If Koreas really have solid historical, international data then why does not they just go to the International Court of Justice rather than doing silly protests such as chopping their fingers, cutting the heads of pigs and throwing dead pheasants over the Japanese embassy wall?
When the Japanese were defeated by the US in 1945, Korean President Rhee Syngman saw an opportunity to grab some free Japanese land. He did not only try to claim Tsushima, which had been Japanese territory for untold centuries, he even tried to lay claim to an island that did not exist. When it became apparent that America was not going to accept his claims for Tsushima and a non-existent island, Rhee decided to focus his attention on Takeshima (Liancourt Rocks), Here is what US Secretary of State Dean Rusk told the Korean ambassor to the US;
"As regards the island of Dokdo, otherwise known as Takeshima or Liancourt Rocks, this normally uninhabited rock formation was according to our information never treated as part of Korea and, since about 1905, has been under the jurisdiction of the Oki Islands Branch Office of Shimane Prefecture of Japan. The island does not appear to ever before to have been claimed by Korea."
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...6/6e/Rusk2.jpg
In 1954, James Van Fleet visited South Korea as a special mission ambassador for the US. In his mission report, Report of Van Fleet Mission to the Far East, was written the following;
“When the Treaty of Peace with Japan was being drafted, the Republic of Korea asserted its claims to Dokto but the United States concluded that they remained under Japanese sovereignty and the Island was not included among the Islands that Japan released from its ownership under the Peace Treaty.”
Upon receiving the letter from Additional State Secretary Mr. Dean Rusk and realizing that the US will not give Takeshima to Korea, President Lee Seung-Man announced the Lee Line on Jan. 18, 1952 and took Takeshima by military force. Since then, over 20 Japanese fishermen have been killed, and nearly 4,000 captured by the Korean navy. The captured fishermen were not returned to Japan until 1965, when the Japan-Korea Treaty was concluded. Under normal circumstances, such an action would have meant war. But Lee Seung-Man knew very well that Japan was tied down by the pacifist constitution given to it by the the US and that Japan could only file complaints against the Korean government.
Also Japan and Korea exchanged an instrument of ratification of the new Japan-Korea Fisheries Agreement, which entered into force in January, 1999. In the agreement, the two countries agreed to the establishment of “provisional common waters” around Takeshima/Dokdo without prejudice to the title to the island. Since then, however, Japanese fishing boats have still been shut out of the fishing grounds in the area. The local fishermen in Shimane Prefecture became increasingly impatient and discontented with this situation. Such situation led Shimane Prefecture to the announcement of Takeshima Day.
How can Koreans complain about Japan when it’s the Korean government that is ignoring the agreement? It seems like Koreans just don’t have the respect for the treaty that most civilized countries/people do. It is not a rational thinking going on there. Extreme nationalism and favoritism that hurts objective thinking, extremely specific way of thinking and doing things that rather relies on feelings and intuition than on in depth knowledge and analysis…It’s no wonder that none of Koreans has ever won any significant international prize in science, medicine, writing, etc.
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