US keeps allies from each other's throats
South Korea has one more reason to appreciate its alliance with the United States - and the US alliance with Japan. No matter what the Japanese say about their claim to the Tokdo, a rocky outcrop between Japan and Korea, there is no way they can do anything to recover them as long as US alliances guarantee the defence of both countries. It is unimaginable that Japan would try to wrest them from Korean control by force while the US has bases in both Japan and Korea.
In any case, if possession is nine-tenths of the law, the fact that a South Korean garrison occupies the islets gives Seoul the edge despite Tokyo's persistent insinuations of ownership.
Thus, it seems difficult to believe that South Korea should get excited over Japan's claim to the islets, whose Korean name, Tokdo, means 'solitary island'. This comes amid bitter recriminations between South and North Korea over the killing of a South Korean tourist in North Korea's Mount Kumkang region, as well as non-stop debate over the North's nuclear programme.
With the end of the second world war, Japan lost its tenuous hold over the islets, which the Japanese named Takeshima for 'bamboo island'. The Americans, after using them for a time as a bombing range, turned them over to South Korea. By now, a small garrison of South Korean policemen guards them against any conceivable intruders.
Ancient claims aside, those moves have a certain logic since the islets, actually two major outcroppings - one measuring 54 hectares, the other, 44 hectares - plus a number of other lesser rocks and reefs, are closer to Korea than Japan.
Although it may seem like making a mountain out of a molehill, the anger spilled over at the recent regional forum of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Singapore.
South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan spurned a proposal for a bilateral meeting with his counterpart from Japan. At the same time, North Korea's foreign minister, Pak Ui-chun, refused to meet Mr Yu while claming that South Korea's government had 'endangered peace on the Korean peninsula'.
Mr Pak was no doubt upset by Mr Yu's lobbying for support for an investigation of the death of the 53-year-old South Korean housewife shot by North Korean guards above the line dividing the Koreas.
The North Korean snub of Mr Yu was all the more pointed in view of Mr Pak's handshake during a break in the meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and then with North Korea's pledge to become the 15th signatory of a treaty of amity and co-operation with Asean countries.
North Korea has reason to be grateful for US President George W. Bush's initiation of steps to remove it from the list of terrorist states and lift economic sanctions.
The latest Tokdo flare-up had at least one salutary effect, however: it stole the headlines, temporarily, from the candle-light protests against the import of US beef.
Donald Kirk is the author of two books and numerous articles on Korea for newspapers, magazines and journals
