By The long running East Sea/Sea of Japan issue appears to be settled at least with the US on what to call this body of water:
Korea has lodged an informal protest against a U.S. government-funded agency’s suggestion to use Japan’s name for the body of water between the two Asian nations in the world’s most-cited guideline for maps, diplomatic sources said Monday.
The protest came after a U.S. maritime-boundary agency recently notified the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) that it only backed the usage of “Sea of Japan” in the guideline, they said. Britain has echoed the view, they added.
This is the latest setback to the Korean government’s long-time efforts to replace the appellation with “East Sea” in the guideline in what appears to be a campaign to root out one of the longest surviving legacies of Japan’s colonial rule of Korea from 1910 to 1945. [Korea Times via reader tip]
The US State Department has confirmed the name of the Sea of Japan as well. I have always thought that the East Sea was a poor choice of an alternate name because the name doesn’t make sense from the Japanese perspective when the sea is west of their country. I think Korea would have been better off calling it the Asian Sea or something else applicable to all the countries that border this body of water. Also Korea’s claim would have more creditability if they offered to change the name of the Korea Strait as well to something more neutral.
She hasn’t seen...
11:30 am on August 9th, 2011 1
Please, people of Korea Mr. Bulack Obama does not mean Japan owns the sea. Please keep in mind that America does not have a “sea of the United States of America”, but we do have a Gulf of Mexico, Sea of Cortez, Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean. We do have a lot of Korean Restaurants (a lot more than you have McDonald’s, Burger King, TGI Friday’s, KFC, Pizza Hut etc. We also have Korea Town in LA. There is no “Little America” in Korea. Korean’s own many, many stores in the United States and contribute to their adopted country (thank you). Many Korean born Americans serve in the US Army, Air Force, Marines, and Navy. I have yet to see a single American serving in the Korean Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine, Coast Guard, Police, Government Position etc, etc, etc, etc. Don’t worry about the Sea of Japan, you still have Dokdo. Or would you rather have the Sea of Korea and Takashema?
11:43 am on August 9th, 2011 2
#1
Sea of Cortez!!! You must mean the Gulf of California!!!!
I say we start a protest campaign to get that straight.
12:16 pm on August 9th, 2011 3
Ha ha! Why would the world recognize The Sea of Japan as the East Sea when it is only east of a country with less significance? Another one bites the dust, Korea!
12:49 pm on August 9th, 2011 4
*SMACK!* Take that arrogant and childish Korea.
2:10 pm on August 9th, 2011 5
my husband does a lot of briefings with the ROK military and when they call it the Sea of Japan the higher rank always makes the youngin tell the Americans that it is to be called the ‘east sea’!
recently they have just put the legend of the map between japan and korea where you would normally write sea of japan.
3:50 pm on August 9th, 2011 6
#3,
The South Korean government knows it, which is why it isn’t arguing for Dong-hae Sea (I know, it’s a redundancy) to be recognized…Well, that and also the old colonial mentality that a foreign language (in this case, English) is much more internationally acceptable than Korean.
3:52 pm on August 9th, 2011 7
…I realize my argument is a contradiction of sorts, but South Korean politicians tend to be just as illogical as they are polarized.
4:07 pm on August 9th, 2011 8
lmao and this is coming from 2 groups of people.
group 1: losers who couldn’t go to college because they were poor and dumb so they joined military.
group 2: losers who went to college but couldnt’ get a job but they didn’t want to work at burgerking so they came to Korea to teach english.
5:07 pm on August 9th, 2011 9
# 7 Orbit,
As Lemmy pointed out your “group 1″ includes Kyopo’s/Korean Americans, are they “losers” too?
There are Korean Americans/kyopo’s in that “teach english” group, are they “losers” too?
5:10 pm on August 9th, 2011 10
#7,
You forgot #3, the category you fall into: Dipshit internet trolls.
5:15 pm on August 9th, 2011 11
8: yes they are losers too.
5:17 pm on August 9th, 2011 12
nah #3 is group number 2.
5:19 pm on August 9th, 2011 13
#11,
That’s what a dipshit internet troll would say.
5:38 pm on August 9th, 2011 14
#12 I must’ve destroyed someone’s fragile glass house of sensitivity. lol
5:41 pm on August 9th, 2011 15
Orbit. Your barbaric ways of argument helps you nothing.
On the other hand, I think it’s only a matter of time before Korea escapes its current state of lesser significance and weak political power. While I don’t think Korea’s proposal for ‘East Sea’ is a really rational one, I also don’t think it’s good diplomacy to keep Korea dissatisfied for too long (in the same way Korea won’t be behind Japan and the US for too long… except perhaps for size of land and population). You sure as hell should hope Korea doesn’t unify if you want to keep making fun of it.
6:04 pm on August 9th, 2011 16
#13,
Nah, you just splattered it with your BS.
6:10 pm on August 9th, 2011 17
I’ll be the mature adult and let the LBH have his last word.
6:13 pm on August 9th, 2011 18
“I think it’s only a matter of time before Korea escapes its current state of lesser significance and weak political power.”
Are you kidding? It’s got some of the most important corporations in the world, a UN secretary general, and one of the most geopolitically significant locations in the world. Heck, you could probably argue that investor’s trust in the markets were already shaken before the US’s credit rating downgrade when the South Korean government revealed last week that it was shifting its foreign exchange reserves to gold. What more do you want as proof that South Korea is no longer of lesser significance nor of weak political power?
6:14 pm on August 9th, 2011 19
…East Sea and Dokdo? That’s BS.
6:37 pm on August 9th, 2011 20
#7
Since you brought that up, you should realize that for most people around the world this is insignificant quibbling. There is no actual property ownership being disputed. The meaningful interest here is to de-cluttered maps and simplify things for international geographers, navigators and travelers.
I’m old enough to remember when the whole world decided to standardize on the metric system of measurement, but many in the USA stubbornly refused to. There were costs resulting from miscommunicating measurements and using the wrong tools. And some businesses have to go out of their way to accommodate us — the gauges on my foreign car indicates kilometers and miles. But it never amounted to more than good natures jibing between the countries and we just agreed to disagree. Americans can use whatever measurement standard they want at home, but when they travel overseas, they better be prepared to adapt to the internationally accepted standard. We have no right to impose the international standard we want any more than Korea has to fixing the name of seas it doesn’t own.
But Korea seem to get spun up about things that most others wouldn’t. Why the fit over a name, not even in the native language, over a sea that has no sole ownership? On our side of the Pacific, the Sea of Cortez/Gulf of California was already mentioned. Most Americans and Mexicans could care less what each other call it.
By the way, when Korea decided to revise the romanization of hangul, again, 10 years ago, that was a real cost to the public and private sectors and caused confusion for some foreign travelers, such as in revising maps, signs and documents — Pusan->Busan and Kunsan->Gunsan. But Korea was completely in its rights to impose those changes.
6:58 pm on August 9th, 2011 21
What the heck?!?! Korea has all rights to name that sea the East Sea, because in case you didn’t know, the boundaries are set BY the East Sea seperating the Korea’s and Japan. And my question is, what power does America have to suddenly come out of nowhere and suddenly name the East Sea the Sea of Japan? Because in case you didn’t know, the East Sea has no Japan Island’s, But quite a few Korean Island’s. I think that this whole subject is complete bull crap.
6:59 pm on August 9th, 2011 22
“What more do you want as proof that South Korea is no longer of lesser significance nor of weak political power?”
Compared to its regional neighbors like China and Japan, it still is, while it’s divided.
No use comparing Korea to Europe; Europe’s a dying stock anyway with several decades of comparative decline in national power, Asia is not.
JoeC,
I think what matters to Korea here is which country the sea has been named after, because it’s the sea in which that country and Korea have their most serious ongoing diplomatic dispute.
7:18 pm on August 9th, 2011 23
#20
“what power does America have to suddenly come out of nowhere and suddenly name the East Sea the Sea of Japan?”
The USA is not imposing the decision. If you read the article, the USA merely submitted its recommendation to an international standards body, the IHO, as did Britain.
7:20 pm on August 9th, 2011 24
Any map that I can recall looking at including the one on the wall above my computer calls the body of water in question the “Sea of Japan.” I didn’t know that there was even a controversy withing the US government. Maybe they could call it “The North East Asian Sea” but I think some politicians in SK must have too much time on their hands if this is what their worrying about.
9:44 pm on August 9th, 2011 25
#20,
Whatever JoeC said at 22, and…
Koreans don’t call it “East Sea”, they call it Donghae. You’d think they’d ask to have it called the Dong Sea or the Donghae Sea since 99.9% of foreigners wouldn’t know what it means, but the government argues to call it the “East Sea” because it knows it’s an absurd argument, one which they will never win. Japan and the international community will never accept to name it the East Sea only since it’s completely unpractical. Simply put, it’s an issue local politicians really don’t want to be resolved because they have too much political gain to make from it. Nothing diverts public attention like a pissing contest with Japan.
12:45 am on August 10th, 2011 26
Hah! Dong Sea… It may as well be called.. Shit Creek.
1:33 am on August 10th, 2011 27
TD, clarify your post please.
3:44 am on August 10th, 2011 28
#27,
Nationalism is a cancer affects sight and reason, and political aspirations are the carcinogens that cause it.
3:46 am on August 10th, 2011 29
Correction…Nationalist is a cancer that affects sight and reason, and political and financial vested interests are the carcinogens that cause it.
4:44 am on August 10th, 2011 30
Koreans do call the sea by ‘East Sea’, btw. They also call the Pacific Ocean ‘Taepyeongyang’ (tae = great, pyeong = peaceful, yang = ocean) in their language. That doesn’t mean they are demanding the international community to call it the way they do.
5:24 am on August 10th, 2011 31
#30,
Cough, cough…
Pacific and peaceful are synonymous.
5:25 am on August 10th, 2011 32
And, crap, I meant to write “Nationalism” at #29. Being able to type 100 words a minute sucks, sometimes.
7:14 am on August 10th, 2011 33
Indeed they are synonymous. So?
What I’m trying to say is that Koreans don’t want to demand the world to call East Sea by the name of Donghae Sea or Dong Sea any more than they want the world to call the Pacific Taepyeongyang (or Pyeongyang for that matter) or the Atlantic Daeseoyang (or Seoyang? hah). It doesn’t even cross their thoughts.
9:27 am on August 10th, 2011 34
“Nationalism is a cancer”
…said the Canadian with his maple leaf adorned backpack as he looked for someone to tell about how Canada invented both the telephone and the light bulb.
10:37 am on August 10th, 2011 35
^LOL, OWNED!
11:00 am on August 10th, 2011 36
ChickenHead wrote:
True, ‘dat.
1:29 pm on August 10th, 2011 37
It could be called the Sea of Tea, because the surrounding countries have a long history with that beverage, and because Teadrinker is an outstanding rokdrop commenter.
5:27 pm on August 10th, 2011 38
I agree with #33. Please show me the proof Koreans want the world to call east sea ‘dong hae’. Teadrinker you sure act like you know everything when you can’t even speak Korean.
6:17 am on August 11th, 2011 39
^So many people predicted that Korea today will be a third world. Hm… I wonder where they are hiding their faces now.
Unvigilant attitude like that is what causes many formerly ‘great’ countries their debilitating detriments in this dynamic world of modern politics and economy that most short-sighted human beings are not tasked (nor designed) to forsee. Geographically small countries like Korea actually have very good chance of becoming fairly powerful. You just don’t understand how.
9:39 am on August 11th, 2011 40
I was writing in response to what I accepted as a trolling post (which was previously the post #39) which I decided to take somewhat seriously. It seems the admins removed it.
5:26 pm on August 14th, 2011 41
Teadrinker wrote:
Place names that can be easily translated into another language often are, rather than being transliterated. Has nothing to do with colonial mentality.
6:08 am on August 16th, 2011 42
6:48 am on August 16th, 2011 43
How are you Gentleman? All your base are belong to us.
1:57 am on September 9th, 2011 44
Let’s just call it Sea of Russia. After all, their part of that area too. They don’t seem to care about it being called Sea of Japan.
Koreans may call that sea area Donghae, Japan calls it Nihonkai., Russian calls it Японское море. So all the countries that should care about it don’t even call it Sea of Japan.
The only people complaining are Koreans who can read English and care about what other English speaking countries call it.
This bugs many Korean people whom are very Nationalist. The thought that their archnemesis Japan gets to have a Sea named with their country name sure makes them grind their teeth at night.
10:50 am on April 24th, 2012 45
i see it more politically correct to call it ‘EAST SEA’
than
‘SEA OF JAPAN’
because
1. in that territory there is none of japanese island when korea has several.
2. to the people who claims that calling it EAST SEA is absurd when the sea is not on the east side from japan. but you see, in the far east asia(ruissia, china, korea etc), the nations have the sea to their east side. so how is it more absurd to call it EAST SEA than SEA OF JAPAN?
korea should have claim the sea as ”SEA OF KOREA” not EAST SEA.