China-Japan and Japan-S. Korea relations: S. Korean lawmakers visit Japanese-claimed islets

SEOUL (Kyodo) — A group of South Korean lawmakers on Tuesday visited a pair of remote islets in the Sea of Japan that are at the center of a territorial dispute with Japan, a parliamentary source said.

The 15 lawmakers, all members of the parliament’s National Defense Committee, arrived by helicopter on the South Korean-controlled isles, known as Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan, for an inspection.

The visit to the islets, claimed by Tokyo, was the third by members of the National Defense Committee, following those in 2005 and 2008.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said at a press conference later Tuesday that the visit was “very regrettable.”

Fujimura, the government’s top spokesman, said Japan lodged a strong protest with the South Korean government over the matter.

Vice Foreign Minister Chikao Kawai lodged the protest with South Korean Ambassador to Japan Shin Kak Soo, calling the landing “extremely regrettable,” according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.

The territorial dispute between Japan and South Korea escalated last August when President Lee Myung Bak paid a visit to the islets, the first South Korean president to do so.

South Korea opened the sparsely populated islets, about 217 kilometers from mainland Korea, to the public in 2005, and Lee’s unprecedented visit there sparked a sharp rise in the number of visitors.

According to South Korean authorities, more than 200,000 people have visited the isles so far this year, compared with 180,000 for the whole of last year.

The Ulleung County government, which administers the disputed islets, said 1,695 people visited them on Sunday, bringing the total for this year to 200,366.

This is the first time that the number of visitors to Dokdo has topped 200,000 in a single year.

Kyodo Press, October 23, 2012
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20121023p2g00m0dm061000c.html

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 China-Japan and Japan-S. Korea relations: Japanese and Chinese vice foreign ministers to hold talks in Japan next week

The Japanese and Chinese vice foreign ministers are expected to hold talks in Japan next week to improve bilateral relations strained over the disputed Senkaku Islands.

The governments are negotiating to arrange a meeting between Administrative Vice Foreign Minister Chikao Kawai and his Chinese counterpart Zhang Zhijun in Japan sometime next week — the third meeting between Zhang and Kawai after two held in China over the past month.

Kawai visited China on Sept. 25 at the request of Beijing for the first meeting with Zhang since Japan nationalized the Senkaku Islands. Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi remained at odds over the sovereignty of the Senkaku Islands during a meeting in New York on the same day, but agreed to communicate with each other through various channels.

At director general-level consultations in Tokyo on Oct. 11, the two countries agreed to go ahead with the second vice ministerial meeting.

In accordance with the customary practice of holding bilateral vice ministerial talks alternately in the countries involved, Japan proposed to hold the second meeting in Japan. China, however, asked Kawai to visit China for the next talks, bilateral diplomatic sources said.

Tokyo, which wanted to make sure to guide proceedings to a visit by Zhang to Japan for the following meeting, compromised with Beijing. Both countries agreed at the time to keep Kawai’s visit to China for the second meeting a secret.

However, a Chinese paper reported Kawai’s visit to Shanghai over the weekend in its Oct. 23 edition.

Mainichi Shimbun, October 25, 2012
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20121025p2a00m0na011000c.html

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 China-Japan and Japan-S. Korea relations: Seoul demands Google reverse revision naming Japan-claimed islets Liancourt Rocks

SEOUL – South Korea said Thursday it has demanded that Internet search giant Google Inc. reverse its decision to remove the Korean name for a pair of disputed islets in the Sea of Japan from its English – and Japanese –language maps.

“We have conveyed to Google through our foreign mission that its new system is not acceptable to us and should be reversed,” South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Tai Young said in a news briefing.

Cho said the demand was made immediately after Google notified South Korea last week of its decision to remove the Korean name for the islets, Dokdo, from its English – and Japanese-language maps. Japan claims the South-held islets and calls them Takeshima.

Until recently, if a user typed “Dokdo” in English or Korean on Google’s English-language map site, the islets appeared as well as their address in South Korea.

However, the islets are now listed as the “Liancourt Rocks” on the English site without any accompanying address. The Franco-English name derives from Le Liancourt, a French whaling ship that nearly ran aground on the islets in 1849.

According to the JoongAng Daily, in the latest version of Google maps, each map site labels the disputed islets depending on which country’s map is used, hence South Korea’s site calls them Dokdo and the Japanese site calls them Takeshima.

Google is also applying this naming convention to three other disputed areas: the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands claimed by China, the Persian Gulf or Arabian Gulf, and the Sea of Japan, which is called the East Sea in South Korea, the daily said.

Kyodo press, October 26, 2012
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20121026a4.html

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 China-Japan and Japan-S. Korea relations: Chinese patrol vessels test ’authority’ near Senkakus

NAHA, Okinawa Pref. – Chinese surveillance vessels on Thursday entered Japan’s territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands for the first time in three weeks, the Japan Coast Guard said.

The government lodged a “strong protest” over the intrusion with China through diplomatic channels.

Three Chinese surveillance vessels moved into the waters near Minamikojima, one of the five main islets in the Senkaku group, at around 6:30 a.m., the coast guard said. About an hour later, another surveillance vessel entered the territorial waters, according to the 11^th Regional Coast Guard Headquarters in Naha, Okinawa Prefecture.

A patrol boat warned the vessels to leave, but one replied via radio that the area “is China’s,” the coast guard said.

It is the first time since Oct. 3 that Chinese surveillance vessels have entered Japan’s territorial waters around the islets, known as Diaoyu in China, which claims them as its territory.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said the ships were conducting a “regular patrol for maintaining authority” and a “normal official activity that asserted (China’s) jurisdiction.”

The four surveillance ships had moved close to the Japanese contiguous zone every day since Saturday but did not enter it.

Kyodo Press, October 26, 2012
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20121026a3.html

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 China-Japan and Japan-S. Korea relations: Japan to defer taking isles dispute with S. Korea to int’l court

TOKYO (Kyodo) — The Japanese government began making arrangements on Friday to defer unilaterally taking a territorial dispute over a pair of South Korean-controlled islets in the Sea of Japan to the International Court of Justice at least until November, government sources said.

The matter is being deferred because there have been signs of an improvement in bilateral ties, including a meeting in New York in late September between the foreign ministers of the two countries, a high-level government official said.

Following South Korean President Lee Myung Bak’s trip to the islands in August, the first by a South Korean president, Japan was preparing to unilaterally lodge a case with the court in The Hague by the end of October.

The Japanese government appears to be thinking it would be unwise to wage two battles simultaneously, as Japan and China are also embroiled in a dispute over a set of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea. Tokyo appears concerned that bringing the territorial dispute with South Korea to the U.N. court would certainly aggravate ties between Japan and South Korea.

“There is no change in our policy to take the case to the ICJ unilaterally. We will just pick the most effective timing,” a senior Foreign Ministry official said, suggesting that Japan intends to keep the ICJ card in hand to put pressure on South Korea over the dispute.

Yet even if the case is brought to the court, it is unlikely to be heard because the ICJ requires the consent of both parties to a dispute to open deliberations. Seoul has rejected the idea of resolving the case through the court.

Meanwhile, there have been moves within the Japanese government to seek a meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and South Korea’s Lee on the sidelines of the Asia-Europe Meeting in Laos in early November or an ASEAN-related summit meeting in Cambodia in mid-November.

The Japanese government was initially considering bringing the case to the ICJ as soon as possible for fear that if the move were made close to South Korea’s presidential election in mid-December, it would fan anti-Japanese rhetoric among presidential candidates, according to the sources.

By bringing the matter to the ICJ, Tokyo hopes to demonstrate to the international community that the South Korean-controlled islands are Japan’s inherent territory and that it is important to resolve disputes in accordance with international law.

The planned deferment is also partly due to a delay in preparing documents necessary to bring the case to the court, according to the sources.

Following Lee’s Aug. 10 visit to the disputed islands, which are called Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea, Tokyo proposed to Seoul the two countries jointly bring the case to the ICJ to resolve the dispute. But South Korea has rejected the offer.

In 1905, Japan incorporated the pair of islands into its territory as part of Shimane Prefecture. South Korea has kept security personnel on the pair of islands since 1954.

Japan has proposed to the South Korean government in 1954 and 1962 that they take the dispute to the ICJ, but Seoul rejected the offer both times.

Kyodo Press, October 27, 2012
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20121027p2g00m0dm010000c.html

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