Korea slams Japan over Dokdo claim

By Yi Whan-woo

The government denounced Japan for renewing its provocative territorial claim over Korea’s easternmost islets of Dokdo in an annual defense white paper released Tuesday.

For 11 straight years from 2005, Tokyo has declared its sovereignty over the islets, which it calls Takeshima, in its paper that serves as a blueprint for its military strategies.

The Ministry of National Defense summoned Defense Attache Army Col. Nobuhisa Goto at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul and delivered a letter of protest.

The letter warned that building future-oriented military cooperation between the two sides will be at risk as long as Tokyo insists on making “wrongful claims” over the islets.

In a separate measure, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Director-General for Northeast Asian Affairs Lee Sang-deok summoned Kobayashi Kenichi, his counterpart at the Japanese embassy, to reaffirm Korea’s sovereignty over Dokdo.

Lee told Kenichi, political affairs minister at the embassy, that Japan’s provocation will “lead nowhere” and hamper efforts to mend their frayed ties in recent years.

The foreign ministry also said in a statement that efforts being made by the two countries to improve bilateral relations on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Korea-Japan Basic Treaty will fail if Japan does not change.

This accord was a major breakthrough in restoring their ties since Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule (1910-45).

“Japan’s territorial claims are an act of denial on its plundering of the Korean Peninsula during the colonial era,” the statement read.

Seoul’s protests came after Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani handed in the 2015 white paper to the Cabinet in its morning meeting for review.

The document states that the country confronts unresolved territorial issues over the Northern Territories and Takeshima, referring to Japan’s ongoing territorial dispute with Russia and Korea, respectively.

It also marked Dokdo, which lies in the East Sea between Korea and Japan, as part of Tokyo’s domain on a map of the country’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ).

An ADIZ is an internationally proclaimed airspace that a sovereign state sets to locate, monitor and control activities of civilian aircraft and also to prevent foreign military aircraft from entering. Several countries have overlapping ADIZs, including Korea and Japan.

Lee demanded the Japanese government to delete the map from the white paper.

Seoul’s defense ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told the media that no Japanese-flagged ships or airplanes, especially those for military purposes, can approach Dokdo without approval from Korea.

Japan’s latest claim over Dokdo came amid its efforts to remove geographic limits for its Self-Defense Forces to play a larger military role. That move has triggered concerns in Seoul that its neighboring country may revert to militarism and forcibly enter Korea.

The dispute over Dokdo has been a major stumbling block in Korea-Japan relations along with other historical issues, such as Tokyo’s sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II.

Korea has controlled Dokdo since 1945 and has made clear that it has been an integral part of its territory historically, geographically and under international law.

Meanwhile, Japan voiced concerns in its white paper over North Korea’s ability to develop miniaturized nuclear warheads that could be mounted on ballistic missiles.

It also mentioned China’s increasing military presence in the South China Sea.