Education ministry drops Takeshima plans
The Japan Times reports that the Japanese government has dropped previously-announced plans to teach school children stronger views on the Liancourt Rocks dispute:
Japan will refrain from identifying Takeshima — a pair of Seoul-controlled rocky islets in the Sea of Japan known as Dokdo in South Korea — as an “integral part of Japan” in an educational document, a government paper said Tuesday.
Earlier this month, government sources said the education ministry planned to add the phrase in a supplementary document for new guidelines for social studies at junior high schools starting in the 2012 school year.
But the government apparently backed down after sharp reactions from South Korea. Tokyo has told Seoul it has yet to decide on the descriptions in the document, the paper said. Tokyo had received an inquiry from Seoul over the matter.
A quick search of South Korea’s English language media found no responses to this development, but I did find an article about a lonely man who is planning to swim around the islets 33 times and the following political cartoon, which plays on idiotic nationalist fears about Japan and America:
Japan and the United States are walking all over President Lee Myung-bak’s pragmatism and “future-orientedness” about relations with Japan.
The American cow is devouring what he wants of the country’s “quarantine inspection sovereignty.”
Japan wants to make off with Dokdo, pulling it from the country’s territorial sovereignty, saying, “Gimmie this, too, in the name of being future-oriented, okay?”
