A New Approach to the Territorial Dispute Involving a Former Colonizer-Colony Pari (original) (raw)

The Dokdo/Takeshima Dispute between Korea and Japan: Understanding the Whole Picture

Pacific Focus, 2009

In the past, most studies on territorial disputes have been in the discipline of history and international law. In this paper, we expand the debate by adopting a utility-theory approach to the issue of Dokdo/ Takeshima. We introduce two different types of utility functions over the disputed islet, and show how moving from one to the other can alter the outcome of the dispute.p afo_1030 365.. 378 We conclude that: (i) utilizing historical and/or legal argument alone will not resolve the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute; (ii) the different mixture of two different types of utilities changes the outcome of the debate; and (iii) the current configuration of preferences/utilities among Koreans and Japanese over the issue of Dokdo/Takeshima will never allow mutually satisfactory negotiated solutions to the dispute. Overall our diagnosis and predictions are pessimistic.

Hawk-Talk in Island Disputes: A Theoretical Analysis with an Application to Japan and Korea

Chinese Journal of International Relations, 2017

The territory contested in island disputes is often of low intrinsic value from the national security and economic perspectives. This generally implies a stable status quo where both sides prefer peace to war. Yet island disputes commonly produce a variation whereby states engage in some degree of 'hawk-talk'-more or less confrontational rhetoric and related, symbolically important policies. Theoretically, hawk-talk should be more likely when the disputing countries have a strong, nationalistically salient history of conflict and less likely when they have high levels of cooperation in other national security areas or economic relations. Hawk-talk is expected to beget more hawk-talk, thus to increase the ideological and diversionary political value of assertiveness in island disputes, and to limit or reduce cooperation. Nationalistically salient histories of conflict amplified by hawk-talk can most easily be shown to raise the stakes and risks in low intrinsic value disputes. Yet such histories are expected to have an even greater potential impact on high intrinsic value disputes. We illustrate this logic by analysing the low-intrinsic-value dispute between Korea and Japan over the Dokdo/Takeshima Islands. Both the theory and the case study imply that cooperation in other areas does not constitute a reliable antidote to hawk-talk-driven dispute escalation. Countervailing national interest ideologies, which emphasise other objectives imperilled by dispute escalation, are the most promising complement to increased cooperation.

Territorial Indivisibility and Public Preference for Dispute Resolution: Evidence from Japan

Why do countries continue to make sovereignty claims over territories that they lost a long time ago and are in no position to take back by force? Further, why do they refuse compromise solutions that are better than the status quo? We argue that a belief in territorial indivisibility may explain these puzzles, and in many of the most intractable territorial disputes, such a belief may arise from the claim of historical ownership over these territories. Using a survey experiment in Japan, we investigate whether historical ownership engenders in respondents a belief in territorial indivisibility, and whether such a belief contributes to more hardline policy positions toward territorial disputes. We find that historical ownership does play a significant role in the respondents' perceptions of territorial indivisibility compared with an alternative scenario involving no such prior ownership. Furthermore, those who hold a belief in indivisibility are more likely to support hardline policies and are much less likely to support bilateral negotiation. Finally, arbitration involving international organizations receives a high level of support irrespective of the divisibility of a disputed territory.

Resolution of Territorial Disputes in East Asia: The Case of Dokdo

Social Science Research Network, 2019

This Article seeks to contribute to solving of the Korea-Japan territorial dispute over Dokdo island (Korea)/Takeshima (Japanese). The Republic of Korea argues that Dokdo has formed a part of Korea since as early as 512 C.E.; as Korea currently exercises control over the island, its claim to discovery would appear to fulfill the legal test for possession of territory. Conversely, the Japanese government claims that Korea never exercised sufficient sovereignty over Dokdo. Japan claims that the island remained terra nullius-in other words, territory not possessed by any nation and so could be claimed-until it annexed Dokdo in 1905. Japan also claims that in the 1951 peace treaty ending World War II, the Allies did not include Dokdo in the list of islands taken from Japan, which implies that Japan retained the island in the postwar settlement. This article makes three contributions. First, it brings forward evidence from the maps held at various archives in the United States and Western Europe to determine the historical opinions of experts and governments about the possession of Dokdo. Second, it clarifies the factors that have guided international tribunals in their resolution of earlier disputes involving islands and maritime territory. Third, it shows how the claim of terra nullius has little legitimate authority when applied to East Asia, an area where empires, kingdoms, and nation-states had long exercised control over territory.

Belief in territorial indivisibility and public preferences for dispute resolution

Political Science Research and Methods, 2022

This study investigates how individuals may develop more or less strong beliefs in the indivisibility of a disputed territory and how such beliefs may influence their policy preferences toward resolving the dispute. Using a survey experiment in Japan, we find that historical ownership strengthens respondents' beliefs in territorial indivisibility. Furthermore, those who hold the strongest belief in territorial indivisibility are much less likely to support bilateral negotiation and more likely to support contentious policies, including but not limited to military actions. Finally, we explore external validity of the findings by analyzing respondents who had a real dispute in mind during the survey with China, South Korea, and Russia, respectively.

¬¬The Title to Dokdo/Takeshima: Addressing the Legacy of World War Two Territorial Settlements/Finding the Right Settlement of Dispute Mechanism

This article comments on the states’ historical arguments to Dokdo/Takeshima in the context of the San Francisco Treaty and examines other germane factors to adjudication of the sovereignty of Dokdo/Takeshima. It is divided into two parts: the first examines territorial settlements determined by the Allies through the San Francisco Treaty. Framed to determine the post World War II geographic limits of Japan, this treaty has been relied upon by both parties to prove their claim to Dokdo/Takeshima. As a consequence the efficacy of the treaty, the drafters’ intent and how subsequent orders passed by the Allies could be construed, become central to engaging the sovereignty question. The second part of this paper highlights other relevant factors that may be called upon to determine the fate of the islands, drawing on international law and its jurisprudence. Several legal and political factors impinge the viability or desirability of submitting the dispute to third party adjudication. An agreement regarding the exploitation of maritime resources while useful, would be temporary, failing to addressing the crux of the controversy, and therefore unlikely to generate long-term working arrangements over the management of the island. Both Korea and Japan could sub-divide the conflict in different components and approach specialised bodies such as the Hamburg Tribunal to resolve the main points under dispute.

An Island Approach to the Territorial Disputes over the Senkaku / Diaoyu / Tiaoyutai Islands

2016

The uninhabited Senkaku islands, which have been administered by the Okinawan local government, have been claimed by Japan, China and Taiwan. The vicinity of the disputed islands has long been identified as possessing potential oil and gas resources. The territorial disputes have been intensified after the Japanese government nationalized the islands in 2012. The situation has been regarded as the most serious for Sino-Japanese relations in the post-war period in terms of the risk of militarized conflict. The Chinese government used “core interests” to describe national sovereignty over the islands which it will make no compromise at any price, while the Japanese government hardened its stance by insisting that there is no territorial dispute to negotiate with China over the islands. The peaceful settlements on the disputed islands are complicated because it involves history, economy, security and nationalism. This paper argues that the best way to ease territorial disputes will be ...

Japan's Territorial Disputes' Policy: Success or Failure?

2021

Today, Japan has territorial disputes with all of its neighbors. In the case of the disputes over South Kuriles/Northern Territories and Dokdo/Takeshima, Japan seeks return of a territory that it claims to be illegally occupied by Russia and South Korea respectively. It the case of the Senkakus/Diaoyu, it is China and Taiwan that claim the islands administered by Japan. This chapter focuses on Japan's territorial disputes' related policy. It examines the policy goals set by the Japanese government and evaluates their successes and failures. It may seem that retrieval of lost territories and preservation of control over the Senkakus has been consistently the main goal of Japan's government. This chapter however shows that the actual policies related to the disputes have been more fluid and complex. It shows that the goals of Japan's government and related policies were not static and evolved over time, reflecting changes in ruling elites' priorities, domestic poli...

Historical Ownership and Territorial Disputes

The Journal of Politics

Some of the most enduring and dangerous territorial disputes often involve claims of historical ownership by at least one side of a dispute. Why does historical ownership lead to more hardened bargaining stances than in other territorial disputes? Do such uncompromising positions lead to more military conflict? We investigate these questions in this study. After developing a theoretical argument for how historical ownership may lead to a perception of territorial indivisibility, we test the hypotheses derived from the theory with a survey experiment implemented in China. We find that a historical ownership treatment increases the number of respondents who view the indivisible outcome of a hypothetical dispute as the only acceptable outcome. Furthermore, those who perceive a territory to be indivisible are more likely to favor economic sanctions and military solutions to the dispute, and much less likely to support bilateral negotiation or arbitration by an international organization.