독도 에세이 콘테스트 수상

Strategic ambiguity over Dokdo and Korean War

Sophia Solivio              ssolivio@gmail.com Sophia Solivio graduated from university in Massachusetts, the United States, in May, 2012. She wants to live on Jeju Island and become a professor of East Asian politics.

Dokdo was omitted in the final version of the San Francisco Peace Treaty because immediately after World War II, especially as a result of the Korean War, Korea did not have the political power to contest Japan’s claim to “Takeshima” and the United States’ imperialist ambitions.

In 1952, Syngman Rhee proclaimed a “Peace Line” or clarification of South Korea’s territorial boundaries that included Dokdo.

In 1954, South Korea built a lighthouse on Dokdo. Since 1956, the South Korean government has stationed guards on Dokdo.

The aforementioned examples, as well as evidence of Dokdo as Korean territory in the government-officiated historical record, Samguk Sagi (512 A.D.), demonstrate South Korean jurisdiction and historical ownership of Dokdo.

Yet Japan has used and continues to use the omission of Dokdo from the San Francisco Peace Treaty as its primary claim to ownership of the two islets and thirty-two outcroppings in the East Sea.

However, the first, fifth, and seventh drafts of the San Francisco Peace Treaty included Dokdo in the list of territories to be returned to Korea as a result of Japan’s surrender to the Allied powers and the end of World War II in 1945.

Other drafts of the San Francisco Peace Treaty named Dokdo as Japanese territory, or as in the final version, omitted the issue.

In addition, in the relevant Supreme-Commander-for-the-Allied-Powers-Instructions (SCAPINs) issued during the American occupation of Korea and Japan immediately post-World War II, the Allied Powers revealed the changes in their intentions toward Dokdo.

Initially, in January 1946, SCAPIN No. 677 excluded Dokdo, or the Liancourt Rocks, its name in the West, from Japanese territory.

Then, in June 1946, SCAPIN No. 1033 recognized Dokdo as Japanese fishing and whaling areas. Finally, in September 1947, SCAPIN No. 1778 declared Dokdo for use as a bombing range for the Far East Air Force.

Eventually, the United States, the most influential signatory of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, decided to omit the Dokdo issue partially because of the start of the Korean War; the North Korean invasion of South Korea in 1950.

John Foster Dulles, President Dwight Eisenhower’s Secretary of State from 1953-59, advocated the quick completion of the San Francisco Treaty ostensibly in order to focus American attention and resources completely on the Korean War and containment, if not defeat of Communism on the Korean Peninsula.

Conveniently for the United States, Dulles’ rush to create ambiguity in regard to ownership of Dokdo through its omission from the San Francisco Peace Treaty strengthens the apparent need for American mediation, involvement in Korea-Japan relations, the overall Asia-Pacific region, and prevention of military or otherwise belligerent action to decisively assert ownership of Dokdo by Korea or Japan.

The United States’ interest in strategic ambiguity disappointed the government of Japan.

As the San Francisco Peace Treaty underwent numerous revisions, the government of Japan attempted to convince the United States to proclaim Japan’s ownership of Dokdo.

In exchange, the United States could use Dokdo as a military base in its future fights against Communism or other threats to its dominance in the region.

The United States, though, had no incentive to favor Japan’s claims to Dokdo over Korea’s since it could maintain advantageous political, economic, and security relations with Korea and Japan through its ambiguous stance on ownership of Dokdo.

While the United States dominated Japan completely from the end of World War II until the San Francisco Peace Treaty, signed by forty-eight countries, excluding North and South Korea in 1951, and effective in 1952, once the Korean War began and progressed, the United States considered the Korean Peninsula susceptible to Communism.

The possibility of the Korean Peninsula becoming Communist, ideological ally to regional powers, the People’s Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and thus weaken the United States’ hegemonic grip on the region contributed to the American desire to strengthen South Korea-United States relations.

Endorsement of Japan’s claim to Dokdo in the San Francisco Peace Treaty would have increased South Korean distrust of the United States, if not permanently setback the now thriving South Korea-United States alliance.

The Allied Powers, in particular the United States, defeated and chastised Japanese imperialism in the Asia-Pacific only to impose a new, self-advantageous variation on Japanese imperialism in Northeast Asia by failing to respect Korea’s ownership of Dokdo since at least its incorporation into the Shilla Kingdom in 512 A.D.

Japan’s persistent, unfounded claim to ownership of Dokdo undermines its government’s post-World War II efforts to atone for its brutality throughout East and Southeast Asia, specifically its 1910-45 colonization of Korea.

Though its cultural and military aggression has ended, unfortunately, Japan’s unabashed disregard for Korean territorial integrity, which in modern times began with its 1905 annexation of Dokdo as terra nullius or territory that did not belong to any state, continues today.