Category Archives: Korea

by | 29 December 2006 · 1:29 pm

A Contrarian Take on the Six-Party Talks

On Christmas Eve, the Wall Street Journal‘s Opinion Journal ran a short stocking stuffer of an op-ed by literary contrarian B. R. Myers, who wrote his dissertation on North Korean literature (reviewed here).

No country today is as misunderstood as North Korea. Journalists still refer to it as a Stalinist or communist state, when in fact it espouses a race-based nationalism such as the West last confronted during the Pacific War. Pyongyang’s propaganda touts the moral superiority of the Korean race, condemns South Korea for allowing miscegenation, and stresses the need to defend the Dear Leader with kyeolsa, or dare-to-die spirit–the Korean version of the Japanese kamikaze slogan kesshi [決死]. The six-party talks are therefore less likely to replicate the successes of Cold War détente than the negotiating failures of the 1930s. According to early reports from Beijing, the North Korean delegation appears more confident than ever. It has clearly been emboldened not only by its accession to the nuclear club, but by the awareness that Seoul will continue providing food and financial support no matter what happens….

The ideological landscape of the peninsula defeats the reasoning that led to the six-party talks in the first place. North Korea is not a communist country with ideological and sentimental reasons to listen to China and Russia; it is a virulently nationalist state that distrusts all the other parties at the table. And though the rhetoric of a “concerted front” against North Korea has proved to be just that, it has sufficed to heighten South Korea’s sense of solidarity with the North. This will continue to mean plenty of aid money for Kim Jong Il with which to build weapons. The U.S. has urged Beijing to bring more pressure to bear on the North. But if America can do nothing with its own ally, it can hardly expect the Chinese to do more with theirs.

via The Marmot’s Hole

UPDATE: B. R. Myers responds to comments over at The Marmot’s Hole.

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by | 27 December 2006 · 5:06 pm

Choose One, South Korea: Homogeneity or Unification

Volume 30 (2006) of Korean Studies (Project Muse subscription required) contains a perceptive book review by an antinationalist expat Korean of a perceptive book by an anthropologist of Africa who turned his attention to questions of national unity in the Korean peninsula.

The book maintains that South Koreans have patterned their identity in opposition to images of North Korea. For South Koreans, North Koreans are viewed ambiguously, both positively and negatively at the same time. On one hand, North Koreans are seen as being helplessly indoctrinated by their regime, and “uncivilized, heathen, and backward” (p. 8). At the same time, North Koreans are also praised for preserving old Korean traditions, which are considered to have been lost in South Korea through the process of modernization. In colonialist fashion, South Koreans actually define themselves by the “othering” of North Koreans.

South Koreans also consider unification as the recovery of national homogeneity, and thus as the “endgame.” The author argues that this very attitude and discourse actually hinders Korean unification, as overemphasis on national homogeneity would result in the denial of the diversity of the nation. He points out that the difference between North and South could be seen as “a foundation for new communities that bring together Koreans’ separate and yet shared experiences of division in a way that strengthens the nation” (p. xi). The book suggests an alternative future of diversity and heterogeneity rather than the homogeneous national future that most South Koreans imagine.

The book’s arguments are original and bold. According to the author, his not being a “true expert on Korea” made it possible for him to question the seemingly obvious issues of national homogeneity and unification. As an anthropologist studying the tribal groups of central Africa, the author came to be interested in the question of Korean unification after learning about the continued division within the minds of Koreans despite their alleged homogeneity. This contrasts with the two tribal groups of northern Zaire, who “are culturally, physically and linguistically distinct from each other, but live in the most intimate association with each other” (p. 16). The author may not be an expert on Korea, but this book reveals his great erudition.

The book contains many rich theoretical elaborations, thorough analyses, and useful analogies. The most important aspect of the book is its skillful and sharp analysis of the role of North Korea in the formation of South Korean identity, the problematic assumption of national homogeneity, and the South Korean “colonialist” view of their brothers in the North. Korean nationalism, developed in the twentieth century through the experiences of Japan’s colonization and national division, functioned as an ideology of liberation. However, the same ideology also worked as a “meta-narrative” and suppressed other narratives and thus hampered the development of a more democratic culture in Korea. The book’s argument that “unification will require a reckoning with difference, especially different conceptions of history, and a direct confrontation…. with South Korea’s master historical narrative and mythology of homogeneity” (p. 96) is an important message for all Koreans.

The book under review is Korea and Its Futures: Unification and the Unfinished War, by Roy Richard Grinker (St. Martin’s, 2000).

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by | 25 December 2006 · 12:12 pm

A Korean Worker’s Take on Korea, Japan, & China

Four or five years ago I was asked by one work site manager to make the “direct commute” (as we day laborers say) to a job that I had originally obtained through the Center. I did this for about ten days running. Two Koreans, one about fifty and the other in his mid twenties, were working there, and they would chat with me in their broken Japanese during rest periods and the noon break. I couldn’t figure out their relationship. That they were not parent and child was obvious I enough. I decided that they were two men of differing ages who just happened to be getting work, illegally (or so I surmised), with the same firm. That peculiar rule in Korean society of deference by the junior party to the senior (something I learned from my reading), which would have applied had they been acquaintances from the same village and come to work in Japan together, was not in effect between them. If the older man were indeed fifty, he would have been just a couple of years older than I, yet he had a commanding presence that made him seem for all the world like my father. When I got to talking with him, I realized that he was a fervent patriot. Somehow I was not surprised. He said his name was Shin.

“We go ahead of Japan. This I am sure. Less than ten years.” These are the kinds of things he liked to say. The younger Korean appeared to be uninterested in talk of this sort and simply wolfed down his boxed lunch. For ten days I teamed up with this Korean duo and took orders along with them from the site manager. The older Korean assumed the role of team leader and told us what to do. He was far more proficient at Japanese than his young compatriot, and it was possible to carry on an extensive conversation with him.

“I am not man who works like this. I was company president. Do you understand? My company closed. I was forced to come to Japan and earn money.” As he spoke, Kim, the younger Korean, would look on with an ironic smile without really listening. (He rarely spoke a word; indeed, it’s possible that he understood no Japanese.) Kim did not have the face of an educated person—that much was certain.

“I have three children,” Shin said. “Oldest one in college. ——— University. You know it?” When I shook my head, he continued, “Good school. He join elite. Give orders. We three here take orders. This is difficult thing.”

Shin may have had a problem with Japanese at the level of nuance, not being able to inflect his emotions correctly, but his very direct and open manner of expressing his desire to advance in the world definitely got my attention.

Shin asked me how old I was and learned that I was a bachelor and living alone. “You have no family at your age?” he proclaimed haughtily. “That shameful! You should not tell it to others. I feel sorry for you.”

Sometimes I would get into arguments with Shin.

“Japan not apologize for things they did to us. This no good. One day maybe we attack Japan. But we not do to you what you do to us. We are moral people. We are most moral and most superior people in Asia. This I am sure.” …

“Japan number one in Asia now, Korea number two. some day Korea number one.” The hierarchy featured in these pronouncements appeared to have nothing to do with morality, however, and everything to do with economic and political power in the global pecking order.

“That’s not true at all,” I countered. “China’s number one in Asia now, if you ask me.

Shin immediately shook his head. “No, very wrong—very wrong!” he snapped, curling his lips in contempt of China. “Look at Chinese. They fall behind. Long ago they were teacher. Now they are backward country. Their income less than one tenth of Koreans. That country is lowest country. It is dirty country.” …

And so I learned that not only was Shin a stalwart anticommunist, he also had no love, as I’d heard most Koreans had, for China, the country that Korea once recognized as its master.

SOURCE: A Man with No Talents: Memoirs of a Tokyo Day Laborer, by Ōyama Shirō, trans. by Edward Fowler (Cornell U. Press, 2005), pp. 92-95

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by | 23 December 2006 · 8:15 am

On Leaders Forged (or Not) in Manchuria

It is extremely difficult to try to generalize, but I think that we must consider this issue—including the problem of war responsibility—in a multilayered manner. I myself think that at present this is a theme for future research, not a time at which we can offer generalizations. Thus, let me just say a few words about the directions subsequent research might take and how we can try to place Manzhouguo in world history.

Although I have written about it in a number of articles, I think we need to reassess once more the meaning of Manzhouguo in postwar Asia. The legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party derives at least one of its bases in the fact that it won the anti-Japanese war which began with the Manchurian Incident. In this way, the fact that some Japanese argue for the legitimacy of Manzhouguo thus denies the very legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party. This dispute is unproductive, with a strong probability of the two sides following parallel tracks semipermanently.

Let me focus for a moment, though, on the importance of Manzhouguo on the Korean peninsula in postwar East Asia. First, in the Republic of Korea there were a number of men who were educated in Manzhouguo—such as Pak Chŏng-hŭi (1917-79) and Ch’oe Kyu-ha (b. 1919) who graduated from the Daidō Academy—and acquired power in postwar Korea. [Aikido had a curious prominence in its curriculum.—J.] In this instance, Manzhouguo served as a supply base for human talent. We certainly cannot say this was always the case, for the debate continues over what the “pro-Japan faction” in Korea was. I have only introduced a very limited number of such men in my own work, but in fact there were a large number of them.

In North Korea as well, Kim Il-sŏng (1912-94) derived one of the bases of his legitimacy in the victory against Japan in Manchuria, and this legacy continues for North Korea today. There are pros and cons, but the postwar in East Asia cannot be understood without Manzhouguo.

By the same token, as concerns wartime and postwar Japan, Tōjō Hideki (1884-1948) came to amass such great power by virtue of the unification of the military police (kenpei) and the regular police in Manzhouguo. It was the first case he confronted as commanding officer of the Guandong Army’s military police, when he was awakened to his administrative skills. Until that point, he had always been treated rather coldly in Japan, but in the process of his acquisition of power thereafter, the administrative experience tying him to the military police in Manchuria was to have critical importance.

Kishi Nobusuke spent only three years in Manchuria, but the money and personnel he put together at that time was to have a huge impact on postwar politics. Together with such men as Shiina Etsusaburō (1898-1979), Nemoto Ryūtarō (b. 1907), Hirashima Toshio (b. 1891), these mainstays of the Liberal Democratic Party all had Manchurian experience. At the time of the revision of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty (Anpo) in 1960, Kishi made a trip to Southeast Asia before visiting the United States. The reason for this, in Kishi’s words, was that, for Japan to cross swords as equals with the United States, it was best for it to assume a position as the leader of Asia. Only then, as he put it, would Japan be on an equal standing with the United States and thus be in a position to have the Anpo Treaty revised.

In reply to a question from an interviewer, Kishi noted: “My present feeling that Japan must become the leader of Asia is no different from the consciousness I had when I went to Manzhouguo. This has not changed in the least even in the postwar era. If indeed I possess a kind of pan-Asianism, then my present sense of things is completely linked to the time when I traveled to Manzhouguo.” Thus, his Manzhouguo experience—including the money he amassed—played an extremely important role in his career. Although a well known story, Kishi told a fellow bureaucrat upon returning to Japan: “It’s best to use money after filtering it.” The effectively plutocratic essence of the Liberal Democratic Party as it has come down to us now may then be said to trace its roots back to Manchuria….

The generation of Japanese prime ministers from Yoshida Shigeru (1878-1967), who was consul-general in Fengtian, and Kishi down to Fukuda Takeo (1905-95) and Ōhira Masayoshi (1910-80) all had Asian experience. When he was serving as a secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Fukuda spent over two years in Nanjing as an advisor on economic affairs to the government of the Republic of China. Ōhira worked in the Asian Development Board in Zhangjiakou and the liaison section of the Mengjiang regime.

Through the years of Fukuda and Ōhira, it was people who knew Asia as a tactile experience who served as prime ministers. Thereafter, Japanese policy toward Asia became thoroughly clumsy and unskilled. To be sure, the early men had stood on the side of the rulers, but they understood, as if it was experience acquired through their skin, about the vastness of the Asian mainland, the atmosphere prevailing there, and the enormity of the population. This also meant that they understood its formidable character. The prime ministers who followed them, however, lacked as a sense of touch this spatial understanding of Asia and China, and the influence exerted by this absence of experience on Japanese policy vis-à-vis Asia has been immense. In particular, from Hosokawa Morihiro (b. 1938) to the Koizumi Jun’ichirō (b. 1942) now, the continued blur of Japan’s Asian policy is, I believe, linked to a lack of Asian experience. I would even go so far as to say that there is no remedy for this lack of sensibility.

I by no means want to leave the impression that their role in colonial rule was a good thing, but the fact that the policies of Japanese political figures, including diplomatic officials, toward Asia has now entered a dangerous stage is, in my view, heavily influenced by the lack of experience—including that acquired in Manzhouguo—gained through the senses and not simply having seen the place but having lived there. This will remain a problem for the future. I would argue for the need for men and women who wish to become politicians to spend two or three years wandering about various sites in Asia.

SOURCE: Manchuria under Japanese Dominion, by Yamamuro Shin’ichi, trans. by Joshua A. Fogel (U. Penn. Press, 2006), pp. 238-239

And the same goes for would-be leaders from other parts of the globe. Well, I can’t quote any more from this book. I have to send it on to my brother who just finished teaching a course on East Asia.

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by | 22 October 2006 · 8:25 am

Convert NK to a US Client State? No, Thanks.

Last week, China Matters carried a long analytical post on the deteriorating relations between North Korea and its last remaining patron, China. It ends off with a bizarre suggestion.

What I believe China wants is a North Korean regime that is profoundly isolated, helpless, and totally reliant on Chinese good offices to survive.

Right now, Kim Jung Il—and the United States and Japan—are pretty much doing China’s work for it.

For China, all that’s needed now is patience—and ruthlessness.

Beijing has offered North Korea no verbal consolation, either at the diplomatic level or in its media. Hu Jintao dispatched a special envoy to meet with President Bush and, I expect, assure the United States of China’s sincere desire to put a lid on the North Korean nuclear program.

And certain Chinese actions are speaking louder than words.

The fence is going up along the Yalu to further isolate North Korea’s export trade—both licit and illicit–from the crucial Manchurian economy. Anecdotal reports in Ming Pao and the South Korean press indicate that Chinese banks are declining to remit money to North Korea, and North Korean guest workers are not receiving visa extensions.

If North Korea detonates another device, all China has to do stand aside and let foreign investment and trade—the key to the regime’s survival as an independent nation—dry up.

Ironically, by this reading, the United States could profit from the estrangement between China and North Korea by embarking on a swift rapprochement with Pyongyang.

Instead, we are doing everything within our power to force North Korea under China’s heel and, in the process, perpetuate the existence of the same failed North Korean system—and regime–that we have sworn to destroy.

What role would the cynical Kim Family Regime play in all this? They’re the parties who most want North Korea to remain isolated and under their control. Not China. If Kim Jong-il were to become another Baby Doc ruling a U.S. client state as helpless as Haiti, South Korea would scream even louder about U.S. imperialism on the peninsula–and China would laugh all the way to the bank.

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by | 19 October 2006 · 9:09 am

Differing Perceptions of the Threat of NK in the US and SK

Balbina Hwang, who was recently interviewed on PBS’s The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, has a long essay at the Heritage Foundation entitled The U.S.-Korea Alliance on the Rocks: Shaken, Not Stirred, which nicely encapsulates the different perceptions the two testy allies have of the threat posed by North Korea.

Most Americans tend to attribute the strategic dissonance in the alliance to the dissipation of the “North Korean threat” altogether in South Korea. They cite the Sunshine Policy, the emergence of a younger generation with no first-hand experience of the Korean War, and a government in Seoul seemingly limitless in its willingness to accommo­date the Pyongyang regime, including the omission of the official label “enemy” from its national Defense White Paper and even the refusal to dis­cuss human rights abuses.

But as many South Koreans (both young and old) are quick to point out, they do feel threatened by the North, only the threat has metamorphosed into a completely different kind of peril than that perceived by Americans. Today, the majority of South Koreans no longer view North Korea as an invincible, evil enemy intent on conquering the South. Rather, the greatest threat posed by the North is the instability of the regime which could lead to a collapse (whether through implosion or explosion), thereby devastating the South’s eco­nomic, political, and social systems. What explains South Korea’s sudden shift to fearing the North’s weakness rather than that regime’s strengths?

The Sunshine Policy and the ensuing historic summit between the two Korean leaders in June 2000 marks the proximate symbol of a profound shift on the Korean peninsula, but the true causes are more complex and lie in the previous decade. They include the collapse of the Soviet Union and the opening of China in the early 1990s, as well as the devastating floods and famines of 1994–1995 that produced shocking pictures of starving, skele­tal North Korean children. These images “human­ized” a traditional enemy and caused South Koreans to feel a connection to what they see as poor, starving, and weak brethren, who at best are victims of a bad regime and at worst are misguided, but certainly have neither the capability nor intent to truly harm their Southern relatives. Most impor­tantly, they were viewed as fellow Koreans.

The significance of this psychological mind-shift cannot and should not be underestimated. After all, who can blame South Koreans both young and old? They are tired of being the last remaining victims of the Cold War, and they too want to reap the “peace dividend” that the rest of the world enjoyed. South Koreans now want the freedom to not fear that their very way of life is in constant danger, a life that is built on prosperity, material well-being, physical comfort, and freedom.

The problem is that for the United States and many others in the region (including Japan and Australia), North Korea largely remains an unchanged Cold War threat based on its continued pursuit of a military-first policy despite mass star­vation and a failed economy; its pursuit of nuclear weapons, missile proliferation, and illicit activities including counterfeiting; its record of state-spon­sored terrorism; its continued hostile stance toward the South and other countries in the region; and even its continued brutality toward its own people through widespread human rights violations.

For the United States, the source of the threat lies in the strength of the North Korean regime, while for South Korea, the threat now lies in the regime’s fundamental weakness and its potential for collapse. Given this vastly different assessment, the diver­gence in policy prescriptions is predictable. Seoul wants to mitigate the potential for greater instabili­ty by engaging the Pyongyang regime in the hope of coaxing it gradually toward positive regime trans­formation. Washington, in contrast, views engage­ment efforts as part of the problem if it contributes to augmenting the regime’s existing strengths rather than seeking ways to further weaken it.

via The Marmot’s Hole

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by | 17 October 2006 · 8:50 pm

Is China Debating Regime Change in NK?

The Australian on 16 October ran a report from The Sunday Times suggesting that China is contemplating regime change in North Korea in the wake of the latest nuclear test.

THE Chinese are openly debating “regime change” in Pyongyang after last week’s nuclear test by their confrontational neighbour….

The Chinese Government has been ultra-cautious in its reaction. However, since Monday, Foreign Ministry officials have started to make a point of distinguishing between the North Korean people and their Government in conversations with diplomats.

Ahead of yesterday’s Security Council vote, some in Beijing argued against heavy sanctions on North Korea for fear that these would destroy what remains of a pro-Chinese “reformist” faction inside the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“In today’s DPRK Government, there are two factions, sinophile and royalist,” one Chinese analyst wrote online. “The objective of the sinophiles is reform, Chinese-style, and then to bring down Kim Jong-il’s royal family. That’s why Kim is against reform. He’s not stupid.”

More than one Chinese academic agreed that China yearned for an uprising similar to the one that swept away the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989 and replaced him with communist reformers and generals. The Chinese made an intense political study of the Romanian revolution and even questioned president Ion Iliescu, who took over, about how it was done and what roles were played by the KGB and by Russia.

Mr Kim, for his part, ordered North Korean leaders to watch videos of the swift and chaotic trial and execution of Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, the vice-prime minister, as a salutary exercise.

The balance of risk between reform and chaos dominated arguments within China’s ruling elite. The Chinese have also permitted an astonishing range of vituperative internet comment about an ally with which Beijing maintains a treaty of friendship and co-operation. Academic Wu Jianguo published an article in a Singapore newspaper – available online in China – bluntly saying: “I suggest China should make an end of Kim’s Government.”

Anne Applebaum in today’s Washington Post argues that North Korea is primarily China’s problem. I think the Romania angle is worth considering, but I regard nearly everything said for public consumption about North Korea as propaganda talking points rather than serious analysis.

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by | 9 October 2006 · 8:50 pm

DPRK: Obvious and Not So Obvious Reasons

As expected, The Marmot is all over the North Korean nuclear story, but one of the more intriguing pieces of counterconventional wisdom on why the DPRK is going nuclear can be found at DPRK Studies:

The obvious reason is for deterrence of an attack or invasion from a U.S. seeking regime change. However, military action by the U.S. was already extremely unlikely as any such action would put Seoul, South Korea’s capital, in danger of being hit by the thousands of artillery pieces just north of the border and well within range. That’s aside from the U.S. being overextend[ed] in Iraq. So a nuclear deterrent is only another level of deterrence.

The not so obvious reason is that North Korea has been implementing a strategy of disengagement since 4 October 2002, when then U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly [was] in Pyongyang meeting North Korean Deputy Foreign Minster Kang Seok-Ju. When confronted with U.S. evidence, Kang admitted that North Korea had secretly continued a nuclear-weapons development program.

After that the words “complete, verifiable, and irreversible” became a part of the U.S. negotiating lexicon concerning denuclearization, which caused a shift in North Korean strategy from Regime survival by Extortion of Concessions to Regime survival by Strategic Disengagement.

North Korea cannot accept engagement for two primary reasons. First, invasive inspections would make the regime look weak internally and risk control of the military. Second, inspections on the scale that would be required for any new package deal would likely bring in an unprecedented influx of foreigners, something North Korea does not want.

This is because the legitimacy of the regime is build on a cult mythology that would be in jeopardy if outside information were to reach the isolated and misinformed North Korea population. The exposure of the North Korean people to reality vis-à-vis the cult is an enormous vulnerability for the regime.

via Peaktalk

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by | 5 October 2006 · 9:49 pm

Japan Missionaries and the Russo-Japanese War

The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, even more than the Sino-Japanese War of the previous decade, opened new doors for Christian witness in Japan. Prime Minister Katsura Taro, whose first wife was a Christian, went out of his way to assure missionaries and pastors that Japan’s war against a so-called Christian nation in no way implied an anti-Christian stance on the part of the government. The YMCA was permitted to minister to soldiers at the front, and churches were given access to military hospitals where the wounded were cared for. A few Christians, notably Uchimura Kanzo, opposed the war as unjust, but the vast majority supported it with enthusiasm, thereby demonstrating their loyalty as Japanese subjects.

The effects the war had on Southern Baptist work were mixed. At Moji, from which the majority of men and munitions were sent to the front on the Asian mainland, and to which many sick and wounded were evacuated, the war had “a decidedly demoralizing effect,” reported Maynard, “causing many to neglect their church duties.” At Sasebo, headquarters of Admiral Togo‘s fleet (which won the war for Japan by destroying the Russian fleet sent from the Baltic Sea), the congregation virtually disappeared, for nearly all the men were connected with the navy. The church’s rented quarters had to be returned to the landlord. Security in the town was so tight that no missionary was allowed to enter, though Pastor Ozaki was able to minister in homes and hospitals. The work at Nagasaki was similarly hampered. Among those drafted into service were the Sunday school superintendent and Pastor Sugano’s wife, a Red Cross nurse who served aboard an army hospital ship. Without a tear, it was reported, Mrs. Sugano left her two-year-old daughter in the care of the sick father and a feeble grandmother.

In Kokura, where the Mission now had a new chapel seating 125, a gift from Maryland Baptists, the war gave a boost to the work. “The physician in charge of the three military hospitals at this place,” said Maynard, “being a devoted Christian, gave us every facility for reaching the sick and the wounded.” The physician even preached in the Baptist church several times. Tens of thousands of Scripture portions and tracts were distributed, and a number of conversions were reported. Afterwards the Baptist Sunday school received a lacquer cup and a letter of thanks from military headquarters in Tokyo.

In Kumamoto the story was much the same. “The war has in no way retarded the progress of our work,” wrote Harvey Clarke, “but our sympathy for those in distress seems to draw us closer to the people.” The missionaries were permitted to conduct services in the military hospitals and to deal personally with the soldiers. For this ministry each was given a bronze medal. Lucile Clarke ministered so effectively through her singing and her genuine interest in the soldiers that she received from the emperor a silver cup bearing the imperial crest. She treasured the award as long as she lived. It can be seen in retrospect, however, that such actions on the part of the government helped to blind the missionaries to the injustices and ultimate consequences of Japan’s growing involvement in Korea and China. This “first victory of yellow armies over white,” followed by dissatisfaction with the spoils of war, paved the way for Japanese imperialists to “restore Asia to the Asiatics.”

SOURCE: The Southern Baptist Mission in Japan, 1889-1989, by F. Calvin Parker (University Press of America, 1991), pp. 64-65

Academic area specialists have similar problems these days.

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by | 14 September 2006 · 9:54 pm

Asia Watch on "Sea of Japan" vs. "East Sea"

Asia Watch presents a 27-point rebuttal to a Korea.net video that argues for renaming the Sea of Japan as the East Sea.

In summary: This video ignores the claim that “Sea of Japan” came into widespread usage in the early 19th century. Instead, it presents studies of pre-19th century maps, none of which discredit the findings of Japanese researchers with regard to the 19th century. After failing to discredit Japanese claims, it shows that the name “East Sea” has been used by Koreans for 2000 years. It then claims that the entire world is obligated to print foreign terms for seas alongside their traditionally-established native language terms, in accordance with a recommendation of a UN organization (but only in the case of the “East Sea”). The video attempts to disguise the anti-Japanese Korean ultranationalist agenda behind a thin veil of academic arguments, and does a remarkable horrible job. If this is the best argument the Korean government can produce, I doubt they’ll be winning over many converts through the spread of this video.

via Japundit

Why stop at the Sea of Japan? How about the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Tonkin, the Marianas Trench, the Gulf of Siam/Thailand, and the Gulf of Mexico? Who gave the Coral Sea to the coral? Don’t the sea cucumbers have as valid a claim, or the moray eels? I say let’s restore the proper name for the English Channel: The Sleeve.

UPDATE: I was going to ask who gave the Bay of Pigs to the porkers, but its Spanish name is Bahía de Cochinos ‘Bay of Triggerfish‘. Cochinos are only metaphorically disgusting in behavior or appearance—like pigs, though nowhere near as intelligent. Also:

Some species of triggerfish are known to make a sound akin to a grunt or snarl when taken out of the water.

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