Now On Sale: Takeshima Manju!!

Junosora:

Dokdo cookies wouldn’t be something worth mentioning. I’ve seen Koreans put Dokdo on just about every imaginable product, from softdrinks, to stamps, to neckties, to calendars, to video games. It’s somewhat rare for a Japanese company to try to capitalize off the dispute.

As for my “slant”: yes, I favor the Japanese view on this issue. I used to think the islands were probably legally Korean, but after examining much of the evidence Korea uses to back up it’s claim to the islands, I’ve found that they have no solid evidence that Dokdo was Korean territory prior to the 1905 Japanese annexation.

I used to think the islets were historically Korean until I came across the writings of blogger Gerry Bevers(http://koreanlanguagenotes.blogspot.com/), who has since started writing Dokdo-related posts on Occidentalism. His latest post can be found here: http://www.occidentalism.org/?p=328

Of course, there are no articles of evidence that can conclusively prove that the islets belong to Japan. At the end of WW2 US State Department believed the islets were Japanese, and did not cede Dokdo to Korea in the San Francisco treaty (Korean representatives had requested that Dokdo, Tsushima, and an island that doesn’t actually exist be declared Korean territory. The inclusion of Tsushima, which has been Japanese for hundreds of years, is evidence of a clear intent to grab whatever territory it could get after Japan’s defeat. )

It seems to be that most of the wedge-driving on this issue is coming from the Korean side. South Korea occupies the islets and can simply ignore any Japanese statements about Takeshima. Instead, the South Korean government encourages its citizens to go into a rage tantrum every time the Japanese make a statement about the islets. Since Japan is never going to resort to force or economic sanctions over the islets, the South Korean government could simply ignore the issue and feel secure in its occupation of the islets. Instead, they’ve turned it into one of the central issues of Korea-Japan relations, which is simply stupid. They are using the issue to stirr up ultra-nationalist stupidity in their population, and frankly it disgusts me.

In contrast, few people in Japan care about the issue. The news media might favor the government’s claim, but they aren’t about force Takeshima-propaganda down the throats of schoolchildren.