T-shirts promoting Korean ownership of the Dokdo islets
Tokyo and Seoul are at it again over the Dokdo islets in the East Sea. The T-shirts above are sold at a popular Seoul market, and reflect the sentiment of many here in South Korea regarding what are essentially a series of rocks in the middle of the sea. Read the Korea Times article.
Update: Korean media today (July 15th) is plastered with coverage of the Dokdo dispute. Media reports say Seoul is recalling it’s ambassador to Japan, all this after President Lee Myung Bak pledged to establish a new and “future-oriented” relationship with Tokyo.
Apparently history is still the lord of the land when it comes to Japan-Korea relations. “The government has maintained the position that we will deal sternly with any problems concerning history, territory and sovereignty,” said one foreign ministry official.
The dispute centers on plans to assert Japanese sovereignty over Dokdo (called Takeshima in Japan) in a curriculum guideline to be published in 2012. The dispute dates back to 1905, five years prior to Japan’s annexation of Korea.
Read more about it here.
Filed under: Politics, Seoul | Tagged: Dokdo, East Sea, Japan
stupid humans… this will stoke the fires of nationalism on both sides.
[...] beef is being bought and sold here says otherwise. Linking the protests with the dispute over the Dokdo islets and the suspended sentence for Samsung chair Lee Kun-hee one banner reads, “Samsung [...]