The Marmot’s Hole

Thanks to some Kennedy-esque diplomacy on the part of Roh administration, mankind was narrowly saved from imminent disaster when Japan withdrew its plan to conduct a seabed survey in the waters around Dokdo:

Japan has dropped its maritime survey plan in South Korean economic waters under an agreement to defuse a tense standoff with South Korea on Saturday.
Japan’s two coast guard ships awaiting orders for a survey of the ocean bed near Dokdo, South Korea’s eastern most islets, returned to Tokyo on Sunday morning after a week lingering off the port of Sakiaminato, southwestern Japan.
South Korea lifted the alert for its coast guard, which had been on full alert around the islets backed by gun boats and maritime patrol aircraft, according to the Korea Coast Guard.

Seoul did make a concession by agreeing to remove missiles from Turkey postpone the registration of Korean names for the seabed topography:

Under Saturday’s breakthrough, South Korea made a concession to Tokyo’s demand not to push for the registration of Korean names for seabed topography near the Dokdo islets, which are also claimed by Tokyo, at an international ocean-mapping conference to be held in June in Germany.
Wrapping up two days of marathon talks with his Japanese counterpart, Yu Myung-hwan, vice foreign minister, told reporters that South Korea would submit naming proposals “at an appropriate time” after necessary preparations had been made.
Yu, however, did not make an explicit announcement that it would not put forward naming proposals at a sub-committee meeting of the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) in June. But Japanese media quoted Japanese negotiators as saying that the “appropriate time” is not the June conference.
Currently, the Japanese name “Tsushima” is used internationally for the underwater features. Japan registered its own name for the seafloor near Dokdo with the IHO in 1978.

The two sides also agreed to resume talks on delineating the East Sea EEZ:

The two sides also agreed to hold more working-level talks on demarcating their sea boundaries as early as next month given the recent incident happened because the borders of their exclusive economic zones (EEZs) have not yet been clearly defined, foreign ministry officials said.
“If this problem would continue unresolved, some unanticipated contingency could have occurred, but it was good that we could avoid it,” Japanese Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs Shotaro Yachi, Japan’s lead negotiator, was quoted as saying by Japan’s Jiji news agency.
Seoul and Tokyo had four rounds of inconclusive negotiations on EEZs between 1996 to 2000. As a tentative alternative, they signed an agreement in 1998 to operate a joint fishing area in the vicinity of Dokdo, called “Takeshima” in Japanese.

While I doubt we’ll see an anti-Koizumi coup ala Khrushchev, the Kookmin Ilbo reports that 2Channel is seething with the indignation of Japanese netizens apparently pissed off at their own Foreign Ministry. At least in the view of the Kookmin Ilbo, netizen opinion on the other side of the East Sea is that Japan was defeated yet again.
The Japanese media, on the other hand, sensed, if not a knockout, than at least a win by decision, according to the Segye Ilbo. After all, they got Korea to postpone the registration of Korean names for the seabed topography, which is fortunate, since according to the paper, Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Yachi Shotaro was under orders—from Chief Cabinet Secretary Abe Shinzo—to take his ball and bat and head home if he couldn’t get the Koreans to agree to it. Anyway, this piece in the Yomuiri Shimbun seemed to put a positive spin on things.
Oh, and I’m not going to comment much on this other than a) I was impressed with some of the moves; and b) especially given the current political climate, it’s probably best not to make light of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in front of the Japanese ambassador. Unless, of course, you want Japanese hosts making cracks about the comfort women in front of Korean ambassador to Japan Ra Jong-il.