Excerpt: “Dokdo was territory included in, and/or adjunct to, the areas “acquired” by the United States, and thus under the jurisdiction of US military authorities. As un-demarcated territory under the terms of the treaty, at the present time Dokdo is still subject to the jurisdiction of the United States Military Government (USMG). Although Dokdo has no native population, there are Korean troops there now. Under the SFPT, these personnel would be considered a subordinate occupying power. This is “agency.” USMG is the principal. The Korean troops are the agent…
The territorial clause of the US Constitution says: “The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States…. ” Hence, under the provisions of the SFPT for (1) limbo cessions (such as the Kuriles, Spratly Islands, Taiwan, etc.) or for (2) un-demarcated territory , it is clear that the title to the territory escheats to “the conqueror,” which in the post-Napoleonic period is “the principal occupying power.” This is ownership in the sense of “having legal right to,” or “having title to,” however, it is more properly delineated as a kind of “quasi-trusteeship.” Hence, Korean government officials should be petitioning the US Congress to make final disposition of this “property” held under USMG, and subject to the jurisdiction of the US Congress under the territorial clause of the US Constitution.”

Since the US probably has the best claim of all three parties over Dokdo, perhaps LMB should have considered formally petitioning the US for rights to the island in exchange for the beef deal.

The analogy of Michigan and Pennsylvania petitioning the federal government to annex Quebec is not entirely an apples-to-apples one as the issues here are considerably more complex and less clear cut, and there are other examples that better fit the case.

The Island of Palmas (off the Phillipine coast) was disputed between the United States and the Netherlands, and the US lost the petition before the Court of Arbitration, referenced here:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/.....japan2.pdf

However, it is considered unlikely that Japan and SK will do the same. Why? It appears to better serve both their interests to just keep the matter going ad infinitim.

So what we have is a portion of Japan (Shimane prefecture) wanting the central Japanese government to take an aggressive claim over the land that is currently being occupied by another country. While the discussion is technically internal, the subject at hand is international.

How would Canada feel if Michigan and Pennsylvania petition the federal government to annex Quebec? Sure, it’s just conversation between state government and the federal government, but the subject at hand is… not quite exclusive to United States.

It’s like my roommates having a discussion in front of me about whether to steal my rice or not. “What? We’re just having a talk between friends.”

My position on this issue is that vast majority of the Japanese population can’t give a flying fuck, and the Japanese equivalent of West Virginia is what’s making the ruckus. This ruckus, while laughably tiny, is amplified by Korean politicians in huge political troubles and fed to the Korean population. The Korean population, with their eyes and ears covered up by the gov’t/”journalists”, is led to believe that those morons in black vans represent what the Japanese actually thinks. And who can blame them? Every fucking ‘reliable’ sources in Korean language are leading them to that conclusion. In my view, there are two groups of assholes on the east and west of the East Sea of Japan.

My solution? Build an actual journalism college.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp.....223a3.html

‘Takeshima Day,’ rhetoric just Shimane affair
By ERIC JOHNSTON

MATSUE, Shimane Pref. — Shimane Prefecture on Wednesday celebrated its first “Takeshima Day” by declaring that the tiny islets controlled by South Korea are part of Japan and calling on the government to pressure Seoul to hand them over.

Shimane Gov. Nobuyoshi Sumita speaks to reporters at the prefectural headquarters.

Central government officials were conspicuously absent from Wednesday’s event, however, in order to avoid straining ties further with Seoul.

“Takeshima has been occupied by South Korea for more than 50 years. In the past, we tried to get the rest of Japan to pay attention to the problem, but had no luck. Last year’s prefectural resolution to create ‘Takeshima Day’ has successfully raised the profile of the issue nationally,” Shimane Gov. Nobuyoshi Sumita said in his opening remarks to a forum on the dispute’s history.

Last March, the prefecture declared Feb. 22 “Takeshima Day.” That date in 1905 was when Japan forced Korea to cede the islets to Shimane.

Security was tight Wednesday afternoon in downtown Matsue, but the streets were quiet. There were no prominent posters or banners heralding “Takeshima Day” and no rightwing sound trucks drove around demanding the islets’ return.

A few protesters from South Korea showed up in front of the prefectural office in the morning, holding up signs declaring that Dokdo belongs to South Korea.

About 250 people, including representatives from local fishing unions as well as town assembly members from the Oki Islands, administered by Shimane Prefecture, attended the afternoon forum on the contentious issue.

Sumita called on the central government to pressure South Korea on Takeshima, which the South calls Dokdo, echoing calls from Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe earlier this week for both sides to take a cool-headed approach to resolve the issue.

Diet members representing the prefecture and Foreign Ministry officials had received official invitations to attend Wednesday’s forum, but declined, citing the delicate nature of the problem.

“We have to study the historical facts without nationalistic sentiments on either side,” Sumita said.

Tsuyoshi Kurai, head of the prefectural assembly, was more blunt, calling South Korea’s control of the islets illegal and urging Japanese diplomats to increase the pressure on Seoul.

The islets are about 50 nautical miles east of South Korea’s Ullung Island and about 90 nautical miles northwest of the Oki Islands. Tokyo and Seoul have argued over the islets for the past century.

However, it was the decision taken by the late South Korean President Syngman Rhee in the 1950s that led to the current dispute.

On Jan. 28, 1952, in the period shortly after the San Francisco Peace Treaty was signed and before it was ratified, Rhee declared South Korean sovereignty over an area of the Sea of Japan where the islets are located and took control of them.

The islets was discussed during the peace treaty negotiations, but their status was not established. Japan protested Rhee’s move, but the issue has remained unresolved, with the occasional political flareup.

At Wednesday’s forum, Masao Shimojo, professor at Takushoku University who has written extensively on the dispute for the prefecture, said one reason row has not been resolved is the Japanese public’s lack of knowledge about the issue.

Shimojo’s views on history have appeared on the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform’s Web site. It was this group that published a textbook downplaying Japan’s wartime atrocities, which sparked angry protests in South Korea and China when it was approved for use in public schools.

“But the reason why the Takeshima problem still festers is because there has been no real dialogue with South Korea,” Shimojo said. “When Japan says something, South Korea responds with emotional, angry words. So to tell South Korea, as Japan does in negotiations, that historically, Takeshima is Japan’s, or that international law is on Japan’s side simply doesn’t work.”

In Shimojo’s view, Takeshima was legally incorporated into Japan in 1905, when the Korean government signed a treaty giving them to Japan.

The deal was struck when Korea was under Japanese control. Seoul’s position is that the government at the time signed the treaty against its will.

Nonsense. I have supported my position in posts on this and the “And I Thought We Weren’t Going to See Much of Dokdo This Year” threads. While you may not have noticed them, it is improper to state that I did not support my claim.

To summarize, I explained how “Takeshima Day was established by the government of Shimane Prefecture in response to angry fishermen protesting against being excluded from fishing around Takeshima/Dokdo islands to encourage the central government to take stronger steps to ensure Japanese sovereignty of the island. The Japanese central government did not want Shimane Prefecture to declare Takeshima Day as the central government wanted to take a low key approach…Japan’s central government tried to get the Shimane Prefecture to give up plans to pass the legislation. Both sides say they are keen to avoid the dispute hurting wider relations between the countries.”

In other words, this was an internal discussion, not a national action expressly intended to provoke Korea.

I also discussed the 1965 Treaty, in which the 2 nations agreed to disagree on the issue, and showed instances, such as the one above, in which Japan has attempted to keep things quiet in the interests of that agreement, while Korea has to the contrary been vociferous and provocative. In contrast, I have illustrated some of Korea’s attempts at international provocation, including the 2004 stamp issue which reached beyond Korean borders.

With regard to a textbook used in a Japanese classroom, this is arguably an internal matter, as, as Korean schools already teach its version of the issue, it would appear to be the pot calling the kettle black. Let’s at least be honest about it.

What is dishonest about my interlocutors, (excepting yourself, as you probably didn’t follow me like a hawk as they did, and thus possibly just didn’t see my prior explanations, I honestly acknowledged and responded to others’ statements in explaining my positions. However, my own arguments were simply not acknowledged as having been made. Very poor.

Now, you may disagree with my assessments and they may actually be incorrect, but to summarilydismiss them without directly refutating them is not a proper argument. In fact, the counter arguments I have seen to date are essentially red herring comments such as the one that the stamps portrayed “menacing birds”, V8’s comment that: “So its Koreas fault that they are reacting to something the Japanese started” sans any evidence to support the supposition, and ad hominem arguments about prejudice blinding my judgement” when in fact, I have assiduously avoided taking any position on the issue and am neutral on the issue.

Now I realize it seems petty to call for honesty over rhetoric, but that is the kernal of my position on the issue itself. I believe, as you do, that the Korean dialog concerning Dokdo is, as you have characterized it, “overreaction” and overblown rhetoric. Whether I can empathize with them or not is irrelevent. I am simply attempting to hold them to consistent standards of honesty and effective debate.

Mizar5, you have to admit you are being excessively subtle in your refutation of the argument concerning your claim:

“the pattern has been that it is Korea, not Japan, that periodically creates a diplomatic confrontation over Dokdo by overreacting to strictly internal Japanese events.”

because the challenge has been concerning the definition of ‘internal Japanese events.’

The argument was basically, how is it an internal Japanese event when it concerns territories occupied by another state? In which you responded… truism and contextomy (btw… really? you couldn’t have typed ‘out of context’ instead?) without explaining as to how that’s so. If this was a debate round, you just lost that argument on the ground that you failed to expand on your claim.

Now just explain how the issue is an internal event when it concerns territories occupied by another nation? A little more than ‘truism’ and ‘contextomy’ would be helpful.

I get it. You are frustrated. You feel you have a real point and yet you can’t seem to defend it in a logically persuasive way.

You are at a loss for a response to the categorical refutation of your arguments, and so you raise your voice, metaphorically speaking, to defend your views against the incomprehensible, ie. argumentum ad baculum, or argument from force, or verbal bullying.

In such instances, I would council patience. it is often helpful to step back from your own conceptual framework and consider the merits of the other viewpoint before responding. That’s what I do, and in the process, I learn thigs about an issue that my own framework could not formerly have accomodated.

This requires a willingness to be open to the facets and logical inferences, a willingness to move beyond the old strategies that aren’t working, namely, cherry picking, and bombast in an attempt to win over your opponent to your own narrowly defined position through verbal bullying.

This is the very approach that Korean protestors resort to that so thoroughly undermines their credibility on a host of issues, including Dokdo, and that is the marrow of my argument.

The fact is, If the Korean contingent were willing to approach the issue with any degree of dispassion and intellectual honesty, they would already have won the day, so to speak in terms of their persuasive or soft power. Instead they resort to argument by means of the rod, and what Korean society doesn’t comprehend is the extent to which it invites derision.

By acting precisely as you do in this thread, like a mindless, faceless mob, parroting conventional pieties and working titself into a frenzy out of sheer frustration, reasoning is replaced by force, which results in the termination of logical argumentation.

This not only fails as a form of persuasion, but perpetrates confusion and misunderstanding by eliciting other kinds of behavior such as fear, anger, reciprocal use of force, etc. This, in a nutshell, is the singlemost hindrance to dialogue both within Korean society and with outside parties. After all, how can Korea expect to carry on an effective diplomatic policy when it cannot even carry on a functional civil discourse within its own social and academic institutions?

With regard to your questions, all your substantive arguments were categorically addressed in this thread if you will put in the time and effort to understand them. There is no shame in abandoning a partisan contextual framework to examine the facts of an issue at length. It in fact strengthens and empowers you.

I wish you every success in working through the issue.

But you cannot expect interlocutors to accept intellectual laziness, so do not entreat them to repeat that which you either did not read the first time or take the time to comprehend.

My parting advise for you, pearls before swine if you will, is this: If you seek meaninful exchange, bear in mind that people worth engaging have better things to do than respond to empty rhetoric.

“Bald assertion? Contextomy? That’s “an excellent job of correcting.””

Gentle reader, I know what you are thinking: “How is it that Mizar5 knows precisely the strings to pull that can cause his little sock puppets to enact the behaviors he would otherwise need to illustrate himself in support of his arguments?”

But no, it isn’t genious, but sloth. When the standards of discussion are so reliably abysmal, one need only sit back and watch the obtuse kneejerkers explode in apoplectic rage.”

There you go again. Attacks on the writer without addressing, answering or countering his arguments. Youre full of hot air. Attacking me doesnt accomplish much if you do not even attempt to answer my questions.

So how is Japan declaring soverign Korean territory as their own a Japanese internal issue? Please explain your logic in detail. I cannot even begin to understand what kind of warped ideas you have on this issue.