonial power that occupied Korea for 36 years at the turn of the 20th century. It is obvious that Japan feels it has done all it can in making compensation for its wartime acts. Besides, World War II happened a long time and maybe the current generation doesn’t even want to be associated with it. Simply put, their mentality can be summarized by “My grandfather did it and I have nothing to do with it.” As the gap in their view about their past has not narrowed, anything can turn into a fuse that leads to an emotional explosion. Recently, President Lee Myung-bak’s visit to Dokdo served as a trigger. However absurd it may sound, Japan reacted strongly as if Lee’s visit were a violation of its territorial sovereignty. Tokyo said that it wanted to take the Dokdo matter to the International Court of Justice. This has lead to a chain reaction as Lee took the issue of Japan’s wartime sex slavery and designated Japan as a nation that committed a crime against humanity in his Aug. 15 Liberation Day speech. A look back at recent history shows Japan has been the aggressor, subjugating neighboring countries by force, usurping them of their resources and killing millions of people. As with any relationship between aggressor and victim, it is natural that the aggressor takes the initiative for reconciliation. Unfortunately, we don’t see any such signs in Japan. ― E.D.

Tokyo's colonial view on Dokdo evident

By Lee Tae-hoon

Japan unconditionally surrendered to the Allied Forces 67 years ago after its 35-year colonial rule of Korea and promised to return all territories that it had taken through “violence and greed.”

However, tensions between the former aggressor and its victims remain unresolved as the majority of Koreans believe Japan’s repeated apologies for its colonial occupation have been hollow and deceitful.

A major bone of contention in relations between Seoul and Tokyo has been Dokdo, the first Korean territory that Japan illicitly seized in 1905 on the false assumption that it was terra nullius, with the land belonging to no one.

For Koreans, Dokdo, located 87.4 kilometers to the southeast of Ulleung Island of Korea and 157.5 kilometers to the northwest of Japan’s Oki Island, has become a symbol of Japan’s whitewashing of its colonial past.

For the Japanese, Dokdo, which Tokyo has long laid claim to, is a symbol that serves to justify its imperial expansion.

The stakes are too high for politicians of the two countries to give up the islets, which are abundant in natural and fishery resources, given that the ownership of the remote outcroppings will help pave a way to secure a greater maritime territory.

A nation can set an exclusive economic zone 200 nautical miles, or 370 kilometers, from its territory.

Nevertheless, it is hard to deny the fact that the rocky islets in the East Sea are a useful tool for politicians to stoke nationalist sentiment and raise approval ratings irrespective of their motive and the truth behind the ownership of the disputed territory.

Apart from the Dokdo issue, Korea and Japan have been at odds with the latter’s reluctance to recognize its colonial atrocities and compensate victims of its brutal rule, including the mobilization of young Korean women into sexual slavery for Japanese troops during World War II.

Korea and Japan have also locked horns over the name of the body of water between the two countries.

Seoul maintains that international maps should simultaneously use the “East Sea” and the “Sea of Japan” as the official name of the body of water between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

Tokyo, however, argues that the Sea of Japan should continue to be the dominant appellation of the disputed waters.

Experts say the name of the contentious waters were commonly referred to as the East Sea, but that the term Sea of Japan became more widely adopted because Korea failed to properly counter Japan's campaign to change the name during its colonization.