This paper examines the dispute between South Korea and Japan over the Dokdo/Takeshima Islands through the prism of liberal peace. The evidence provided in the paper shows that the transition between, and conclusion of, different rounds of clashes over the islands are closely associated with the varying degrees of economic interdependence between South Korea and Japan in the post-war period. The relationship between the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute and economic interdependence could be explosive, if the latter takes on highly asymmetric characteristics in the face of enduring rivalry and fluid geopolitics surrounding the Korean peninsula. However, as long as profitable economic opportunities continue for both sides, the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute is likely to be contained, if not terminated.

Min Gyo Koo is a 2005-06 Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Southern California’s Center for International Studies. He has scholarly interests and publications in international political economy with a focus on East Asia. He is currently writing a book-length manuscript on East Asian territorial disputes based on his dissertation research. He is also conducting a group research project on Asia’s emerging institutional architecture in security and trade. Prior to obtaining his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley, Dr. Koo received his B.A. in International Relations and M.A. in Public Policy from Seoul National University (Korea) and M.A. in International Relations and International Economics from the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

I. Introduction

South Korea and Japan have forged a deeper diplomatic and economic partnership in recent years, particularly since the landmark joint declaration of 1998 on a new bilateral partnership in the 21st century. This new spirit of partnership culminated in the successful co-hosting of the 2002 FIFA World Cup. At the end of 2003 the two neighbors began to negotiate a free trade agreement (FTA) to further strengthen their already close economic ties. South Korea’s decades-long embargo on Japanese cultural products due to historical animosity has now been lifted, while a number of South Korean pop stars are currently sweeping across Japan, creating the so-called “Korean Wave” fever.

A pragmatic calculation of national interests would suggest more cooperative behavior. Yet beneath the surface, few years have passed since the end of Japanese colonial rule in 1945 without dangerous undercurrents capable of causing a diplomatic crisis across the East Sea/Sea of Japan. The unsettled sovereignty question of a small group of islands—known as Dokdo in Korea and as Takeshima in Japan—in the East Sea/Sea of Japan is one of the most fundamental barriers to better bilateral relations.

The Dokdo/Takeshima Islands, which consist of two barely habitable rocky islets and about thirty reefs, are located about 50 nautical miles (nm) east of South Korea’s Ullung Island and about 90nm northwest of Japan’s Oki Islands. Despite their unimpressive physical appearance, the islands have both material and symbolic value. Disputes over fishing and other maritime boundaries that might include valuable marine resources have been closely associated with the island dispute. In addition, the symbolic attachment of territory to national identity and pride has made the island dispute all the more intractable and difficult to resolve. South Korea’s claim to Dokdo has emotional content far that goes beyond material significance, because giving way on the island issue to Japan would be seen as compromising the sovereignty of the entire peninsula over again. For Japan, Takeshima may lack the degree of strategic and economic values and emotional appeal of Japan’s two other two territorial disputes that Japan has—namely the Northern Territories/Kurile Islands and the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. Nevertheless, the legal, political, economic, and symbolic issues surrounding the island dispute with South Korea are far from trivial, since a concession of sovereignty over Takeshima could jeopardize Japan’s claim to the rest.

Competing claims to the Dokdo/Takeshima Islands emerged during the San Francisco Peace Treaty negotiations between the Allies and Japan, and escalated into a near-crisis in the early 1950’s when South Korea took physical control of the islands. In 1965, South Korea and Japan reached an agreement to normalize their bilateral relationship, but the island dispute was left unresolved. The sovereignty issue surfaced again in 1977 when Japan unilaterally proclaimed new exclusive fishing zones near the disputed islands. The island question flared up in 1996 when both countries demonstrated an unusually hard-line territorial and maritime policy. In 2004, the two countries collided over South Korea’s postage stamps that illustrated the fauna and flora of the disputed islands. In early 2005, the diplomatic spat over the Japanese designation of “Takeshima Day” and official approval of history textbooks that reinforce Japan’s claim to the Dokdo/Takeshima Islands unleashed a flood of nationalist venom in South Korea.

When and why have South Korea and Japan pursued policies that brought them into conflict with each other? Conversely, why have they at other times sought the containment, if not the resolution, of the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute by shelving thorny sovereignty issues? Existing explanations have focused on historical, legal, and political factors, either domestic or international, providing important insights into the dual aspect of continuity and mutual restraint in the island dispute.

Surprisingly, however, little scholarly attention has been paid to the role played by economic interdependence between South Korea and Japan, which are each other’s third largest trading partners as of 2005, after only China and the U.S. Can economic interdependence bring peace dividends to the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute? One might think that the island dispute and the economic relations are unconnected. But I will show that increasing economic interaction can play a role in containing, if not terminating, the hostility involved in the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute.

In Section II, I give a brief survey of the existing literature. In Section III, I present the theoretical debate on liberal peace as to whether or not economic interdependence fosters peaceful relations by giving states an economic incentive to avoid costly disputes. In Section IV, I explore the evolutionary process of the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute, which has unfolded in four repeated rounds of flare-ups in the post-war period. In Section V, I summarize the findings and draw policy implications.

II. Conventional Explanations

Interstate disputes over territory rarely break out in a vacuum. They are often fought in an arena where domestic, regional, and international politics meet. For revisionist countries that challenge an existing territorial status quo, the most prominent way to achieve their goal is to acquire the territory in question. The process of acquisition itself can vary from peaceful (e.g. sale or concession of territory) to violent (e.g. military conquest). The Dokdo/Takeshima dispute falls between these two extremes: it persists while neither reaching a peaceful resolution nor escalating into a full-scale militarized conflict. As a result, the existing literature on the island dispute has focused on one of the four research tracks.

First, scholars often focus on the validity of contending historical evidence such as government documents and maps.¹ Differing interpretations of international treaties—ranging from the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty to the 1994 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)—also serve as sources of heated debate.² Conflicting historical and legal evidence often serves as the bone of contention concerning the fisheries and hydrocarbon potentials near the islands. Yet neither side provides conclusive evidence of territorial and maritime boundaries.

Second, in a highly competitive atmosphere, territorial disputes often revolve around the perceptions of rivalry coupled with historical animosities.³ From this viewpoint, the most serious barrier to achieving a mutually agreeable resolution of the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute is the unassuaged historical grievances and rivalry between South Korea and Japan rather than differing interpretations of old maps and past treaties, competition over resources, or any other strategic interests.⁴

Third, it is plausible that a joint military alliance (or quasi-alliance through a third party) has a mitigating impact on the initiation and escalation of territorial disputes.⁵ From this broad geopolitical perspective, the U.S.-South Korea-Japan security triangle has ensured that the disputes between South Korea and Japan take place within certain confines.⁶ Geopolitical explanations can capture some degree of mutual restraint, if not continuity, in the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute. Finally, some scholars examine how state elites’ desire to remain in office allows domestic coalitions and electoral politics to influence their decisions on conflict behavior.⁷ They often draw upon the broad literature on the influence of democracy and legitimacy on interstate conflict, although the findings of this perspective are mixed.⁸

Despite their explanatory utility, the arguments found in existing studies are not integrated with broader International Relations theory. What is most striking in this regard is the absence of scholarly attention to the influence of economic interdependence on the transition between, and conclusion of, repeated rounds of the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute. Certainly there is a burgeoning literature on the pacific effect of economic interdependence on East Asian security in general. However, few studies have been dedicated to territorial disputes—including the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute—as a distinct category of regional conflict. As such, the particular purpose of this paper is to examine whether or not economic interdependence fosters peaceful relations by giving South Korea and Japan an economic incentive to avoid costly sovereignty disputes.

III. The Liberal Peace Debate

International Relations scholars have long been puzzled by the question of liberal peace, as economic interdependence in fact has both positive and negative influences on international conflicts.⁹ An examination of the empirical literature indicates that one can easily find support for either positive or negative aspects of economic interdependence.¹⁰

Early arguments that connected interdependence with less conflict can be traced back to classical liberals like David Hume, the Baron de Montesquieu, Adam Smith, Richard Cobden, John Stuart Mill, and Immanuel Kant. In the early 20th century, Norman Angell reinstated this liberal view by arguing that war, by destroying trade ties, is “commercially suicidal.”¹¹ Theories about complex economic interdependence in the 1970s carried the interdependence arguments one step further.¹² In a more liberal perspective, Richard Rosecrance has long argued that modern conditions push states to be “trading states” rather than “territorial states” obsessed with military expansion.¹³ Though not all contemporary adherents of liberal peace go as far as Kenichi Ohmae,¹⁴ who asserts that the world is now “borderless,” it is largely accepted among liberals that territorial borders are declining in political and economic significance.¹⁵

Realists challenge liberal peace theory both on theoretical and empirical grounds. They argue that economic interdependence not only fails to promote peace, but in fact heightens the likelihood of conflict since interdependence tends to foster asymmetry as a result of dependence and inequality between trading partners in an anarchic setting.¹⁶ As Kenneth Waltz notes, increased interdependence may lead to increased conflict since increased contact creates potential opportunities for discord.¹⁷ Furthermore, state actors under anarchy must worry that others will gain more from cooperation than they do, since those relative gains might later be turned into military advantage.¹⁸ In a realist world, therefore, states have historically given top priority to the conquest of territory in order to advance their economic, security, and other interests, regardless of economic interdependence.¹⁹

Set against this theoretical background, I examine the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute through the prism of liberal peace. To begin with, I use bilateral trade as a proxy for bilateral economic interdependence.²⁰ Different studies use a wide variety of indicators of trade interdependence—such as trade volumes and values, systemic trade levels, trade as a proportion of GDP, elasticity of supply and demand, and trade in strategic goods. One of the simplest ways to capture the levels of bilateral trade interdependence is to construct a trade dependence index of each country, defined as the share of bilateral trade flow—the sum of imports and exports—in GDP.²¹

Figures 1 and 2 illustrate South Korea’s trade dependence on Japan and Japan’s trade dependence on South Korea, respectively. South Korea’s trade dependence on Japan has fluctuated widely over time. By contrast, Japan’s trade dependence on South Korea has been steadily rising, although its level is much lower in absolute terms than that of South Korea on Japan. These scores indicate that trade with Japan has been more important to South Korea than trade with South Korea has been to Japan.

Under what economic conditions are South Korea and Japan likely to initiate and escalate the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute? Given the historical and geopolitical complexity surrounding the island dispute, the analysis of the economic interdependence and the island dispute need to be explained in an in-depth, qualitative manner.²² In the following section, I uncover the underlying causal mechanism of the effect of economic interdependence on the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute.

IV. The Evolution of the Dokdo/Takeshima Dispute

1. The First Round of Dispute (1952-65)

During the first ten years after the Korean War of 1950-53, South Korea’s trade dependence largely remained at a low level of less than 5% and Japan’s trade dependence at an even lower level of less than 0.6%. Other things being equal, the liberal peace theory would anticipate a dispute in the absence of the mitigating forces of mutual gains from trade. In the 1950s and the early 1960s, the intense disputes between the two quasi-enemies over a number of issues with the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute at the center support such a prediction. Yet by the mid-1960s, the island issue eventually took a back seat in favor of promoting more pressing economic affairs.

Initiation and Escalation (1952-60)

Initially, the postwar boundaries between South Korea and Japan, which were drawn up by the U.S. occupation forces in September 1945, placed the Dokdo/Takeshima Islands within the Japan-based U.S. Sixth Army’s area of responsibility. In less than a year, however, the occupation boundaries were replaced by the so-called MacArthur Line. The MacArthur Line included the Dokdo/Takeshima Islands under the command of the U.S. XXIV Corps, which was in charge of all of South Korea and its various outlying islands.²³ It was the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951 that eventually left the location of sovereignty over the islands undefined, thereby sowing the seeds of disagreements between South Korea and Japan.²⁴

From the beginning, the issue of fishing in the East Sea/Sea of Japan became a surrogate battlefield for the island dispute. On January 18, 1952, South Korea unilaterally proclaimed the so-called Rhee Line to include the islands as its territory, and began to seize Japanese fishing vessels found within the line. In protest, Japan sent naval ships to expel South Korean fishermen who had been conducting fishing activities near the islands. A series of physical clashes including exchanges of gun and mortar fire ensued in the following years. The dispute was most intense in 1954 when South Korea took physical control of the islands by stationing there a small number of garrison guards. The level of hostility remained significant for the rest of the decade.²⁵

Having emerged as an outcome of Cold War politics and resource competition, the Dokdo/Takeshima question quickly became an icon of the contending nationalisms of South Korea and Japan. The negative images and attitudes held by the leadership in Seoul and in Tokyo, as well as by a majority of both nationals, were significant. Unmistakably, such biases gave rise to an atmosphere of distrust and contempt that essentially made compromise or concession in negotiations identical with treason.²⁶

Not surprisingly, the 1950s lacked deterring economic forces. The historical animosity was further fueled by the negative view held by the South Koreans of their economic relations with Japan. After the outbreak of the Korean War, sales to U.S. forces in Japan led to a special procurement boom. This left many in South Korea believing that the Japanese economic miracle came at the expense of Korean lives. After a brief trade boom during the Korean War, the two countries returned to quasi-enemy status by the mid-1950s.²⁷

De-escalation (1961-65)

The hostile situation began to change once Park Chung Hee (1961-79) seized power in South Korea after the abrupt collapse of the Syngman Rhee regime in 1960. The island question continued to serve as one of the most vexing and intractable bilateral problems, threatening to wreck the conclusion of the normalization treaty in its final stage of negotiations. Yet the island issue eventually took a back seat in favor of focusing on more pressing economic affairs. The top leadership in both Seoul and Tokyo made the conscious choice to shelve territorial issues, as well as other thorny bilateral problems, for strategic and economic cooperation, which culminated in the conclusion of the normalization treaty in 1965.

In the beginning, Japan exhibited a lukewarm attitude towards the sixth round of official talks for normalization that started in October 1961. Presumably, Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda (1960-64) was concerned that the financial and political responsibilities that would result from a normalization treaty might possibly backfire on him as the Upper House and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) elections drew near in July 1962.²⁸ For the Ikeda administration, the Dokdo/Takeshima issue was a convenient excuse to delay normalization talks. In a 1962 statement before the Diet, Foreign Minister Masayoshi Ohira stated that relations with South Korea would not be normalized until the sovereignty question had been fully resolved. Japan continued to insist that the territorial problem be written down in the treaty documents and that South Korea agree to take the case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).²⁹

President Park could not delay the treaty negotiations any longer and, in October 1962, sent his right hand man, Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) Director Kim Jong-pil, to Tokyo to conclude prolonged negotiations. In their second meeting in November, Kim and Ohira reached a secret agreement on the amount of a financial reparation package. Yet Ohira brought up the territorial issue again, asking Kim to agree to take the case to the ICJ. Obsessed with concluding financial deals, Kim failed to strongly protest Ohira’s request.³⁰ Park sent Kim again to Tokyo in March 1964 to resume the stalemated talks, although public sentiment in South Korea was against negotiations with Japan.³¹ In Tokyo on June 22, 1965, Foreign Ministers Etsusaburo Shiina and Lee Tong-won finally signed the Treaty on Basic Relations and four other agreements, thereby formally defusing the prolonged first round of the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute but leaving the sovereignty question on the shelf in order to promote the more important strategic and economic cooperation.

It is widely held that the necessary if not the sufficient condition for the conclusion of South Korean-Japanese normalization treaty was created by the U.S.³² As the principal architect of the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute, the U.S. attempted to remain neutral in theory, but its hegemonic position ensured that potential bilateral tensions between South Korea and Japan take place within certain confines in practice. In May 1965, when the island dispute became the last obstacle to speed up the normalization talks, Washington quietly but strongly pressed both Seoul and Tokyo to jointly control the disputed islands.³³

Aside from the realities of the Cold War containment network and the overriding demands of alliance politics, the high priority given to stable economic relations motivated both South Korea and Japan to stop pushing for a definitive political showdown over the islands. In South Korea, the Park government faced a near-desperate situation as the first Five-Year Development Plan (1962-66) failed to overcome persistent economic troubles of poverty and low development. The grim situation was further exacerbated by a steady decline in U.S. economic aid that reached a sixteen-year low in 1965. Under such circumstances, Park decided to “live or die” with the normalization issue. South Korea’s business conglomerates, or chaebol, also lobbied strongly for normalization. Especially appealing to these groups was the prospect of acquiring Japanese technology and manufacturing capabilities in industries vacated by Japan’s ascending up the product cycle.³⁴

In Japan, Prime Minister Eisaku Sato (1964-72) and his elder LDP cohorts decided to make the most of this opportunity presented by a strong but relatively pro-Japan Korean dictator to accelerate the negotiation process.³⁵ Voices within the Japanese Foreign Ministry also pressed for a settlement. The Sato government faced additional pressure from the powerful Japanese business lobby. Park’s Second Five-Year plan (1967-71) would offer Japanese firms a plethora of large-scale projects, all of which could be underwritten by a financial package which was to be followed by a normalization settlement.³⁶

Indeed the normalization treaty provided a fledgling South Korean economy with much-needed foreign capital—an $845 million package of government and commercial loans, grants-in-aid, and property claims. The treaty cleared the way for an extensive expansion of trade relations that enabled Japan to surpass the U.S. as South Korea’s largest trading partner within a year (See Table 1). Through his iron rule, Park effectively put down domestic grievances that Japan’s loans to South Korea were used to maintain his military dictatorship at the expense of national integrity.

2. The Second Round of Dispute (1977-78)

The first ten years in the post-normalization period (1965-74) was an economic honeymoon, as characterized by the high and increasing level of South Korea’s trade dependence on Japan (See Figure 1). Liberal peace theory’s prediction of peaceful relationship is supported by the virtual absence of initiation and escalation of the island dispute. By contrast, the following decade (1975-84) was characterized by high but falling economic interdependence. The once-smooth economic honeymoon period seemingly came to an end. Against this background, the 1977-78 Dokdo/Takeshima dispute was catalyzed by the Japanese proclamation of new exclusive fishing zones near the islands. But the intensity of the dispute remained moderate at worst, presumably because the level of economic interdependence remained significant, albeit declining, in absolute terms.

Initiation and Escalation (1977)

On February 5, 1977, Japanese Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda (1976-78) catalyzed the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute by remarking that “Takeshima is Japanese territory beyond all doubt.” Behind this provocative statement were the fishery problems and the emerging global trend towards a 200nm exclusive economic zone (EEZ) regime. The bilateral fishing agreement of 1965 was inherently unstable, given the fact that the international maritime regime was undergoing revolutionary changes at the beginning of the 1970s. Among many coastal states, maritime jurisdiction up to a limit of 200nm became common practice. This practice clearly outdated any obligation for a coastal state to allow foreign fishing immediately outside its 12nm fishing zone that had been the de facto regime until the 1970s. In 1965, few distant-water fishermen from South Korea were capable of operating near the territorial waters of Japan, but this was no longer true by the early 1970s. In particular, the coastal areas of Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido began to be swamped by South Korea’s distant-water fishing vessels that had lost their fishing ground in the Northwest Pacific as a result of the proclamation of a 200nm fishing zone by the Soviet Union in 1976.³⁷

On February 7, 1977, the Japanese Foreign Ministry announced that it would take the Dokdo/Takeshima case to the ICJ as well as raise the issue as an official agenda item for the Japanese-South Korean Foreign Ministerial meeting scheduled on February 18. Departing from the maritime regime that had been agreed with South Korea in 1965 and 1974, Japan declared a 12nm territorial waters law and a 200nm fishing zone law in July 1977. Although the latter was not applied to the coastal waters of China and South Korea under the principle of reciprocity, Japan established the 12nm territorial waters around the Dokdo/Takeshima based on its unilateral claim of “inherent territory.” South Korea’s political groups, both ruling and opposition, jointly protested against Japan’s sovereignty claim.³⁸

De-escalation (1978)

Japanese fishing vessels—which engaged in fishing within the area close to the conventional 3nm territorial limit of the Dokdo/Takeshima Islands—occasionally raised the tension. Yet by early 1978, the sovereignty issue quickly subsided without raising nationalist sentiments any further on both sides. An unofficial tacit agreement was reached to allow the Japanese fishing on occasion within the 12nm limit of South Korea, thereby maintaining the territorial and maritime status quo.³⁹

The abrupt de-escalation can be attributed to the overriding demands for security and economic cooperation between South Korea and Japan. First, a shared concern over U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s plan for a five-year withdrawal of all U.S. ground forces from South Korea, announced in January 1977, brought Seoul and Tokyo closer together. Park was worried that the erosion of the U.S. defense commitment would destabilize the Korean peninsula, while Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda (1976-78) was also concerned about the credibility of the U.S. commitment to Japan.⁴⁰

Second, although economic relations between South Korea and Japan began to decline in the latter half of the 1970s, economic interdependence between the two rivals took root. The South Korean economy recorded average annual GDP growth rates of 9.1 percent from 1965 to 1978. Its total bilateral trade with Japan increased from $210 million in 1965 to $8.6 billion in 1978.⁴¹ South Korea did, of course, benefit from significant U.S. economic aid as well as from its own indigenous efforts to overcome economic backwardness. For many South Koreans, trade with Japan was considered a double-edged sword, and the deeper but increasingly unequal economic integration with Japan evoked emotional and nationalistic sentiments.⁴² However, economic cooperation with Japan undoubtedly contributed to South Korea’s dazzling economic performance during the period of economic takeoff in the 1970s. As a result, it can be argued that in the late 1970s the aggravating effect of resource nationalism and enduring rivalry was eventually kept at bay by the significant level of economic interdependence between the two territorial claimants.

3. The Third Round of Dispute (1996-98)

South Korea and Japan seriously collided again over the Dokdo/Takeshima Islands from 1996 to 1998. The 1996-98 flare-up drove their overall bilateral relationship to one of its lowest points since 1965. This outcome may not be surprising to the adherents of liberal peace, considering that the post-Cold War period is characterized by moderate and falling trade interdependence (See Figure 1).⁴³ This phase also coincided with the democratization of South Korea, which made South Korea’s diplomacy more contentious. Yet a more serious clash was averted when South Korea reluctantly backed down in the wake of the 1997-98 financial crisis.

Initiation and Escalation

Following the introduction of the UN Law of the Sea in 1994, South Korea and Japan both began proceeding to set their new maritime boundaries, particularly in overlapping terrain in the East Sea/Sea of Japan, where the distance between some EEZ baselines was less than 400nm. Japan proposed separating EEZ demarcation from the revision of the fishery agreement in order to conclude the latter as soon as possible. Japan also suggested setting up a temporary joint-fishing area around the Dokdo/Takeshima Islands and putting aside the sensitive problem of delimiting their respective EEZs around the islands.⁴⁴ Because the existing maritime regime in the East Sea/Sea of Japan favored South Korea, it had no intention of replacing the 1965 fishery agreement.⁴⁵ Furthermore, the idea of putting the Dokdo/Takeshima Islands in a jointly controlled area was unacceptable to South Korea for both material and symbolic reasons.

On February 8, 1996, Japanese Foreign Minister Yukihiko Ikeda dropped a diplomatic bombshell by publicly claiming Japan’s sovereignty claim to the islands. It was a preemptive move to maximize Japan’s bargaining position in the impending fishery and EEZ negotiations with South Korea. Ikeda’s claim was not entirely inconsistent with Japan’s past claims, but his ill-timed statement unmistakably catalyzed a series of anti-Japanese demonstrations across South Korea with Japanese flags and Ikeda’s effigies being burnt.⁴⁶ South Korean President Kim Young Sam (1993-98) canceled a meeting with Japanese officials, threatened to scrap a summit session in March, and said that his government would “sternly deal with” Japan over the maritime and territorial issue.⁴⁷

It is widely held that President Kim took an uncompromising stance towards Japan in general and the territorial issue in particular in order to garner popular support for his increasingly unpopular regime.⁴⁸ As the first civilian president after about thirty years of military rule, Kim initially enjoyed wide support from the people. However, a series of political corruption scandals soon undermined his legitimacy. Furthermore, the Kim government felt increasing tension with Japan on both economic and diplomatic fronts. Kim knew that “Japan-bashing” could provide powerful rhetoric with which to manipulate public opinion and undercut political opponents.⁴⁹ Although South Korea’s economy grew at an average of 8.5 percent between 1994 and 1996, its external sector was encountering heavy pressure as its total trade deficit tripled from $6.1 billion in 1994 to $19.7 billion in 1996. South Korea’s trade deficit against Japan almost doubled from $8.5 billion in 1993 to $15.3 billion in 1996. Growing trade inequality exercised an aggravating influence on the escalation of the island dispute by adding fuel to the fire of mutual antagonism, particularly in South Korea. Also, it is plausible that Kim was less concerned about maintaining stable economic relations with Japan, as South Korea’s trade dependence on Japan as a ratio of GDP continued to decline in the previous years. As a result, Kim was not deterred from engaging in conflict with Japan.⁵⁰

In response to growing domestic pressures, most notably the powerful fishing lobby, Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto (1996-98) chose to take a more aggressive, unilateral approach to South Korea’s resistance concerning the territorial and maritime issues. By the summer of 1997, positions hardened and confrontation escalated when Japan began seizing South Korean boats fishing within its unilaterally declared 200nm EEZ. Towards the end of 1997, it became clear that the exchange of belligerent diplomacy transformed the initial discord centered on “maritime” issues into a clash of “territorial nationalism.”⁵¹

De-escalation

The 1996-98 flare-up could have been much worse than what actually took place. In a dramatic turn of events, a more serious clash was averted in the winter of 1997-98. In the wake of the Asian financial crisis, the new political leadership on both sides employed a more pragmatic approach towards territorial and maritime issues. In contrast to its predecessor, the new Kim Dae Jung administration (1998-2003) consciously sought to prevent any emotional escalation of the maritime and territorial problems.

President Kim declared that his main foreign policy goal was to completely normalize bilateral relations with Japan in every sense. Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi (1998-2000) reaped the fruits of his predecessor’s pressure diplomacy. During Kim’s first official visit to Japan in October 1998, Kim and Obuchi signed the Joint Declaration on A New Republic of Korea-Japan Partnership towards the Twenty First Century. Subsequently, South Korea and Japan concluded and signed a new fishery agreement in winter 1998/99, bringing a quick end to the third round of the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute. The signing of the new fishery agreement and shelving of the territorial question exacted high political costs for President Kim Dae Jung, but he had few alternatives in the wake of South Korea’s near economic collapse and the dire need for emergency loans from Japan.⁵²

4. The Fourth Round of Dispute (2004-05)

For many commentators, the 1998 Joint Declaration symbolized that South Korea and Japan became inseparably bound together by shared geopolitical and economic interests. The spirit of new partnership seemingly culminated in the successful co-hosting of the World Cup 2002. However, if anyone still doubted that there remained a wide gap between these two quasi-allies, the 2004-05 flare-up of the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute proved the point.

The 2004 Flare-up

In the aftermath of the third round of the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute (1996-98), an old rumor resurfaced in South Korea that the sovereignty of the islands would eventually be transferred to Japan as a result of a secret agreement reached during the fishery negotiations. In addition, the new fishery agreement, which went into effect on February 6, 1999, was particularly unacceptable to South Korean fishermen.⁵³ To make matters worse, old problems reappeared between Seoul and Tokyo. New Japanese junior high and high school history textbooks—written by Japanese right-wing groups and approved by the Japanese Education Ministry—became the focus of a diplomatic spat in 2001-02. The tension catalyzed by the history textbooks was further compounded by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi (2001-present)’s highly controversial visits to Yasukuni shrine to honor Japan’s war dead including fourteen war criminals convicted by the Allies after the Pacific War.⁵⁴

Against this thorny background, the Dokdo/Takeshima issue came under the glare of the spotlight again in January 2004. The 2004 flare-up followed an announcement by South Korea Post that it would issue stamps illustrating the flora and fauna of the islands. Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi wasted no time in urging Seoul to reverse its decision to issue the stamps, but her South Korean counterpart, Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan, rejected her request. The Japanese Home Affairs Minister Taro Aso said Japan would distribute its own stamps. The idea was opposed by Prime Minister Koizumi, but not before he reiterated Japanese claims to the islands. Japan also registered its complaint to the Universal Postal Union (UPU), claiming that portraying the disputed islands on stamps violates the spirit of UPU.⁵⁵

South Korea Post, nevertheless, went ahead with its plans. At dawn of the date of the first, and virtually the last, issuance of stamps, South Koreans started to line up outside post offices to buy their ration of one sheet of 16 stamps, causing the post offices’ supplies of 2.2 million sheets to sell out in three hours. South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun (2003-present) attempted to cool down the rising diplomatic temperature.⁵⁶ Yet South Koreans had no problems blasting Japanese politicians and government officials, especially those considered revisionist in their interpretation of historical events. Demonstrations were held against Koizumi, Aso, and other right-wing politicians.⁵⁷

In addition, the age-old dispute took a modern twist. Following the postage stamp skirmish, internet users from both sides launched cyber attacks on each other’s hostile sites, which were quickly dubbed the “cyber-imjinwaeran,” referring to the Korean-Japanese war of 1592-98.⁵⁸ Furthermore, presumably inspired by the seven Chinese activists who landed on the Japan-controlled Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in March, four members of a Japanese right-wing group set sail for Dokdo/Takeshima in May to set the Japanese flag on them. Reports of this sailing infuriated South Korea. Although Tokyo persuaded them while still at sea to give up their plan, emotions ran high on both sides.⁵⁹ Despite both governments’ wishes, contentious rallies continued through the summer of 2004.

By fall 2004, the diplomatic temperature cooled down and the quarrel over the postage stamps died gradually. It was largely a result of both governments’ conscious efforts to prevent the issue from spinning out of control. Although contending nationalisms helped to escalate the 2004 flare-up, broader strategic and economic conditions prohibited the postage issue from escalating into an intense diplomatic crisis.

First of all, both countries were increasingly feeling the pressure to cooperate with the U.S. to achieve a peaceful resolution to the second North Korean nuclear crisis, which was set off in October 2002. For the South Korean government, it became a critical task to persuade both the U.S. and North Korea to abandon their antagonistic, assertive diplomacy against each other.⁶⁰ Although obsessed with resolving the issue of North Korea’s kidnapping of several Japanese citizens in the past decades, Tokyo shared Seoul’s desire to defuse the nuclear tension in the Korean peninsula.⁶¹

Second, substantial economic interdependence helped to prevent a full-blown diplomatic crisis, even though the incident had the potential to cause much more serious problems. On the one hand, South Korea’s trade deficit against Japan hit a record high of $19 billion in 2003. On the other hand, close economic ties between South Korea and Japan has been manifested by their mutual efforts to form a bilateral FTA.⁶²

Further Escalation Potential

In early 2005, the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute took a new, unpredictable twist. South Korean nationalism received a wake-up call in February 2005 when a league of Shimane prefectural assembly members in Japan proposed to designate “Takeshima Day” on February 22, which marks the centennial anniversary of the issuance in 1905 of a prefectural ordinance that had incorporated the islands as Japanese territory.⁶³

The populist governments on both sides provided the combustible addition to the contending nationalisms. Prime Minister Koizumi began to employ an aggressive territorial policy by explicitly or implicitly supporting the popular movement for the return of Japan’s dislocated territories. He also pushed hard for the revision of Japan’s fundamental laws, particularly Article 9 of the Peace Constitution, to allow Japan to maintain regular armed forces despite South Korean and Chinese concern.⁶⁴ In the meantime, as one of the most democratic but beleaguered presidents in South Korea, Roh Moo Hyun has come under heavy pressure for a more definitive territorial policy. In the middle of rising tension of the latest island flare-up, he issued a statement with unusually strong anti-Japanese overtones that his government would not tolerate Japan’s confrontational territorial policy, thereby risking diplomatic warfare with Japan.⁶⁵

As of today, close economic ties between South Korea and Japan remain significant and this will not change overnight. As indicated by Figure 1, however, it is unclear whether their bilateral economic interdependence will continue to stagnate, decline, or rise in the years to come. At the same time, with the remarkable erosion of the U.S. defense commitment to Seoul since 9/11, the second North Korean nuclear crisis has exposed fundamental differences between Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo, although it initially brought them together. Against the background of the populist leadership in Seoul and Tokyo, and Washington’s asymmetric commitments to South Korea and Japan, even the slightest pessimism about future economic interdependence could possibly spin the island dispute out of control.

V. Conclusion

This paper explored the puzzling pattern of continuity and mutual restraint in the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute between South Korea and Japan. The island dispute has unfolded in four repeated rounds of clashes since its inception in the early 1950s. Consistent with conventional wisdom, my research shows that the combination of resource competition, fluid geopolitics, and contending nationalisms has regularly resulted in the initiation and escalation of the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute. More importantly, the evidence provided in this paper indicates that the pacific influence of economic interdependence has repeatedly prevented the sovereignty question from escalating into a full-scale diplomatic crisis.

In one way or another, the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute has revolved around the contested maritime and fishing zones in the area, particularly after the advent of the UN Law of the Sea. The maritime boundary in the East Sea/Sea of Japan has yet to be settled, thereby leaving competition over the fishing and other maritime resources to catalyze future disputes over the Dokdo/Takeshima Islands.

From a broad geopolitical perspective, the Dokdo/Takeshima problem arose both directly and indirectly as a consequence of U.S. Cold War policy in Northeast Asia. On the one hand, as the architect of the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute, the U.S. has officially remained neutral on the sovereignty matter, but its hegemonic position has helped to ensure that the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute takes place within certain confines. To be sure, the common threat from North Korea (and rising China) has consolidated the security triangle among the U.S., South Korea, and Japan. On the other hand, the rapidly shifting security environment in the region, particularly in the post-Cold War and post-9-11 era, indicates that the role of the U.S. as an ultimate pacifier is increasingly eroding, although a complete U.S. withdrawal from the region is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future.

Furthermore, in a region where the balance of power is shifting because of the rise of China, the dispute over the Dokdo/Takeshima has significant regional repercussions. If South Korea-Japan relations become strained, an unintended consequence could be to bring South Korea and China together against Japan. This will in turn further motivate Japan to cement its security ties with the U.S., thereby heightening the strategic uncertainties in the region.

It is evident that the combination of competitive domestic politics and enduring rivalry between South Korea and Japan has repeatedly hijacked South Korea-Japan relations. To be sure, a return to the status quo that has left the sovereignty issue undefined is satisfactory neither to South Korean nor to Japanese nationalisms. Conservative politicians and nationalist groups on both sides have applied considerable pressure for more assertive territorial policies. Most recently, the abrasive diplomacy of Seoul and Tokyo under the respective leadership of President Roh Moo Hyun and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has made matters even worse. The Dokdo/Takeshima dispute might not immediately trigger any major conflicts between South Korea and Japan. Yet the accumulation of grievances and underlying nationalist sentiments could escalate minor quarrels, such as those involving fishing rights near the islands, into major conflicts.

On the bright side, however, greater common economic interests have moved the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute to the periphery of the overall South Korean-Japanese relationship thus far. In spite of the fact that the island dispute remains unresolved, both the South Korean and Japanese governments—particularly foreign policy experts thereof—have found it a convenient strategy to shelve the final resolution of the sovereignty question in order to promote more pressing economic affairs. The relationship between the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute and economic interdependence could be explosive, if the latter takes on highly asymmetric characteristics in the face of enduring rivalry and fluid geopolitics surrounding the Korean peninsula. Yet, as long as profitable economic opportunities continue for both sides, the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute is likely to be contained, if not terminated.

Figure 1. South Korea's Trade Dependence on Japan (1953-2004)

Figure 2. Japan's Trade Dependence on South Korea (1953-2004)

Endnotes

1. While there is historical evidence that the islands were occasionally visited by Japanese fishermen harvesting abalone and sea lions, Japan’s fundamental legal claim stems from February 22, 1905 when the government of Shimane Prefecture issued Notification Decree #40 which placed them under the administrative control of its local authorities in the Oki Islands. The prefecture’s decree was based on the Decision of Parliament (January 28, 1905) concerning the Territorial Incorporation of Takeshima which was claimed to be terra nullius—uninhabited land exhibiting no evidence of being in the possession of any other country (Kwan-sook Park, “Legal Status of ‘Dokdo’ Island,” Korea Observer 1: 3/4 (1969): pp. 79-80). In response, South Koreans lay their claim to the islands on earlier and more numerous precedents than Japan. They also complain that Japan took advantage of Korea’s political weakness vis-à-vis Japan in 1905, when the islands were registered as a part of Shimane Prefecture. As of 1905, Japan had already taken control of the foreign affairs of Korea via the Protectorate Treaty of 1905, the ratification of which had been forced on Korea by the Japanese delegation to the treaty negotiations led by Ito Hirobumi. For more details, see Mark Lovmo, “The Territorial Dispute over Dokdo” < http://www.geocities.com/mlovmo > (2002).
2. Choon-ho Park, “South Korea and the Law of the Sea,” in Choon-ho Park, East Asia and the Law of the Sea (Seoul: Seoul National University Press, 1983); Yong-Ha Sin, Korea’s Territorial Rights to Tokdo: An Historical Study (Seoul: Tokdo Research Association, 1997); Kimie Hara, “50 Years from San Francisco: Re-examining the Peace Treaty and Japan’s Territorial Problems,” Pacific Affairs 74: 3 (2001).
3. Paul Hensel, “An Evolutionary Approach to the Study of Interstate Rivalry,” Conflict Management and Peace Science 17: 2 (1999).
4. Jung-Hoon Lee, “Korean-Japanese Relations: The Past, Present and Future,” Korea Observer 21: 2 (1990); Sung-hwa Cheong, “The Political Use of Anti-Japanese Sentiment in Korea from 1948 to 1949,” Korea Journal 32: 4 (1992); Brian Bridges, Japan and Korea in the 1990s: From Antagonism to Adjustment (Bookfield: Edward Elgar, 1993); Hideki Kajimura, “The Question of Takeshima/Tokdo,” Korea Observer 28: 3 (1997); Andrew Mack, “Island Disputes in Northeast Asia,” Working Paper no. 1997/2 (Canberra: Australian National University, 1997); Dae Song Hyun, Postwar Korea-Japan Relationship and Territorial Dispute: Discourse of Tokdo Problem and Image in Korea, Ph.D. dissertation in Political Science (Tokyo: University of Tokyo, 2004).
5. Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: Random House, 1979); Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
6. Victor Cha, “Bridging the Gap: The Strategic Context of the 1965 Korea-Japan Normalization Treaty,” Korean Studies 20 (1996).
7. Youngshik Bong, Flashpoints at Sea? Legitimization Strategy and East Asian Island Disputes, Ph.D. dissertation in Political Science (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2002); Jennifer Lind, “Democratization and Stability in East Asia,” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, IL, September 2-5, 2004.
8. Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder, “Democratization and the Danger of War,” International Security 20: 1 (1995); Birger Heldt, “Domestic Politics, Absolute Deprivation, and the Use of Armed Force in Interstate Territorial Disputes, 1950-1990,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution 43: 4 (2003).
9. For more details about the theoretical foundation of liberal peace, see John R. Oneal and Bruce Russett, “The Kantian Peace: The Pacific Benefits of Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations, 1885-1992,” World Politics 52: 1 (1999): pp. 1-37.
10. Of the twenty works reviewed, one study found that ten support the liberal hypothesis; six produce mixed or conditional results; and four support the realist hypotheses (Susan McMillan, “Interdependence and Conflict,” Mershon International Studies Review 41: 1 (1997), pp. 33-58).
11. Norman Angell, The Great Illusion: A study of the Relation of Military Power in Nations to Their Economic and Social Advantage (New York: Putnam, 1910).
12. Richard Cooper, The Economic Interdependence: Economic Policy in the Atlantic Community (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968); Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977).
13. Richard N. Rosecrance, The Rise of the Trading State: Commerce and Conquest in the Modern World (New York: Basic Books, 1986).
14. Kenichi Ohmae, The Borderless World: Power and Strategies in the Interlinked Economy (New York: Harper Business, 1993).
15. Susan Strange, The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Richard Rosecrance, The Rise of the Virtual State: Wealth and Power in the Coming Century (New York: Basic Books, 2000).
16. Albert Hirschman, National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980 [1945]); Stanley Hoffman, “Rousseau on War and Peace,” American Political Science Review 57: 2 (1963): pp. 317-333.
17. Kenneth Waltz, “The Myth of Interdependence,” in Charles Kindleberger, ed., The International Corporation (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1970).
18. Joseph Grieco, Cooperation among Nations: Europe, America, and Non-tariff Barriers to Trade (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990); Joanne Gowa, Allies, Adversaries, and International Trade (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).
19. Gilpin (1981), p. 23.
20. There is no consensus on how best to measure economic interdependence, since there are at least three different channels of economic relations. First, early liberal thinkers emphasized international trade as a natural pacifier. Secondly, the mobility of capital is often linked to peace and conflict. Thirdly, international monetary relations based on exchange rate commitments may also be a source of economic interdependence. With regard to the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute, investment flows have either co-varied with trade flows, or remained very limited until recently. In addition, since the Korean won and the Japanese yen have been pegged to the U.S. dollar during most of the post-war period, their monetary interdependence at the bilateral level remains analytically insignificant.
21. Formally, Trade Dependence = (Imports_j + Exports_j) / GDP_i = Trade_j / GDP_j, where Trade_ij denotes bilateral trade between states i and j.
22. Elsewhere, I have also conducted a quantitative analysis of the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute during the period of 1953-2005, using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. The evidence found indicates that the mechanism of liberal peace has been strongly driven by South Korea’s trade dependence on Japan: the more dependent on Japan South Korea becomes for trade, the less likely the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute is to be initiated and escalated. For more details, see Min Gyo Koo, Scramble for the Rocks: The Disputes over the Dokdo/Takeshima, Senkaku/Diaoyu, and Paracel and Spratly Islands, Ph.D. dissertation in Political Science (Berkeley: University of California, 2005).
23. General Douglas MacArthur’s Directives to the Japanese Government, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers Instruction (SCAPIN) 1033, June 22, 1946. SCAPIN 677 of January 29, 1946 also detached the Dokdo/Takeshima from Japan. See Lovmo (2002).
24. As a result of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, the MacArthur Line was abolished on April 25, 1952. See Hara (2001), pp. 368-74.
25. Alan Day, Border and Territorial Disputes: A Keesing’s Reference Publication, Second Edition (Burnt Mill: Longman Group, 1987), pp. 338-39; Park (1983), pp. 143-44; Lovmo (2002).
26. Cha (1996), p. 127; Cheong (1992), pp. 89-91.
27. It was only with the restoration of Japanese sovereignty as a result of the San Francisco Treaty that formal contacts between South Korea and Japan began. The negotiations for normalization faced a rocky start from the first meeting held in February 1952 and were to continue for fourteen years and through seven official rounds of talks (Bridges 1993, pp. 9-10). During the first five official talks between 1952 and 1960, the question of Dokdo/Takeshima was discussed occasionally. Nevertheless, it was never placed on the official agenda because the issue was too thorny to risk getting close to.
28. Do Sung Lee, Sillok Pak Chong-hui wa Han-Il Hoedam, Seoul: Hansong (Park Chung Hee and Korea-Japan Treaty Negotiations: From 5-16 to Treaty Conclusion) (Seoul: Hansong, 1995), pp. 60-62.
29. Kajimura (1997), p. 465.
30. The diplomatic atmosphere between South Korea and Japan became dangerously charged with mutual suspicion when the Kim-Ohira memorandum was released in January 1963. It was rumored that Kim had agreed to give up South Korea’s sovereignty claim to the islands in return for Japan’s economic aid (The Korea Times, February 11, 1996).
31. Kim’s secretive diplomacy evoked the public’s fear of national sellout and sense of indignation, leading to nationwide demonstrations. In June 1964, Park had to declare martial law to control the ever deteriorating situation (Lee 1995, pp. 200-01). In Japan, the anti-normalization movement gained momentum, especially with the support of pro-Pyongyang Federation of Korean Residents in Japan, but was never beyond the government’s control. To some extent, Tokyo used domestic dissent as a diplomatic leverage to extract more concessions from Seoul (Lee 1995, pp. 60-62, 146-47).
32. By the mid-1960s, a stable relationship between America’s two major allies in East Asia—South Korea and Japan—became the highest priority to the U.S. owing to the growing geo-strategic uncertainties in the region, particularly in Indochina. See Cha (1996), pp. 131-34.
33. Yonhap News, June 20, 2004.
34. Cha (1996), pp. 128-29; Lee (1990), pp. 170-71.
35. Lee (1990), pp. 169-70.
36. Cha (1996), pp. 129-30.
37. Park (1983), pp. 146-47.
38. Hyun (2004), p. 78; J. R. V. Prescott, The Maritime Boundaries of the World (London and New York: Methuen, 1985): p. 242.
39. Kajimura (1997), pp. 471-73.
40. Bridges (1993), p. 13.
41. The World Bank, The World Development Indicators; The International Monetary Fund, Direction of Trade Statistics.
42. For instance, South Korea’s trade deficits with Japan in 1976 and 1977 ($1.3 billion and $1.8 billion, respectively) were even larger than its total trade deficits for the same period ($1.1 billion and $766 million, respectively).
43. In the 1980s, South Korea and Japan enjoyed the second economic honeymoon period, particularly under the respective leadership of General-turned-President Chun Doo Hwan (1980-88) and Prime Minister Yashiro Nakasone (1982-87), as indicated by rising trade dependence scores (Kong-dan Oh, Japan-Korea Rapprochement: A Study in Political, Cultural, and Economic Cooperation in the 1980s, Ph.D. Dissertation in Asian Studies (Berkeley: University of California, 1986)). As expected by liberal peace theory, the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute was effectively held at bay in spite of the simmering territorial nationalism at the mass level, particularly in South Korea.
44. Mack (1997), pp. 5-6; Bong (2002), pp. 101-02.
45. Bong (2002), pp. 122-23.
46. Japan Economic Newswire, February 9, 10, and 12, 1996.
47. The Washington Post, February 13, 1996.
48. Lind (2004), pp. 44-45.
49. The Economist, February 17, 1996.
50. On the diplomatic front, the 1996 U.S.-Japan Joint Declaration, for which South Korea was not consulted, complicated the island issue by increasing Kim Young Sam’s sense of diplomatic marginalization in the face of mounting uncertainties in the Korean peninsula due to the North Korean nuclear crisis. See Bong (2002), pp. 108-13.
51. Bong (2002), pp. 105-06, 130-32.
52. Ibid, pp. 142-47.
53. Ibid, p. 157.
54. Paul Midford and Shinya Mitsuhashi, “Japan and Korea: The Essential Irrelevance of History?” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, IL, September 2-5, 2004, pp. 4-6.
55. Chosun Ilbo, January 28, 2004.
56. The New York Times, January 27, 2004.
57. Asahi News, February 2, 2004.
58. South China Morning Post, February 4, 2004.
59. Mainichi Daily News, May 6, 2004; South China Morning Post, May 6, 2004.
60. Jung-Hoon Lee and Chung-in Moon, “The North Korean Nuclear Crisis Revisited: The Case for a Negotiated Settlement,” Security Dialogue 34: 2 (2003), pp. 135-51; Chung Min Lee, “Rethinking Future Paths on the Korean Peninsula,” Pacific Review 17: 2 (2004), pp. 249-70.
61. Asahi News, December 10, 2002; Japan Economic Newswire, May 22, 2004.
62. See Min Gyo Koo, “From Multilateralism to Bilateralism? A Shift in South Korea’s Trade Strategy,” in Vinod Aggarwal and Shujiro Urata, eds., Bilateral Trade Arrangements in the Asia-Pacific: Origins, Evolution, and Implications (New York: Routledge, 2005).
63. Yonhap News, February 24, 2005. To add insult to injury, the Japanese ambassador to Seoul claimed that “Takeshima is historically and legally Japanese territory” at a press conference in Seoul (BBC Monitoring International Reports, February 24, 2005). Furthermore, old history textbook issues aggravated the territorial dispute, as Tokyo officially approved the revisions of the New History Textbook in April 2005 (Chosun Ilbo, April 6, 2005).
64. The Korea Herald, May 7, 2004.
65. Chosun Ilbo, March 23, 2005.