[ISL] "How Two Small Rocks Stop Japan and South Korea Getting Along"

[rfmcdonald]

Bloomberg's Isabel Reynolds notes how the long-running dispute between Japan and South Korea over two islands in the waters which separate these countries stymies cooperation.

Once a source of fortune for Japanese fishermen hunting sea lions and abalone, a pair of remote rocks is stopping the U.S.’ two biggest allies in Asia from getting along.

The Sea of Japan rocks have been controlled by South Korea since 1954. None of the 1,200 fishermen on Okinoshima, the nearest inhabited Japanese island, have ever been there. While the territorial tensions can ebb and flow, a more nationalistic government in Tokyo and media reports highlighting the dispute have again brought Okinoshima into the public eye.

“It used to be that young people and the general public didn’t really care about Takeshima,” local resident Shoza Yawata, 86, told reporters in the village of Kumi on Okinoshima, 158 kilometers (98 miles) from the rocks known as Dokdo in Korean. “Recently, there has been a backlash against South Korea’s control,” he said. “As Japanese, our blood boils.”

The dispute over the islets and their fishing rights, plus South Korea’s lingering bitterness over the treatment of its women by Japan’s Imperial Army during World War II, prevents a warming in relations between two of Asia’s big economies. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who wants a more militarily-assertive Japan, has seen his calls for a summit with President Park Geun Hye shunned, leaving the U.S. a cheerleader on the sidelines urging better ties.

“Japan has zero chance of getting any Korean concession on the” rocks, said Robert Dujarric, director of the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies at Temple University in Japan.