Commentary on themes by historical period

1. Report submitted to the United States by Acting U.S. Political Advisor for Japan William J. Sebald

 On January 18, 1952, the ROK government issued the “Syngman Rhee Line Declaration” (official name: “Presidential Proclamation of Sovereignty over Adjacent Seas”) with which it asserted its fisheries jurisdiction (exclusive rights that coastal states control fisheries) and sovereignty over a large maritime area around the Korean peninsula. On January 28 the Japanese government issued a protest against the declaration, and this marked the start of the Takeshima issue, as this Syngman Rhee Line encompassed the island within its easternmost boundary. On February 12, the ROK government issued a rebuttal to Japan’s protest, and on April 25, the government of Japan issued counterarguments to the rebuttal.

 William Joseph Sebald (1901-1980), the Acting U.S. Political Advisor for Japan (a position equivalent to ambassador, as Japan had not yet regained its independence at the time and the position of ambassador did not yet exist) sent a report to the U.S. State Department dated January 29, 1952.¹ At the time Sebald was serving concurrently as Chief of the Diplomatic Section of the General Headquarters, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (GHQ/SCAP; “GHQ”), which was responsible for the administration of Japan.

 In Part I of the report Sebald introduced the text of the protest² issued by the government of Japan on the previous day, and in Part IV he stated the following:

 Korean inclusion Takeshima within Rhee Line poses question sovereignty these islands. Japs have been deprived of govt and admin jurisdiction these islands by SCAPIN. However, by exclusion, terms of Peace Treaty appear reserve sovereignty to Japan. Presumably this is proper subject for negotiation between Japan and Korea without reference SCAP or Allied Powers.

 SCAPIN referred to in this comment is the SCAP Instruction Note 677 (SCAPIN-677)³ that was issued on January 29, 1946. This directive removed Takeshima, together with Jeju and Utsuryo Islands from areas under Japanese administration. However, the directive also noted that that “nothing in this directive shall be construed as an indication of Allied policy relating to the ultimate determination of” Japanese territory. The ultimate decision over Japanese territory was made in the Peace Treaty, signed on September 8, 1951.

 What should be noted in Sebald’s report is the phrase, “by exclusion, terms of the Peace Treaty appear to reserve sovereignty to Japan.” The words “by exclusion” likely refer to the fact that whereas SCAPIN-677 excludes “Utsuryo (Ullung) Island, Liancourt Rocks (Take Island) and Quelpart (Saishu or Cheju) Island” from the scope of what is considered to be Japan, Article 2 (a) of the Peace Treaty states that “Japan, recognizing the independence of Korea, renounces all right, title, and claim to Korea, including the Islands of Quelpart, Port Hamilton and Dagelet,” and Takeshima is thus not referred to at all in the Peace Treaty.

 In November 1949, seeing that the U.S. State Department’s draft Peace Treaty attributed “Quelpart (Saishu To), the Nan How Group (San To, or Komun Do) which forms Port Hamilton (Tonaikai), Dagelet Island (Utsuryo To, or Matsu Shima), Liancourt Rocks (Takeshima)” to Korea, Sebald wrote to the Secretary of State, noting that with regard to Takeshima, “Japan’s claim to these islands is old and appears valid,” and requested that the State Department revise its draft of the treaty.⁴ Sebald’s opinions were accepted and in the draft Peace Treaty compiled in December 1949, the text was modified to include Takeshima (Liancourt Rocks) as part of the territory of Japan. Subsequently the paragraph noting which islands were part of Japanese territory was dropped from the draft version, but there was no change to the U.S. policy that Takeshima would remain as part of Japan’s territory. In August 1951, an official document from the U.S. Government (the “Rusk Letter”) stated that Takeshima had been under the jurisdiction of Japan local government and rejected the ROK government’s claims to include Takeshima as part of Korea, which would be renounced by Japan. It can be seen from his report that Sebald was unaware of the ROK request and the Rusk Letter. Nonetheless, it was Sebald’s view that in the Peace Treaty, Takeshima should remain as part of Japan.

 The ROK has criticized that in the background of Sebald’s request to revise the treaty draft in November, 1949, these was cunning actions by the Japanese government. The ROK stated that, “Upon the insistence of the Japanese government, however, United States Department of State officials wrote in a draft that the island was part of Japan” (Chapter III “Korea’s Territorial Rights to Dokdo Seen from Measures Taken by the Allied Powers after World War II,” in Dokdo is Korean Territory (on the website of the Northeast Asian History Network)⁵ ). In referring to the “insistence of the Japanese government” the ROK is most likely seeking to imply that the Japanese government used Sebald to influence the U.S. State Department. The reality was different, however. While the State Department likely considered the opinion of Sebald, it was the department that decided, based on their own information and judgement that Takeshima would remain as a part of Japan in the Peace Treaty. Sebald’s report on January 29, 1952 reveals such fact by showing his lack of awareness of the interactions between the ROK and US in relation to Takeshima in 1951.

 Letters from July 1951 with respect to the ROK government’s request to the U.S. government to include Takeshima as part of Korean territory in the Peace Treaty (a letter sent from ROK Foreign Minister Yung Tai Pyun to U.S. Ambassador to the ROK John J. Muccio on July 17, and a letter from ROK Ambassador to the U.S. You Chan Yang to Special Advisor John F. Dulles on July 19)⁶ were also sent to the office of the U.S. Political Advisor for Japan. In addition, a report to the State Department⁷ from the U.S. Ambassador to the ROK dated November 28, 1951, which summarized Korean newspaper reports condemning the landing on Takeshima by the crew of the training ship “Asanagi-Maru” of Sakai High School in Tottori Prefecture, was similarly sent to the office of the U.S. Political Advisor for Japan. In that report it was noted that “It will be recalled Tok Island was 1 of those ROK Government asked be specifically mentioned as Korean in Article II Japanese Peace Treaty.” The absence of references to these pieces of information in Sebald’s report on January 29, 1952 would suggest that he had little interest in Takeshima before the Takeshima issue emerged following the declaration of the Syngman Rhee Line. In other words, other than his request to the State Department in 1949, Sebald took no further action over Takeshima, which tells us that he was not subject to the “insistence of the Japanese government.”

2. Report to London of the British Embassy in Japan

 On May 28, 1953, the crew of the “Shimane-Maru,” a research vessel of the Shimane Prefecture Fisheries Research Institute, confirmed the activities of Korean people on Takeshima.⁸ On June 27 the same year, Shimane Prefecture and the Maritime Safety Agency conducted a joint survey of Takeshima, calling for the Koreans who had landed there to leave, and establishing signs denoting Takeshima as Japanese territory.⁹ The National Assembly of the Republic of Korea, which opposed Japan’s survey of Takeshima as an “incident of invasion of Dokdo,” on July 8 urged the ROK government to take a hardline stance against Japan. On July 12 an incident occurred in which a patrol vessel of the Maritime Safety Agency in the vicinity of Takeshima was fired on.¹⁰ The next day, July 13, the Japanese government issued a protest about the firing incident and also issued a note verbale to the ROK government in which it conveyed Japan’s views over the Takeshima issue. During August there were two further exchanges of protests, and on September 9 the ROK government issued its own note verbale, rebutting the views expressed by the Japanese government.

 In the report sent to the British Foreign Office by the British Embassy in Japan dated July 1, 1953, concerning the Takeshima issue,¹¹ it is stated that, “We have been unable to discover from published sources details of Japan’s historical claim to the island but it appears to have been discovered by some Japanese travellers at the beginning of the eighteenth century who were on their way to the island of Utsuryoto.” It is also noted that, “There seems, however, to have been some confusion about the names given to the islands of Takeshima and Utsuryoto and the name Matsushima is also used for Takeshima.” As evidenced by the erroneous use of “18th century” instead of “17th century,” the British Embassy was unaware of the historical basis for the use, etc., of Takeshima during the Edo period, as well as the details of the change to the island’s name when Takeshima was incorporated into Shimane Prefecture in 1905. However, it is apparent that the British Embassy had engaged in the collection of information concerning the Takeshima issue. There is also an article in the Asahi Shimbun (Shimane Edition) dated July 5, titled, “Tokyo Office (of Shimane Prefecture) receives inquiry about the attribution of territory.”

 The report sent to the British Foreign Office by the British Embassy in Japan dated July 15, 1953, concerning the Takeshima issue¹² begins with an explanation of the incident in which a patrol vessel had been fired on several days earlier, on July 12. The next paragraph provides an explanation about the protest by the Japanese government concerning this incident, and the government’s assertions concerning sovereignty. The explanation was the same as the following opinions asserted by the Japanese government two days earlier, on July 13.¹³

 More than half of the views expressed by the Japanese government dealt with the post-war handling of Takeshima. This is due to the fact in its rebuttal of February 12, 1952, the ROK government relied solely on SCAPIN-677 and SCAPIN-1033 as the basis for its claim of sovereignty. SCAPIN-1033¹⁴ is a directive, dated June 22, 1946, in which GHQ revised the operating limit line for Japanese fishing vessels (the so-called MacArthur Line) and prohibited Japanese nationals from approaching or contacting Takeshima. The Japanese government pointed out that in both SCAPIN-677 and SCAPIN-1033 explicitly stated that the directives themselves do not seek to express allied policy relative to ultimate determination of national jurisdiction, and also asserted that Takeshima was designated as a bombing range by U.S. Forces based on the premise that Takeshima was Japanese territory.

 The July 15 report of the British Embassy also explains to the British Foreign Office how it had been reported in the evening edition of the Yomiuri Shimbun on July 14 that the U.S. and British governments may be requested to act as mediators in order to realize a peaceful solution to the Takeshima issue.¹⁵ The report goes on to note that although no such request had yet been received from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, it seemed quite possible that such a request may be made in the near future, and that the embassy would immediately inform the British Foreign Office in such an event. What is important is the final paragraph of the report.

5. Meanwhile you may wish to be considering what should be our attitude. If required to mediate we should of course have to ask both sides to present their case; but our preliminary view is that under Article 2 of the Peace Treaty, of which we are co-signatories, Takeshima unmistakably forms part of Japanese territory.

 Thus, the recognition of the British Embassy, albeit a “preliminary view,” was that “Takeshima unmistakably forms part of Japanese territory.” This is also thought to have been a view taken to reflect the stance of the Japanese government.

 The Japanese government was of the same view and made the following assertions with regard to the stipulations of Article 2 (a) of the Peace Treaty, which states, “Japan, recognizing the independence of Korea, renounces all right, title, and claim to Korea, including the islands of Quelpart, Port Hamilton and Dagelet”. The government stated that Takeshima, “had been placed under the jurisdiction of Shimane Prefecture prior to the annexation of Korea to Japan, and continued to be so even after the annexation, not having been placed under the jurisdiction of the Government- General of Korea.” It would therefore have been impossible to cede Takeshima, which was Japanese territory, even recognizing the “independence of Korea” as referred to in Article 2 (a). The listing of “Quelpart, Port Hamilton and Dagelet” in Article 2 (a) was inserted for the “intended to confirm” that these three islands were part of an “independent Korea,” and it is therefore only natural that Takeshima, which is Japanese territory, was not included.

 That the author of the report at the British Embassy did not use vague wording such as “it appears,” “it seems,” or “the texts indicate,” but rather chose the strong expression “unmistakably,” demonstrates support for Japan’s territorial claims. With only SCAPIN-677 and SCAPIN-1033 as the basis for the ROK’s territorial claims, and with these unequivocally rejected by the Japanese government, it was a reasonable assessment.