Japan’s defense white paper claims Dokdo, condemns S. Korean defense drill

Posted on : 2021-07-14 16:53 KST Modified on : 2021-07-14 16:53 KST
The South Korean government summoned an official from the Japanese embassy in protest and demanded that Japan immediately retract its territorial claim to Dokdo
The cover of Japan’s latest defense white paper depicts a samurai riding a horse.
The cover of Japan’s latest defense white paper depicts a samurai riding a horse.

Japan’s Ministry of Defense included criticism of the South Korean military’s defensive exercises around Dokdo in its white paper this year. This is the 17th year that Japan has repeated its claim to sovereignty over the island, known as Takeshima in Japan.

Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi presented the 2021 white paper to the cabinet on Tuesday.

The section of the white paper about defense cooperation with South Korea described “military exercises in the waters around Takeshima” as “negative action by South Korea’s defense officials.”

The “negative moves” by South Korea mentioned in last year’s white paper were a 2018 incident involving a patrol plane with Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force (Japan claimed that a South Korean destroyer locked its targeting radar on the plane) and controversy over South Korea’s threat to terminate the two countries’ GSOMIA military information-sharing agreement. This year, the Dokdo exercises appeared in this section.

“We will continue demanding appropriate action from South Korea on these matters to ensure that no damage is done to the Japan-South Korea cooperative relationship and the Japan-US-South Korea cooperative relationship,” Japan said in the white paper.

Similar language appeared in last year’s white paper, but the phrase “the Japan-US-South Korea cooperative relationship” was added this year. Japan appears to be arguing that South Korea’s “negative action” could lead to problems in the two countries’ military cooperation.

Just as it did last year, Japan once again marked the location of Dokdo with the name “Takeshima” on various maps in the white paper showing the location of major bases of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, activity by the Russian military, surveillance of Japan’s maritime and air boundaries, and the air defense identification zones of neighboring countries.

Japan published its first defense white paper in 1970. It has been making a territorial claim to Dokdo in the white paper for 17 years now, since 2005, during the administration of then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

In this year’s defense white paper, Japan dedicated a page to South Korea’s defense budget and military buildup.

“South Korea’s defense budget has increased for 22 consecutive years, since 2000. Its 2018 budget was worth US$50.6 billion in purchasing power parity, which already exceeded our defense budget of US$49.4 billion,” the white paper said, adding that the bigger budget reflected the Moon administration’s hope of speeding up the transfer of wartime operational control of the South Korean military.

In regard to North Korean missiles, Japan generally maintained its language from the previous year’s white paper. “We believe that North Korea already possesses the ability to attack our country [Japan] with nuclear warheads that have been miniaturized for loading on ballistic missiles,” Japan said.

The language about North Korea possessing “the ability to attack Japan” appeared for the first time last year.

Following Japan’s territorial claim to Dokdo in this year’s defense white paper, the South Korean government summoned an official from the Japanese embassy in protest and demanded that Japan immediately retract that claim.

“Our government strongly protests that Japan has used the defense white paper published today to reiterate its futile territorial claim to Dokdo, which is clearly Korea’s integral territory in terms of history, geography, and international law. We urge [Japan] to immediately retract that [claim],” Choi Young-sam, spokesperson for South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in the daily press briefing on Tuesday.

“We note that Japan has recently been reinforcing its unjust claims about Dokdo, including in this white paper, and express strong regret about that,” Choi said.

“The government once again declares that Japan’s unjust claims do not have any effect on our sovereignty over Dokdo, which is an integral part of the territory of the Republic of Korea. We will respond firmly and severely to any provocation against Dokdo,” Choi added.

When asked whether the defense white paper would affect South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s proposed visit to Japan during the Tokyo Olympics, Choi said, “Our government was already reviewing the idea of holding a summit with Japan, provided that its outcome would help people from both countries in a meaningful way, before Japan released this defense white paper,” adding that “for the moment, I have no new progress to report.”

South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense responded to the language about Dokdo in the defense white paper on Tuesday.

“The Ministry’s head of international policy summoned Japan’s military attaché to the Ministry to strongly protest [the Dokdo claim] and sternly urge [Japan] to make an immediate correction and halt such behavior in the future,” a Ministry official said.

“Along with strongly protesting that Japan repeated its unjust territorial claim about Dokdo, which is our integral territory, we made clear that we would respond firmly to any provocation or attempt to harm our territorial right to the island.”

Another notable aspect of this year’s defense white paper was that it stated for the first time that “the stability of the situation around Taiwan is important, not only for the security of our country but for the stability of the international community.”

“Our country must pay close attention to this, with an even greater sense of vigilance,” the white paper said.

The issue of Taiwan was also mentioned in a joint statement adopted by US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga in their summit in April, the first time that had happened in 52 years, since 1969.

The cover of this year’s white paper depicts a samurai riding a horse. The artwork was by Yuki Nishimoto, whose illustrations are familiar to Japanese youth from video games and TV shows.

Nishimoto’s artwork suggests that the Japanese government is trying to make its defense white paper more accessible to young people.

But it’s debatable whether a belligerent samurai on horseback is appropriate given Japan’s “exclusively defense-oriented policy,” under which military force can only be exercised in response to attack and must be kept to a minimum.

Japanese newspaper the Asahi Shimbun reported that the samurai is shown holding the reins, rather than a sword, because the Defense Ministry thought that swinging the sword would run contrary to Japan’s exclusively defense-oriented posture.

By Cho Ki-weon, staff reporter

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

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