Seoul to run Dokdo ads for first time

By Chung Min-uck

Seoul plans to launch an advertisement campaign next year as part of efforts to strengthen the country’s control over its easternmost islets of Dokdo.

According to the 2013 budget proposal submitted to the National Assembly Tuesday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade set aside 650 million won for Dokdo-related advertisements.

It will mark South Korea’s first official PR campaign of the islets on which the Japanese government lays claim.

The foreign ministry plans to produce posters and television commercials and distribute them to media outlets at home and abroad, sources said.

“The advertisement campaign will highlight that Japan’s ongoing claim over the islets is in line with its past invasion of the Korean peninsula,” said a ministry official Thursday.

Seoul had been reluctant to run Dokdo ads because of creating the wrong impression that the islets are under territorial dispute with Tokyo.

The rocky outcroppings are effectively controlled by Seoul with a small police force detached there.

The foreign ministry is also poised to run websites in various languages and distribute maps and Dokdo-related references to overseas institutions to promote the nation’s sovereignty over the islets.

The shift in position is in response to the Japanese government’s media campaign on Dokdo last month for the first time. Tokyo ran them for a week in some 70 local newspapers renewing its territorial claim.

Against this backdrop, Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan said Seoul is ready to carry the ads to assert that the islets are Korean territory “historically, geographically and under international law.”

To the latest reports that Tokyo is about to unilaterally take the issue to the international court of justice for a resolution, a government official reiterated Seoul’s position saying “there is no territorial dispute over Dokdo” and the government will ignore the move.

The debate over Dokdo flared up again following President Lee Myung-bak’s unprecedented visit to the islets on Aug. 10 which sparked criticism from Tokyo.

Meanwhile, Seoul plans to allocate 4.2 billion won for 2013 national territorial projects, almost twice that of last year’s. The Japanese government on the other hand is budgeting 600 million yen (8.5 billion won) on Dokdo-related PR activities for next year.