hankyoreh

Nam Sangmin, Environmental Affairs Officer, Environment and Sustainable Development Division, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP)

Did those North Korean missiles fall in the Sea of Japan or in the East Sea? The Korean public is upset yet again over the issue, now that the international media is referring to the body of water in question as the Sea of Japan.

The names of bodies of water around the world are based on cardinal points, ethnic groups, the person credited with "discovering" them, the geographical names of coastal areas, the water’s characteristics, rivers that flow into them, the names of adjacent regions, and the names of countries. The East Sea has also been called many different things, based on how it was viewed by whoever was naming it.

It is problematic to name this body of water, shared by four countries, based on one of the countries’ names. But, then, so also is giving it the name of one of the cardinal points as perceived from a specific geographical location. Just as it would be awkward for me to call the sea off the shores of my hometown of Uljin (on Korea’s east coast) the Sea of Japan, it would not work for the citizens of Nigata (a Japanese port on the opposite coast) to look at their sea to the west and call it the East Sea. The length of North and South Korea’s coastline along this body of water adds up to about 1,000 kilometers, but Japan has more than 2,000 kilometers alongside it. Does it really make sense to tell the Japanese to call their "west sea" the East Sea?

"East Sea" is more a common noun than a proper noun, being a name that can be used depending on where you are looking from. The "North Sea," in Europe, bears the name of one of the cardinal points, but the situation there is different from what we call the East Sea because from the perspective of the European continent it is an enclosed body of water shared by the east and west alike. Furthermore, another problem is that the name East Sea is already in use in several other places around the world. Denmark and Germany call the Baltic Sea the East Sea, and Vietnam uses the term for the South China Sea. Therefore, the name is not one we can monopolize.

Korea has another body of water with a name that creates no political problems, despite having conditions similar to those of the East Sea/Sea of Japan. The Yellow Sea is Korea’s sea to the west and China’s sea to the east, but everyone calls it the Yellow Sea and that is the name that is internationally recognized. We need a name like "Yellow Sea" for the body of water between Korea and Japan.

A number of Korean scholars once suggested the neutral "Blue Sea," a name they came up with based on historical documentation and the characteristics of the body of water. It was first mentioned as an alternative by Korea in 1994, when North and South Korea, China, Japan, and Russia got stuck on what to call the East Sea/Sea of Japan at the a meeting of the Northwest Pacific Action Plan (NOWPAP), part of a regional program of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

There are some who take the view that it would not be a good strategy right now for Korea to be the first to yield by suggesting a neutral name at a time of intense confrontation with Japan. However, at this point, we need a new solution that is acceptable to everyone.