Repeated Claim Over Dokdo

Japan Should Not Imbue Children With False Facts

It is highly regrettable that Tokyo has again angered Seoul by renewing its territorial claim over South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo. On Tuesday, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology approved five elementary school textbooks that describe Dokdo as its territory. One of the textbooks to be used by fifth graders from next year even claims South Korea ``illegally occupies" the islets.

The approval is apparently designed to imbue Japanese schoolchildren with false facts about the volcanic outcroppings in a bid to reveal its territorial ambitions in a more open and systemic way. We cannot but express growing concerns about Tokyo's move that will make elementary students wrongly believe that Dokdo is part of Japan. No doubt the Japanese government intends to brainwash children with groundless claims over the islets at their initial stage of learning about the concept of national boundaries and sovereignty.

Needless to say, Japan has been trying to go too far in laying claim over the islets that was, is and will be Korea's territory. Last December, the Japanese ministry released its revised high school teachers' guidebook aimed at claiming sovereignty over Dokdo. In July 2008, teaching manuals for Japanese middle school students included the phrases that Japan is locked in a territorial row with Korea over the islets, resembling a disputed territory like the Kuril Islands.

What's worrisome is that Japan has become bolder and louder in strengthening its irrational position on Dokdo with its society tilting toward the right. Describing Dokdo as part of Japan is tantamount to denying and distorting the history of Korea in particular, and East Asia in general. This is nothing but Japan's implicit attempt to gloss over its aggression and colonial rule in Korea and other Asian countries in the early part of the 20th century.

It is no exaggeration to say that Japan is increasingly seeking to revive its imperialism and militarism without reflecting on its shameful modern history that inflicted untold suffering on Koreans and other Asians. There is little doubt that Japan is still obsessed with its expansionism. And its first step toward going back to its ``glorious past" is to retake the tiny islets just as the Japanese navy defeated the Russian forces off Dokdo in 1904, paving the way for the colonization of the Korean Peninsula.

This year marks the centennial of Korea's forced annexation with Japan. But it is a pity that the two countries have yet to overcome their shameful past and reconcile with each other due mainly to Tokyo's refusal to acknowledge its wartime atrocities and misdeeds. Leaders of both nations have already agreed to forge a future-oriented partnership. But what's the use of such an agreement when Japan continues to turn a deaf ear to mounting calls for sincere apologies and compensation for ``comfort women," forced laborers and other crimes against humanity during World War II? Without proper reconciliation, history simply repeats itself.