Dokdo (Takeshima)

(CC) Image: Chunbum Park
Coordinates: 37° 14´ N, 131° 52´ E

Dokdo is a small group of volcanic rocks located in the Sea of Japan. South Korea administers the islets as an area of the Ulleung County, Northern Gyeongsang Province. The 56-acre (226,600 m²) formation consists of two main islands that house a lighthouse, a helicopter pad, and a small police force. Because Dokdo shelters various species of fish, birds, plants, and insects, the government has designated the islets as a nature reserve and has provided environmental guidelines for the visiting tourists. The sovereignty over Dokdo has been contested by Japan over historical and legal grounds and remains one of the more serious disputes between South Korea and its former colonial ruler. Since at least 1905, the islands were called in Japanese Takeshima (竹島), meaning the "bamboo island". The Korean name has many different transliterations in English, including "Tok-do", "Dok-to", and "Tok Islets" (독도), all of which equate to "rocky island". The islets have two English titles: Liancourt Rocks and Hornet Rocks. "Liancourt" has its origin in the name of the French whaling ship that first encountered and charted the islets in 1849.

Geography

(CC) Image: Chunbum Park
A detailed map of Dokdo.

Template:2isletsdata Dokdo lies in the Sea of Japan as a part of an underwater volcano that erupted repeatedly from 4.6 to 2.5 million years ago. The underwater Dokdo volcano stands 2 km high from its base of 20 ~ 25 km diameter and rises to a guyot summit that is 10 km wide. The islets on top of this summit consist mostly of trachyte and trachyandesite differentiated from the parental alkali basalt magma of the underwater volcano. Samples of these rocks reveal that Dokdo is the oldest existing island in Korea (Awaji Island is the oldest in Japan); Korea's second oldest island is Ulleungdo, which formed 2 million years after Dokdo from the same hot spot, with similar igneous composition to Dokdo. Due to sedimentation, the 2 islands (Seo-do and Dong-do　in Korean, Otoko-jima and Onna-jima in Japanese; both literally meaning western island　and eastern island, respectively) that make up most of Dokdo separated 2 million years ago and are now positioned 151 meters apart from each other. The western islet is steeper and larger than the eastern islet, and it is also the tallest body in the island cluster. 87 smaller rocks scatter around the two main islands within a radius of a few kilometers, and more than 30 of such geographical features have been named by the South Korean government ministries.

Climate & Ecology

Dokdo has a moderate maritime climate created by the warm and cold ocean currents that collide nearby the islands. The average year-round temperature is 12°C, and the coldest and the hottest extremes occur in January (1°C) and August (23°C) respectively. The average yearly rainfall is 1,240 mm, and in the winter the islands experience heavy snowfall. Rain and snow average 150 days a year, and about more than 160 days are cloudy or foggy; hence, the number of clear days on Dokdo averages only 50 days annually.

Dokdo's diverse ecosystem is influenced heavily by its climate and geography. Its central location in the Sea of Japan makes it a popular breeding area or rest stop for birds. Among the numerous avian species found in Dokdo, the black-tailed gulls that are present between the months of May and August comprise the largest population. Dokdo is also home to a diverse marine life that is attracted to the area by the abundance of planktons. The waters around Dokdo can sustain a wide range of species including cod, seaweed, shrimp, shell, and flatfish due to the collision of the North Korean Cold Current and the Tsushima Warm Current around the islets. A tribute to this rich marine ecosystem is the discovery of a coral colony near Dokdo in 2007 - for the first time in the Sea of Japan. Although many birds and fish find Dokdo to be a habitable environment, vegetation grows poorly on the islets. Strong, salty sea winds (with an average velocity of 4.3m/s), barren soil, and the lack of fresh water are all conditions in Dokdo that are unfavorable to plants. Furthermore, Dokdo can undergo severe drought if there is a shortfall of rain or snow because the islets' thin soil cannot retain much water, and the water produced by the moss on Dokdo amounts to very little. Currently, Dokdo is inhabited by 107 species of birds, 49 species of plants (of which 19 are alien species), and 93 species of insects; and as many as 160 different species of seaweeds and 100 species of fish live in the surrounding waters.

(CC) Photo: Rachouette
A photo of Dongdo (left) & Seodo (right) at sunset. Click here for more.

As much as Dokdo's ecosystem is healthy and diverse, it is equally delicate and vulnerable. A study in 2006 found that the 2 mammal species that were previously reported on Dokdo, the stellar sea lions and the fur seals, have completely disappeared from the islands. The study also found in Dokdo 8 of the species that are endangered in Korea, including the falcon, the Siberian honey buzzard, the owl, the black kite, the Japanese murrelet, and the swan. The researchers expressed concerns about the possible harms on the islands' ecosystem that the 19 alien plant species could inflict as invasive species.

The South Korean government has implemented in the past several programs and policies concerning Dokdo's environment to protect the rich ecosystem and to strengthen South Korea's sovereignty over the islets. In 1982, the government designated Dokdo as a Natural Monument, No. 336, and prohibited visitors from setting foot on the islets. However, in March 2005, the government lifted the visitation ban and allowed up to 70 visitors to the East Islet a day, after the governing council of the Shimane Prefecture in Japan designated February 22nd as the Takeshima Day. In the same month, the South Korean government expanded the limit to allow up to 140 persons on Dokdo per day, which the Ministry of Environment claimed would have zero compromise on Dokdo's environment. However, the government had to follow that guarantee with a plea to the public to not violate the rules by producing noise pollution with musical instruments, straying off from the tour routes, and taking rocks as souvenirs. To make up for the lift of the protective ban on visiting the islets, the Ministry of Environment began monitoring Dokdo for signs of negative developments in the same year. In 2006, the Ministry of Environment expanded the monitoring activities around Dokdo to biannual surveys and 4-season studies that would be conducted every 5 years. In addition to the environmental surveys, a new project was launched in 2007 by the provincial government of North Gyeongsang to make Dokdo into a "clean zone" by 2010.

Demographics

Dokdo had its first resident in May of 1968 when Chwe (or Choi) Jongdeok, a South Korean fisherman who used to make living off of the nearby waters, moved in from the island of Ulleungdo. Since then, Dokdo saw a continual presence of at least one or two fishing families, in addition to the coast guard (i.e. the police) that has been stationed there since 1954. Only 2 people currently live on Dokdo, but, in February of 2006, the South Korean government announced a plan to build a village of about 20 people on the islets.

Territorial dispute with Japan

The following text focuses on the history of the dispute. See Arguments of the territorial dispute over Dokdo for details on the cases made by Japan and South Korea based on historical evidences and the international law.

After World War II and the liberation of Korea from Japan, Dokdo arose as a major point of contention between Japan and South Korea. Both Koreans and Japanese came to believe that their country was completely right on the issue. On the subject, neutral reports or summaries that do not go over the specifics of the historical and juridical arguments usually refer to the rocks as "Liancourt Rocks" in English.

After World War II

In September 1945, a month after Japan's surrender in World War II, the Allied occupation forces placed Dokdo within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Sixth Army based in Japan. But, in less than a year, General MacArthur, who was then the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, created the MacArthur Line, which put Dokdo within the jurisdiction of the U.S. XXIV Corps responsible for all of South Korea. Although some scholars speculate that the MacArthur Line indicates Allies' acceptance of the Korean claim, the boundary was actually drawn for convenience of the administrators.

San Francisco Peace Treaty

The dispute between South Korea and Japan over the ownership of Dokdo ultimately originates from the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951, which was a formal agreement to the end of the Pacific War and the return of national sovereignty to the occupied Japan. The treaty in general did not specify to which country Japan renounced its former territories and to which precise limit these territories extended. In the case of the Dokdo-Takeshima dispute, the main question regarding the peace treaty was whether the islands were included in the "Korea" that Japan renounced in the San Francisco treaty.

In fact, in the earlier drafts of the treaty that were written between the late 1946 and November 1949, the US State Department specified that Japan return Dokdo to the Korean mainland. However, William J. Sebald, who was a political adviser to General MacArthur suggested in a commentary to the State Department that Dokdo be defined as a Japanese territory for historical and strategic reasons. First, Sebald thought that Japan's sovereignty over Dokdo appeared valid and that "it is difficult to regard... [ Dokdo ] as islands off the shore of Korea". Secondly, Sebald pointed out that, if Dokdo were to be a South Korean territory, the U.S. risked losing the islets as a potential station for weather and radar surveillance due to the communist threats from the North. Therefore, the December draft of the San Francisco treaty was changed to state that "Takeshima (Liancourt Rocks)... shall belong to Japan." (Chapter II, Territorial Clauses, Article 3) This shift in the U.S.'s position may have also been influenced by the Japanese Foreign Office, which in the early post-war years provided the U.S. government with several pamphlets about the Japanese territories.

Then all of a sudden, after John Foster Dulles was put in charge of the peace treaty and the Korean War precipitated, the treaty drafts from August and onwards ceased to mention "Takeshima" (as the islets were referred to) altogether. The entire treaty became shorter and simpler, and many of the specifics on the coordinates, borders, and the islands disappeared. It is likely that Dulles purposefully rewrote the treaty to open room for disputes between Japan and the other countries, and thereby provide buffer against the potential domino effect in case of communist expansion. Dulles expected that, if South Korea were not to fall in the hands of the communists, it would take the disputes with Japan to the International Court of Justice, as suggested by the treaty in Chapter 6, Article 22.

The San Francisco Peace Treaty was signed on September 8, 1951, and it took effect on April 28, 1952.

Proclamation of the Rhee Line

Before the Japanese government could regain national rule on April 28, 1952, the South Korean President Syngman Rhee issued on January 18 the "the Declaration of Maritime Sovereignty", which basically kept the "MacArthur Line" from expiring as a result of the peace treaty. The South Korean government realized that, without such an affirmative action on South Korea's part, Japan would eventually get the islets due to U.S.'s prioritizing Japan in its Cold War strategy; at the same time, South Korea believed that it could make a stronger case, based on historical evidences.

Despite the Japanese government's protests, the "Syngman Rhee Line" was kept in place, and the South Korean ships began seizing the Japanese fishing vessels that transgressed the line. Instead of risking a war with South Korea, Japan publicized the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty's designation of Dokdo as a training ground for the U.S. military, and claimed that the U.S. recognized the islets as a Japanese territory because the U.S asked Japan rather than South Korea for permission to use the islands. However, when the U.S. Air Force gave in to South Korea's protest and excluded Dokdo from its training areas on February 27, 1953, Japanese maritime police vessels began interrogating Korean fishermen around the areas of Dokdo and even engaged in exchanges of gunfire with the South Korean volunteer forces stationed on the islets.

Such a time of intense hostility saw more civilian involvement in the dispute over Dokdo. During the month of May in 1954, South Korean and Japanese citizens, escorted by patrol boats from their respective countries, made multiple trips to Dokdo to erect signs of their ownership of the islets and knock down the works from the other country.

Stationing of South Korea's police unit

At the height of confrontations, in August 1954, South Korea occupied the islets. The government built a lighthouse and stationed a permanent garrison that belonged to the police, on the islets. When, in September 1954, Japan proposed to take the dispute to the International Court of Justice, South Korea refused and thereby put the dispute in a deadlock. With neither side wanting to risk war over such tiny islands, the situation of the dispute in the status quo remains essentially the same as that of 1954.

Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea

The Dokdo-Takeshima dispute flared up again with the 1965 Japan-Korea Normalization Treaty, which established diplomatic relations between the two countries. Japan tried to have the treaty mandate the two countries to take the Dokdo-Takeshima dispute to the ICJ, but, again, South Korea rejected. In the end, both sides agreed to disagree, the treaty was signed, and, thus, the Japanese government made a big compromise of allowing the dispute to remain deadlocked. A Japanese international law scholar who read the text of the Treaty commented, "frankly speaking, Japan has almost lost all hope of regaining... [ Dokdo ]."

Although the conventional view is that the U.S. had largely kept out of the controversy, U.S. State Department documents that were declassified in 2004 revealed otherwise. With the aim to hasten the normalization of diplomatic ties between the two countries, the U.S. tried make South Korea, which had the upper hand in the dispute by controlling Dokdo, to accept Japan's demands regarding the islets. On August 9, 1963, the U.S. State Department directed the U.S. Embassy in Korea to press its host government to accept Japan's demands that South Korea's fishing zone be limited to 12 miles (instead of 40 miles). The directive also authorized the embassy to inform the Korean officials that, in case South Korea failed to concur to Japan's demands, the U.S. would not hesitate to denounce the "Syngman Rhee Line” as illegal. Also, on May 18, 1965, when the South Korean President Park Chung-hee was visiting Washington, the U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk proposed a compromise in which Japan and the Republic of Korea would both build a lighthouse on Dokdo. Secretary Rusk suggested that the joint occupation should allow the controversy to resolve without the need for either side to address the question of which country owned the islets.

Giving in to American pressure, South Korea established a 12-mile exclusive fishing zone around Dokdo, in addition to a 3-mile territorial waters. Japan also set up a 3-mile territorial waters and granted fishing rights in area of 500 m radius around the islets. The tacit understanding that arose among the local fishermen became so that the Japanese could fish outside of the 3 nm territorial waters and inside the 12-mile exclusive fishing zone. Since then, fishermen from both countries have been operating around Dokdo peacefully, and the 1999 Korea-Japan fisheries agreement continued the joint fishing around Dokdo by allowing fishing vessels from both countries to operate in each other’s 200 nm exclusive economic zones with permits.

Conclusion

Despite the islets' smaller size, the dispute over Dokdo came to play with all aspects of the Japan-Korea relations.