Dokdo is Korean Territory. But perhaps not for any of the reasons you would think.
I have to admit, this is a post that I have been avoiding for quite a long time. When I was the Seoul Searcher, basically a mouthpiece for a Korean governmental organization, I decided it would be best to avoid the subject entirely because the point of the project I was involved in was not to stir up controversy regarding Korea’s international relations. You can see that starting in 2011, this blog went through a drastic change and I started to write about what I like, mainly complaining about things and discussing nerdy things that I like.
That said, I wrote a post criticizing several videos that were meant to promote the idea that Dokdo belongs to Korea, and it proved to be a hit with several people on the Japanese side of the argument, including a Japanese nationalist website that linked to me. One of the people who visited my blog asked me to present my case for Korean ownership of Dokdo.
I’d like to know why you believe Dokdo is Korean territory. Korean government has been fabricating evidences from the beginning and brainwashing their people with nationalistic song while Japan has established evidences like documents, archaic maps, official statement and international treaty.
I am an admin on the facebook group “Dokdo Belongs to Korea.” When I first joined the group, it was very disorganized, and although its stated purpose was to encourage discussion and debate about Dokdo, it appeared to be overrun with people who just wanted to shout that Dokdo is Korean, or who thought it was a place that racism towards Japanese was appropriate. Since becoming an admin, I and the other admins have done our part to try to clean it up and to encourage actual debate. One of the reasons I wanted to do this is because there are far too many people on the Korean side of the argument who don’t even really know why Dokdo belongs to Korea. You’ll find reasons ranging from
“It’s Korea’s because it’s Korea’s.”
“It’s Korea’s because the Japanese did so many evil things to us when we were their colony.”
“It’s Korea’s because the Japanese call it Takeshima which means bamboo island and there is no bamboo there!”
“It’s Korea’s because the US Army said it was after World War II”
or my favorite
“Shut up, I don’t have to prove anything to you because you are not Korean and can’t understand Korean feeling. You should stop bothering us.”
So, I am writing this post because I want to lead by example. I will attempt to analyze the government sponsored Japanese arguments for Japanese ownership, then state my case for Korean ownership. I want this area to be used for constructive debate on the subject. I would hope that anyone who chooses to comment on this post be respectful to other commenters, myself, and to refrain from racist remarks.
And to the Japanese following that I seem to have amassed in the past few days:
私のブログに来てくれてありがとうございます！ここでは独島の問題を議論やディベートするために書いたもりで、自分の立場や自分の考えをコメントの所で書いてもいいです。相手の立場の賛成する人々にも尊敬してください。僕の意見を反対してもいいけど、感情が入れているコメントを捨てて、自分の立場を論理で防御した方がいいと思います。僕は日本語を読めるけど、このブログは英語しか分からない人々が多いから、彼らのために英語で書いてください。この独島問題より、日本と韓国の友好関係出来る事を応援しましょう。
I am sure there are a few errors up there, but I’ve not used Japanese in quite a while, so sorry for that.
At any rate, I’ll get started on presenting the case after the jump.
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