Category: Dokdo Madness

This Japanese lawmaker is an outcast within Japanese politics because he has made past statements about going to war with Russia over the Kuril Islands which Russia has occupied since the end of World War II. However, stupid comments like this are a gift to the anti-Japan leftists in South Korea:

Japanese lawmaker Hodaka Maruyama caused a sensation on social media after he recommended Saturday to go to war to claim the Dokdo islets as Japan’s.

“Takeshima, the territory unique to Japan, is occupied by illegal occupants,” he wrote on his Twitter account on Saturday, using the Japanese name for the islets. “How do you get it back by means other than eliminating illegal occupiers by dispatching the Self-Defense Forces in various contingencies?” 

Maruyama wrote the post after a group of Korean lawmakers visited the islets on Saturday. Six lawmakers, including three from the ruling Democratic Party, visited Dokdo and criticized the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games for marking the islets as Japanese territory on its website. 

Korea effectively controls Dokdo, an islet in the East Sea also referred to as Liancourt Rocks, and maintains that there is no territorial dispute as it is Korean territory, historically, geographically and under international law. Japan also claims Dokdo as its territory.

“Look to this lawmaker Maruyama,” wrote a Korean user on Twitter on Sunday. “He thinks that Japan can claim Dokdo by going to war. Remember what it was like back in 1592 – they said there will be no war between Korea and Japan, yet there was. We have to be prepared for war now.”

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but I always find it amazing how the news media uses random Twitter messages as some kind of justification of what public sentiment is on issues.

#ROK governing party members visit #Dokdo 8/31 & declaim: "The Abe gov't has weaponized economics & declared war on us…We will prevail over Japan's economic provocation with the spirit of independence." #Patriotism #Propaganda #Agitationhttps://t.co/oIFVEyP0SO

— Sung-Yoon Lee (@SungYoonLee1) August 31, 2019

But how else is the Moon administration going to draw attention away from their latest corruption scandal if they don’t play the Dokdo card?:

South Korea’s military drills on its easternmost islets of Dokdo were “not productive” in the country’s current row with Japan, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday.

The comment comes a day after South Korea concluded a two-day exercise on and around Dokdo, drawing protests from Japan, which lays claims to the islets.

In a statement, a department spokesperson said Washington does not take a position in the territorial dispute but regards the drills as unhelpful in light of the two countries’ ongoing dispute over trade and wartime forced labor.

“The question of the sovereignty of these islands is for the ROK and Japan to resolve peacefully,” the spokesperson said on condition of anonymity, referring to South Korea by its official name, the Republic of Korea.

“Given the recent disagreements between the ROK and Japan, the timing, messaging, and increased scale of military drills at Liancourt Rocks are not productive toward resolving ongoing issues,” the spokesperson continued, using the Franco-English name for the rocky outcroppings in the East Sea.

“We encourage the ROK and Japan to have committed, sincere discussions on resolving these disputes,” added the spokesperson.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Really. The Japanese right is like the rapist who keeps finding ways to torment his victim years after, because it makes him feel powerful just knowing he can. JPN’s nonsensical and constantly evolving Dokdo claims are an attempt to “bitch slap” Korea for jollies.

— the oranckay (@oranckay) August 25, 2019

I would love just once to have someone in the media ask who the foreign infiltrators are that are threatening to invade Dokdo:

The South Korean armed forces launched a two-day military exercise to defend the easternmost islets of Dokdo on Sunday amid growing tensions over trade and their shared history, in a show of its staunch defense stance against Japan’s repeated claims to sovereignty over the cluster of rocks in the East Sea.

The Navy announced that the drill involves Navy, Air Force and Army forces, such as naval warships and aircraft, as well as Army and Marine Corp troops.

“Indeed, it’s an exercise to guard our sovereignty and territory,” Cheong Wa Dae spokesperson Ko Min-jung said at a press briefing.

She added that it’s a regular training and asked media not to attach excessive “political” meaning to it.

The drills have been held twice a year, usually in June and December, to better fend off possible foreign infiltrations to the rocky outcroppings and the surrounding waters.

Yonhap

The closest thing to a “foreign infiltration” that has happened on Dokdo was back in 2006 the Japanese said they were going to have a ship full of scientists conduct an underwater survey of the ocean in the vicinity of Dokdo which they never ended up doing.

Meanwhile in recent months you have China claiming Korean territory and flying bombers over it and the Russians have actively violated Korean airspace over Dokdo with their war planes and there was never a rush to conduct a military exercise in response.

#ROK will go ahead with #Dokdo defense drills involving all branches of the armed forces. Can never be over-prepared. Space aliens may be scheming w #Japan for an invasion. But if Russian or Chinese warplane flies by, they'll be ordered just to wave hi.https://t.co/h1GgvuVlJ8

— Sung-Yoon Lee (@SungYoonLee1) August 6, 2019

The dates of this exercise, August 13-14 are one day before ROK Liberation Day which shows how this is nothing more than a political show instead of a defense drill:

South Korea will hold its largest military drill on a cluster of islets in the sea between South Korea and Japan, with the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard participating, a senior presidential aide confirmed.

“Yes, South Korea’s military will conduct a biannual defensive military dill on Dokdo. Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard will participate in the upcoming exercise. Cheong Wa Dae and other relevant ministries are working on it,” presidential National Security Office (NSO) chief Chung Eui-yong told lawmakers at a session of the National Assembly Steering Committee on Tuesday night. The presidential office confirmed the remarks Wednesday afternoon.

“South Korea plans to conduct a military drill on Dokdo twice this year,” Chung said. “Details of the exact timing of the drill will be announced once other relevant specifics have been decided on.” 

Military sources here said the drill would last two days, from Aug. 13 to Aug. 14, a day before the country marks the 74th anniversary of its liberation from Japanese occupation on Aug. 15.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but why didn’t the Moon administration hold a Korean peninsula defense drill one day before the anniversary of the ending of the Korean War last month? They should have immediately held a Dokdo defense drill last month when the Chinese and Russians violated not only the South Korean ADIZ, but the airspace over Dokdo.

The North Koreans and Chinese are the real threats to the peninsula, not the imaginary Japanese boogeymen the Korean left likes to promote.

As every Korean politician knows, you can’t exploit anti-Japanese sentiment without sensationalizing the Dokdo issue. Some needs to tell the Blue House this is 2019 and not 1941:

In a move to protest Japan’s decision to remove it from a list of trusted trading partners, South Korea plans to hold a joint military exercise on a cluster of islets that sits in the sea between the neighboring countries, a government source said Sunday.

“The Ministry of Defense is considering conducting a joint defense drill on Dokdo this month,” the source said, Sunday. However, he was reluctant to provide specifics as the ministry has not confirmed the details of its plan. 

Military exercises were first conducted near the tiny land mass in 1986 and they were made a biannual practice since 2003 with naval ships, marines, military aircraft, maritime patrol boats and relevant combat personnel participating. A 3,200-ton of naval destroyer, maritime patrol vessels, P-3C anti-submarine and maritime surveillance aircraft and F-15K fighters are typically mobilized during the drill, according to the ministry. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but you have China also claiming Korean territory and flying bombers over it and the Russians have actively violated Korean airspace over Dokdo with their war planes and there was never a rush to conduct a military exercise in response.

The worse the Japanese have done with Dokdo is threaten to have a research vessel of scientists enter into Dokdo’s exclusive economic zone. This of course set off a full scale crisis in South Korea and threats of war and even talks of assistance from North Korea. Japan never did send the research vessel, but Russian and Chinese warplanes are flying over Dokdo and Ieodo with no military drill in response.

The hypocrisy of the Korean left comes into full display every time they are in power when it comes to their anti-Japan agenda.

What is ironic about this is that the Russians have done something more provocative than the Japanese have ever done with Dokdo. So are all the Dokdo crazies going to go protest in front of the Russian embassy now?:

South Korean warplanes fired hundreds of warning shots at a Russian military aircraft that entered South Korean airspace on Tuesday, defence officials said, while Russia denied violating any airspace and accused South Korean pilots of being reckless.

It was the first time a Russian military aircraft had violated South Korean airspace, an official at the South Korean Ministry of National Defence said in Seoul. 

The incident, which also involved China and Japan, could complicate relations and raise tension in a region that has for years been over-shadowed by hostility between the United States and North Korea. 

Two Russian Tu-95 bombers and two Chinese H-6 bombers entered the Korea Air Defence Identification Zone (KADIZ) together early on Tuesday, the South Korean defence ministry said. 

A separate Russian A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft later twice violated South Korean airspace over Dokdo – an island that is occupied by South Korea and also claimed by Japan, which calls it Takeshima – just after 9 a.m. (midnight GMT Monday), according to the South Korean military.

Reuters via a reader tip

You can read more at the link, but this is the first time a foreign aircraft has violated ROK air space and warning shots were fired. Despite all the Japan bashing over the years on the Dokdo issue they have never done anything close to this. Don’t forget that the Chinese are involved in this as well. Will any of the so called patriotic Koreans show up and protest in front of the Chinese embassy?

In my opinion this appears to be a planned provocation by the Chinese and the Russians to stir the pot between the ROK and Japan since they both claim the Dokdo islets.