An SNU professor said Japan is counting on U.S. support to steal Dokdo from Korea:
A leading expert on the territorial niceties surrounding the Dokdo islets has suggested the Japanese government is trying to exploit a widening rift in the Korea-U.S. alliance to wrest control of the rocks from Korea. Shin Yong-ha, an honorary professor at Seoul National University, on Thursday told a seminar, “The Junichiro Koizumi administration in Japan is trying to dispossess South Korea of Dokdo when the right time comes, thinking it has the steadfast support of the U.S.” Shin added the U.S. inclined to support Japan more than Korea in the controversy. The seminar was organized by the Peace Forum for North East Asia in the 21 century.
And as we all know, the evil Yank bastards have been plotting to give Dokdo to the Japanese for some time.
Anyway, said Shin:
“The CIA seems to support Japan in this matter,” Shin said. “All U.S. policies related to military strategy support Japan.” The professor charged Japan can do as it pleases because the U.S. is only interested in a hegemonic “pax Americana” under the leadership of the U.S. He said Korea “has trusted the U.S. too much,” and stressed the need to make Washington change its Northeast Asia policy.
OK, if you say so.
Luckily, as the balancer of Northeast Asia, Korea should be able to thwart Washington’s sinister plot to dominate Asia with the help of its dastardly Japanese henchman.
24 Comments
Holy shit. Can just any ill-informed crackpot walk off the street and become an honorary SNU professor?
What next: The Shelton Bumgarner Endowed Chair of Literary Journalism? The Mahatir_fan Academy of Post-colonial Development Theory and Korean Studies? The Guru Pawigirogi Institute of Universal Love and Understanding?
What the hell does Dokdo have to do with U.S. military strategy in Asia? I guess this guy felt that, upon the release of information from 30 years ago, now would be a timely opportunity to kick up another fuss? And at the “Peace Forum for Northeast Asia”? Christ!
SNU, Korea’s number one university.
Slim & Iceberg,
Hey, the guy did not just pull those conclusions out of this ass; he based them on solid evidence. Afterall, the CIA “World Factbook” does say the following:
But his conclusion, based on that factual CIA statement, was that there is some Japan plot to grab Dokdo with U.S. connivance. Shame on the Chosun for making a story of watercooler theorizing. Where is the adult supervision/bullshit detector/quality control in the Korean media?
Where is the adult supervision/bullshit detector/quality control in Korean society?
I was being sarcastic, Slim.
Well, if this professor Shin doesn’t like “Pax-America”, go over the demarcation line to the north and join Pax-China.
Don’t take family members, though. I don’t want to see young ones starving to death.
Give the stupid rocks to Japan if land-grabbing asshos want them. However, don’t try to take the country to the Pax-China side because of small things.
See the big picture. Korea has bigger things to worry about.
I think it was this website that i followed the link to which said that during the Japanese surrender to the US after WWII, Dokdo would remain with Japan according to the treaty. Isn’t this why it is believed that US would support Japan in this issue?
The US did many objectionable acts after WWII. For example, it deported many of Hitler’s scientists back to the US in return for their transfer of knowledgeand received lesser treatments to outright pardons. The same thing happened with the Japanese surrender for example the transfer of knowledge from Unit 731 which conducted live human biological experiements.
But the treaty between Japan and the US is not valid because it did not involve Korea’s signature. It is an unequal treaty even in the most legitimate sense and at most merely indicated support from the US. The words on ownership is not final. If it were, then Hong Kong Island should technically still belong to the British.
The US in many cases are just self serving. For example, for decades they recognized the ROC as the legitimate government of China. But after they smelt that Sino-Russian ties are broken, they began to shift alliance to support the PRC. It would not be suprising that US policy on Dokdo will be another self serving foreign policy attempt.
I sure hope so. It would be a change of pace from serving Korea’s interests.
Just ignore him.
That shit was HILARIOUS! The Korean everyone-is-out-to-get-us mindset, combined with the typical idiocy seen in tenured university professors, and the result is — logically! — a conclusion that the US is secretly siding with Japan to conquer the oil-rich (and don’t forget the fishing rights!) islands of Dokto!
I’m not surprised about this lunatic professor considering the absolute mess of political posters and trash strewn about on the SNU campus. Such tells one that SNU is not a place of any quality — no class, taste or depth of thought. I just do not understand allowing a major university to look like a recycling trash heap, not to mention this sort of nonsense.
I must agree with Curzon too; this fellows rant is pure paranoia.
What the heck is an “honorary professor?” Either you are a prof or you aren’t. My BS detector is going off about the “honorary professor’s/expert’s” credentials but who knows.
hmmm…American foreign policy is “self serving”? Was I naive to assume that the express purpose of the US govt was to support and service the Great Republic of Korea?
Fortunately for Korea the Dokdo Riders will be back in nine months to fix this mess.
I’m shocked the guy found out about the secret plan. I just hope he hasn’t found out that the CIA has been running South Korea since 1945. Oops, forget I said that.
Mizar5,
To be honest, I have only been to south Korea less than 10 days in total. So I don’t know much. That’s good and bad. Bad for the obvious, but good because it is a 10000 foot level view of the big picture. I have seen photos of Panmunjeom, and I saw no South Korean flags, only UN flags. That is a disturbing photograph. I see the DMZ zone still being patrolled like war could erupt at any time when the war has ended since the 1950s. It is again a disturbing picture. But let me get back to your comment. I think US foreign policy is self serving. I posted this before and I am cutting and pasting:
I had always questioned if there were hidden intentions. For example, last year, the US military sent strategies to scare Malaysians about the rampant pirate attacks happening on the straits of Malacca. They said it was very important for us to deal with these pirates which were a threat to our security.
We got so scared by all the statistics, we were literally pee-ing under our pants.
Then, the US military said, that they were willing to HELP US by sending in their troops into the straits of malacca to help us deal with the pirates.
WOW! How generous. I always knew the Americans of being generous. Of course there were Malaysian sceptics. 20 years of Mahathirism help created these sceptics who think that the US military are concealing their true intentions of spreading their naval power into South East Asia and using piracy as a pretext to enter the region.
But most of us believe what the American s told us. We believe in the generousity that American military is willing to spend billions and billions of dollars to send in their naval armada into our straits of malacca to help us fight these pirates.
But in our hearts, we felt uneasy accepting such a big gift. So at the last minute, we proposed to scale down the gift. Instead of the Americans sending in their naval armada, let’s just have them send us their radar equipments. That way, our own Malaysian Navy can do the job of fighting the pirates and we can use their radar equipment to locate those pirates. This would cost the Americans far less money and the objective would still be achived. Like they say, don’t give a hungry man fish, because he will be hungry the next day and he will need to come to you again. Instead teach him how to fish.
We haven’t heard back from the Americans since.
So basically you told the U.S. to give, give, give, and then get the fuck away from you, right?
Of course, I’ve never been to Malaysia, so I’m just looking at the big picture.
(By the way, are you familiar with the term “armistice”?)
iceberg,
No. Malaysians have never in our history asked the US for anything. Even during the Asian Financial Crisis, we NEVER asked the IMF for any assistance.It was the IMF that came to us, and we outright rejected their aid.
In the Straits of Malacca, it was the US that came to us FIRST and offer to help us by sending in their troops. We merely scaled back their orginal offer of help and told them to just send equipments because it is cheaper.
The question you need to ask is, why did they come to us FIRST and offer us help yet when we decided to accept it by scaling down the offer, we were snubbed? It suggests that there were concealed intentions.
Yes, I am familiar with the term armistice, but have you heard of the term “statute of limitations”. The Korean War is a relic. The situation in Korea today is no more dangerous than border skirmishes between hostile nations that share common borders eg. Pakistan-India.
Uh, Mahathir_fan, the US military used scare tactics to scare the Malaysians to act? Somehow I don’t think 300 pirate attacks in 99, 469 in 2000 and 365 in 01 are merely a scare tactic. How about this idea? The US military told Malaysia to start doing something, anything to try to stop it? And they offered their ’services’. You seem so surprised that the US acts in its own interests. Whose interests does South Korea act in, besides South Korea’s? Or Malaysia’s or anyone else’s for that matter?
Oh no… not Shin Yongha.
“Somehow I don’t think 300 pirate attacks in 99, 469 in 2000 and 365 in 01 are merely a scare tactic. How about this idea? ”
No, we do have a pirate problem. However, the United States should also have been frank and tell us that they wanted to help us but in return they wish to expand their naval influences into the region, PERPERTUALLY.
But they concealed that latter part. The whole assistance offer was prep up like a charity gift to Malaysia. A fight of good vs. evil with no ulterior motives. It was exposed when we asked them to send radars to us which is more cost effective instead of spending billions of dollars relocating their naval armada into the region.
Sending or loaning us radar equipment will also not put any American soldiers in harms way. We are know what happened when inexperience US soldiers get in trouble. Then our Malaysian navy will have to be called on to save their asses. This happened in Somalia about 14 years ago, when American black hawk helicopters were shot down over at Mogadishu. Our Malaysian UN Peace keeping forces who happened to be there had to risk their lives to go in and rescue those soldiers. Now, if US ships get in trouble at the straits of malacca, who do you think have to go and rescue them out? Us! So let us take care of it but help us by loaning equipment.
Thank god the Malaysian military is around to maintain world order. Maybe they can team up with the Dokdo Riders.
mahathir_fan, is it bad to have the U.S. military around? I mean are they going to steal your wallet or something? Did they try to kiss your sister?
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