trancekr said:
I'm not defending putting some random address on profile.
Also I don't want to debate about the whole "Dokdo / Takeshima" situation.
But "Dokdo" is Korean territory and Korean people have occupied "Dokdo" for about 1000 years. There is the address for that useless small rock in Korea.
That's why "Dokdo" is in the regional setting.
More like 1000 years ago...
Japan pretty much took the island in the late 1500s and had a small population of fishermen living there during the Edo period (or the Joseon period for the Koreans). Later, at the end of the Russo-Japanese war, Japan officially declared the island as part of Shimane prefecture. By the time Korean government officials found out about this, their country was already a protectorate of the Japanese empire.
The San Francisco treaty, which defined the new Japan's borders did not mention Takeshima / Dokdo and when Japan and Korea normalized relations in the 60s, both parties were careful not to mention the status of the islands. Before normalizaiton however, the South Korean government took the initiative to establish a military presence on the islands which were not the property of either country according to international law. During the period before normalization a few Japanese fishermen were killed and thousands more were abducted by South Koreans under the pretense that the Japanese fishermen were unlawfully entering Korean territory. Again, the area was not officially part of South Korea or Japan according to international law.
To this day, South Korea keeps helicopter landing pads and a small military presence on the island even though they really have no claim to the islands in an international sense. Japan has proposed many times that they settle the issue in the International Court of Justice, but South Korea has constantly refused.
The islands were definitely originally part of Korea, but they have also been claimed and often occupied by Japan from around the 1600s (possibly even earlier). The debate is definitely a difficult one, but I personally cannot agree with Korea's super aggressive attitude and unwillingness to discuss the issue.