Response to Ulleung Island visit criticized

Posted on : 2011-08-02 15:34 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Some say the Lee administration’s hardline respones helped lend widespread coverage to the event
 August 1.
(Press photo pool)
August 1. (Press photo pool)

By Son Won-je, Staff Writer

Following backlash over several Japanese lawmakers’ attempt to visit Ulleung Island, some are now calling for South Korea to reexamine the country’s Dokdo diplomacy. There is also criticism that the limits of the Lee Myung-bak administration’s unbalanced diplomatic response played a part in a small provocation avalanching into a big deal.

The situation began in a weak manner. Japan’s opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) worked hard from the beginning to turn this into an issue, deciding to send four lawmakers, including Yoshitaka Shindo, to Ulleung-do. The Japanese press, however, did not respond with significant coverage. The mood was that they considered the lawmakers loose cannons. On July 15, Shindo held a press conference to officially announce the plan to visit Ulleung Island, but the only paper to cover it was the right-wing Sankei Shimbun.

It was South Korean politicians that ended up lending credibility to an event that could have ended as a farce, especially Lee Jae-oh, minister of special affairs. On July 16 and 17, Lee posted on his Twitter site that he would block the Japanese lawmakers‘ visit to Ulleung Island in the name of the people, even if he had to mobilize all organizations to do it. With powerful government officials talking of a hard-line response, the Korean media began to pay attention. The government began rushing around to craft a response, including convening a meeting of a team handling Dokdo under the office of the Prime Minister. Still, up to this time, however, the dominant opinion was that if the Japanese lawmakers pressed ahead with the visit despite diplomatic efforts for them to rescind the plan on their own, they should be sent back quietly through an entry ban. Foreign policy officials warned against escalating the situation, saying if the issue were blown up, Korea would just be ensnared in the trap set by the LDP’s right-wingers.

The Japanese press, too, had showed limited interest till now. After Lee‘s comments, there were only three additional reports nationwide in Japan through July 26.

President Lee Myung-bak provided the decisive cause for escalating the stir. With it being reported on July 27 that President Lee, while receiving his weekly report from Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik on July 26, had ordered an official document be sent to Japan asking that the lawmakers not make their visit since Korea could not guarantee their safety, the issue became the biggest pending foreign policy issue, with even the president involved.

The tenor of the administration’s diplomatic response completely changed, too, and in the end, the Japanese ambassador was called to the Foreign Ministry and officially notified that the lawmakers were forbidden to enter the country. “Quiet diplomacy” vanished into thin air. Full-scale coverage from the Japanese press, too, began from President Lee‘s comments.

Ultimately, South Korea’s Dokdo diplomacy lost its original voice as time passes and began parroting demands for a hard-line response from politicians, President Lee and conservative opinion.

Professor Lee Won-deok of Kookimin University said if a triangle of hardline response solidifies, it becomes difficult for any government to make a rational response. He said it was unfortunate that by responding so greatly to a small provocation, the government had gotten entangled in what the Japanese lawmakers intended.

The diplomatic response to Japan‘s defense White Paper published Tuesday is causing reflection, too, that what is needed is a firm, cool-headed, “tailored” response not subordinate to domestic political demands. A government official said the government would respond diplomatically at the same level of last year, taking into consideration that Japan has published defense white papers every year, and that the part referencing Dokdo has used the same expressions since 2005, and that excessively responding would play into Japan’s strategy of turning Dokdo into an internationally disputed territory, as Tokyo intends.

 

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]

 

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