Might Extorts Right and Cash
Ampontan weighs in on the Liancourt Rocks issue with an excellent post offering a solution to the Japan-ROK impasse between the Busan or Takeshima gambits. As a proud expat denizen of Busan, I would opt for the Busan approach to ending the Liancourt Rocks impasse, if not for the more proximate, and fundamental,issues of the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea and the 1952 San Francisco Treaty.
South Korea currently occupies the islets in violation of international law. As part of the San Francisco Peace Treaty at the end of World War II, Japan was forced to relinquish specified territories it seized or colonized in the first half of the 20th century. It was allowed to keep the remaining unspecified territories, Takeshima among them.
But the South Koreans occupied Takeshima on 2 September 1954 using military force. Japan did not resist, and the Koreans knew they would not; the Japanese Constitution relinquishes the right to use military force for national aims, even for self-defense.
Japan suggested that the two countries submit the case to the International Court of Justice, but the South Koreans refused. For them, it seems, might makes right.
South Korean unilateralism continues, both militarily and «scientifically».The only other question, as I offer in an as yet unmoderated comment, is how much will Seoul extort in aid for Tokyo's next agreement on the rocks.
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