The Dokdo Riders have been out of the spotlight for a while now but Jeff over at Ruminations in Korea has a great wrap up of the Dokdo Riders mission to bring awareness to the issue on every American’s mind, the Dokdo Islands. A absolutely hilarious read.
While you are it you can check out the Dokdo Rider website as well and check our Hanguk Heroes current progress across Europe. They may not have been drawing large crowds in the US, but they are drawing huge crowds in Europe:
Maybe their new found fame is because of the new hot chick they have moonlighting with them now:
Let’s see world tour, motorcycles, cute girls, attending the World Cup, etc. all for free. The Dokdo Riders are truly geniuses.
Maybe Kim Jong-il was really just trying to sink the Japanese coast guard boat off of the Dokdo islets:
The North¿s short- and mid-range missile launches continued for nearly four hours starting at 3:32 a.m. According to government officials, all dropped into the sea on the near side of the Japanese archipelago.
In the midst of all this, the South Korean research vessel Haeyang 2000 pushed on into waters surrounding Dokdo, where it was met by a warning radio call from a Japanese patrol boat to stop. The Haeyang responded it was conducting an oceanic survey of Korean territorial waters and warned the Japanese boat not to interfere. The Japanese did not attempt to seize the vessel as it was escorted by a Korean Coast Guard ship.
This is why the US military has to maintain a strong presence in Northeast Asia because you have a brutal dictator shooting missiles all over the place and the two countries that should be putting up a united front against Kim Jong-il are busy fighting with each other over two stupid rocks.
The Great Dokdo War which holds the fate of all mankind within it’s balance may be entering a new crisis:
Korea has decided to push ahead with a scientific survey next week near Dokdo, a set of rocky islets in the East Sea (also known as the Sea of Japan), setting the stage for another diplomatic confrontation with Japan.
The Maritime Affairs Ministry said yesterday that on Monday it would send a 2,500-ton ship to the islets, which Japan also claims and calls Takeshima, to conduct research on sea currents for about two weeks. The decision could aggravate the already knotty ties between the countries.
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Shinzo Abe, called on Korea to refrain from carrying out the planned survey. “It is important for both parties to respond to the issue over the scientific maritime survey by exercising self-restraint,” he said in a news conference in Tokyo yesterday.
The Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reported that Japan’s maritime police would send patrol boats to the area if Korea goes ahead with the research.
I have been playing around with Google Trends and it is an interesting tool to see who from what countries are searching for certain terms. After playing around with this for a while I thought what a great tool to use to once and for all see if anyone else in the world gives a crap about the Dokdo Islands controversy. Judging from the results you will see that no one else outside of Korea gives a crap about Dokdo either.
4. Australia
6. United Kingdom
Look who is making a visit to the Dokdo islets:
South Korea’s ruling party chairman made a surprise visit to a string of disputed islets Monday and said the country must defend them at any cost, amid heightened tensions with Japan over rival claims to the territory.
Chung Dong-young’s visit came as a top Japanese diplomat was set to arrive in South Korea to try to repair bilateral ties battered by recent spats over the islets, known as Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese.
Japan’s Senior Vice Foreign Minister for Foreign Affairs Yasuhisa Shiozaki was scheduled to meet South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon later Monday.
Chung, a former unification minister, warned that Japanese moves to deny South Korea’s sovereignty over the islets would bring unhappy results to both sides, and that Japan will be held responsible.
“Dokdo cannot be the subject of any negotiation or dispute,” Chung said on his one-day trip to the islets, according to a transcript provided by the Uri Party.
This is really no surprise that Chung is trying to play to Korean nationalism to improve his own political standing. As the former South Korean Unification Minister he was one of the masters of using anti-Americanism to improve his own political standing as well. If Chung likes Dokdo so much how about he just stays out there and doesn’t come back.
Does this mean that I need to start stocking up on rations, water, and batteries again as I await the end of the world due to the Dokdo crisis?:
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said Tuesday that the East Sea islets of Dokdo are a symbol of Korea’s sovereignty restoration, accusing Japan of attempting to claim territorial rights to its former colonial land.
In a special statement broadcast live nationwide, the president vowed to directly confront Japan’s claims to the South Korean Dokdo islets to protect Korea’s history of independence, as well as its sovereignty.
The president began his statement by declaring that, “Dokdo is our land. It is not merely our land. It has a special historical meaning.”
Roh declared that his government would completely review its countermeasures against Japan’s repeated claims to the easternmost South Korean islets, ending its quiet diplomacy as far as Dokdo is concerned.
He emphasized that South Korea will deal sternly with Japan’s physical challenges, stressing that his government would never abandon Dokdo despite any expense or sacrifice to be required.
“South Korea will mobilize all its national and diplomatic resources to take issue with Japan’s unreasonable demands and press Japan to rectify its wrongdoing.”
The president then said that Seoul reserves the right to register Korean names for undersea features in the waters surrounding Dokdo.
I’m sure the Japanese are shaking in their boots now that President Roh has declared (drum roll please) “Diplomatic War” against Japan. Hasn’t he already declared “Diplomatic War” before? What good has that done? It would help if Korea knew how to conduct diplomacy instead of constantly whining which in no way helps its claims to the Dokdo isles. Korea has by the far the strongest case for ownership of the Dokdo Isles and the Japanese know this. So they have to marginalize Korea internationally in order to down play the Korea’s more legitimate claims. Korea continues just to play into Japanese hands with the off the wall responses to the Dokdo issue.
Is it just me or is President Roh sounding more and more like a lame duck?
I guess I no longer need to stalk up on rations, water, and batteries anymore since a global war over the Dokdo Isles has been officially adverted:
Two Japanese Coast Guard vessels that were to embark on a hydrographic survey near Korea¿s Dokdo returned to Tokyo on Sunday. It was the result of Korea and Japan reaching a compromise on Saturday to defuse tensions sparked by Japan¿s plan to send the ships into Korea¿s exclusive economic zone without permission from Seoul.
In a two-day meeting in Seoul, Vice Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan and his Japanese counterpart Shotaro Yachi reached a three-point agreement. Japan will stop the hydrographic survey in the East Sea it had planned to complete by June 30; Korea will temporarily put on hold a plan to register Korean names for seabed topography near the Dokdo islets with the International Hydrographic Organization until an ¿appropriate time¿; and the two neighbors will resume talks to demarcate the boundary between their EEZs as early as next month.
Though the Japanese appear to have gotten the better end of this deal, the Japanese Ambassador to Korea may not think so after having to withstand this verbal abuse. (Hat Tip: Nomad)
The Japanese Ambassador to Korea has got to be one of the world’s toughest and most thankless jobs.
How does doing this help Korea’s claim to the Dokdo Islands?:
An anti-Japan protester, Yang Bong-ho, stabs himself in the stomach with a kinfe to commite suicide demanding Japan abandon a plan to conduct a maritime survey near disputed islets, at a park in Seoul, Wednesday, April 19, 2006. Yang’s condition was unknown after being taken to hospital.
Actions like this only help Japan’s agenda of showing that Korea is an irrational society thus in turn aiding their claims to the Dokdo isles in regards to global public opinion, with the few people that actually give a crap about anything that has to do with Dokdo.
A cease fire between the two combatants in the Great Dokdo War has been declared. It is safe to now come out of the bomb shelters; those dastardly Japanese scientists have agreed to not leave Japan and face the 18 Korean naval vessels waiting for them at Dokdo and let the diplomatic process play itself out:
Japan has promised to hold off conducting a controversial hydrographic survey in South Korea’s waters in an effort to find a diplomatic solution to the latest standoff between the two sides, a top Seoul official said Friday.
“Japan is expected to announce the decision soon,” Vice Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan told reporters in Seoul.
Yu added that his country will block Japan’s survey plan at any cost.
So we are not out of hot water yet and may need to return to the bomb shelters at any moment, but it does appear cooler heads may be prevailing finally.
The fate of the entire world continues to hang in the balance due to the latest Dokto crisis between South Korea and Japan. Don’t worry though because the South Korean government in their infinite wisdom on this issue may ask Kim Jong Il for help defending the island from those dastardly Japanese oceanic research scientists:
The two Koreas may discuss the threatened incursion of a Japanese research vessel into Korea?s exclusive economic zone during the inter-Korean ministerial talks starting in Pyongyang this Friday. Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday he would ?talk to the unification minister? about the matter.
Ban was answering a question from Uri Party lawmaker Choi Sung in the National Assembly. Asked if Korea will seize the Japanese research vessel if it violates the EEZ in the course of what Japan claims is a hydrographic survey near Dokdo, Ban said, ?Concrete steps will be determined depending on how the situation progresses.? The chief diplomat agreed with commentators that it is ?highly likely that Japan is attempting to turn the sensitive Dokdo area into an area of territorial dispute by violating our sovereignty over the islets.?
First of all, what does North Korea have to do with the Dokto controversy between South Korea and Japan. Secondly what could North Korea even do if they do get involved in it? Nuke the research vessel with a No Dong Nuclear tipped warhead? Probably more threatening would be to shut down some pachinko parlors in Osaka? That will really show those wicked Japanese who is boss.
Bringing in the North Koreans into this mess would only play into the Japanese government’s hands because it would further demonstrate the ROK government as behaving irrationally over this issue. The more irrational the ROK government is, the more foreign governments will tend to side with the Japanese government on this issue.
Plus the absurdity of asking North Korea for assistance on this issue just cannot escape me. Remember the North Koreans are the same people who deliberately planned, ambushed, and cold bloodedly killed six South Korean sailors in the Yellow Sea in June of 2002 in order to draw attention away from the South Koreans hosting of that year’s World Cup competition. No apologies, compensation, absolutely nothing from the North Koreans after that incident. In fact the South Korean government went to great lengths to cover up the attack and keep the grieving families quiet.
So now to go ask the murders of South Korean military personnel to come and help them over a small island territorial dispute with Japan just seems ridiculous to me.
