On August 1st, three Japanese congressmen who are part of an extreme rightist group, the Liberal Democratic Party, entered Korea claiming dominium of Dokdo Island. The Korean government had already given out a ‘prohibition of entry’ notification but the Japanese congressmen claimed “Korea is currently a law-abiding country, but they are not abiding by any sort of law in trying to ban certain congressmen (who represent the people of another country) from their land, and we refuse to accept their notice.” These congressmen refused to return to Japan for several hours.

In response to the press who asked about their stance regarding Dokdo Island, the three Japanese assemblymen who arrived in Gimpo airport answered, “That land belongs to Japan. Even so, there is a need have a talk about the differing opinions that exist between South Korea and Japan.” The assemblymen who gave out such a controversial response are part of the Liberal Democratic Party, and are members of The Committee of Territory. These assemblymen had already assumed that their entering Korea would bring dispute, but still pushed through with their plan. News about the Korean government responding sensitively and the Dokdo Island Protection National Alliance protesting in front of the Japanese embassy are no help to the current situation.

If the international community sheds light on this issue, more and more people will start to think of Dokdo Island as disputed territory, even though there is plenty of historical evidence that it is indeed Korea’s. This sort of confusion will only extend the dispute regarding Dokdo Islands, making it harder for Korea to claim full dominium of Dokdo. Seeing that this incident has brought so much attention, more assemblymen are showing interest in visiting Ulleungdo just so that they can show their face to the press.

Through this visit, the Japanese politicians’ goal was to bring Dokdo Island dispute to spotlight, and the actions that the Korean government took resulted in helping to achieve this goal. It is understandable that the Korean government responded with a hard-line policy since Japan keeps saying controversial statements about the possession of Dokdo Island. However, various media are calling this incident a “political show”, so there is a need for the Korean government to be cautious in response to Japan’s provocative actions or statements.

A few days after the attempt to visit Ulleungdo failed, reporters from an extreme rightist media, Sankei newspaper, visited Ulleungdo. According to witnesses, these reporters were very fluent in Korean and made an effort not to contact other residents in order to hide their nationality. This incident shows that the Korean government cannot block Japanese people from visiting Ulleungdo or Dokdo Island forever. If the government uses coercive tactics to keep Japanese people from coming, while more and more Japanese politicians are showing interest in visiting Ulleungdo, conflicts will only be intensified, worsening the already damaged relation of the two countries.

Instead of giving out a ‘prohibition of entry’ notification as if the Japanese politicians were terrorists, the Korean government should have accepted their visit and offered to escort them for protection. Senator Song Min-Soon who was the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade during the end of Roh’s administration, pointed out that if the Japanese congressmen had accepted our escort to Ullengdo and Dokdo, it would have also meant that they accepted Korea’s dominium of the islands. This situation would have been favorable to us. If we act with such composure, Japan’s provocative actions will lessen.

This is not to say that we would sit down and watch Japan’s actions of trying to bring international interest to the Dokdo conflict. Even so, if we continue to prohibit their entry to Korea, the situation of the congressmen refusing to go back to Japan could repeat itself. Therefore, the Korean government needs to approve their entrance and show that we have confidence in the dominium of Dokdo Island. We cannot rely on the Japanese government to restrain the congressmen, since they are saying “There is not much the government can do, since this is something that the opposition party is dealing with.”

There is an opinion that we should go one step further from the escorting mentioned above, and invite the Japanese congressmen in the form of an official visit. In order to prevent any unsavory incidents from happening, we could invite foreign press as well. Then the Japanese congressmen could look around Ulleungdo and Dokdo Island with our own politicians. There is a history museum in Ulleungdo, which explains that Japan illegally took over Ulleungdo and Dokdo Island during the Japanese occupation. The situation will be in our favor, since all the participants will be able to hear about why those islands are truly Korea’s territory. Only when we confront Japan with such a friendly countermeasure, will we be able to prevent Dokdo Island as being realized as disputed territory when it is clearly Korea’s.