The Korea Times
Sunday, May 6, 2007

By Jung Sung-ki

A volunteer Korean online group Sunday pledged a full-fledged international campaign through the distribution of user-created contents (UCC) to get map makers and international organizations to use the name "East Sea" on their maps, not "Sea of Japan.”

The move comes as the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) opens a three-day general meeting Monday in Monaco to deal with the decades-long dispute between Seoul and Tokyo over the name of the waters between the Korean Peninsula and the islands of Japan.

A high agenda item in the meeting is whether to use the name East Sea in the fourth edition of "Limits of Oceans and Seas (S23)," a guide book for map makers around the globe, which currently identifies the waters as Sea of Japan.

In 2002, the hydrographic body accepted South Korea’s argument for using both the names of the waters and distributed a circular letter to its member countries, asking for a vote on the issue but withdrew the letter after Japan objected. The IHO has 73 member states.

"We’ve been engaging in an e-mail campaign to promote the name East Sea. But from now on, we will also utilize the popular homemade video clips to help people around the world have a better understanding of Korea, and geographical and historical reasons of the sea name," said Park Ki-tae, a representative of the Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK). Vank has about 18,000 members including 3,000 foreigners.

In the beginning, the non-governmental group will promote the East Sea through government-made clips and later use various material such as interviews with foreigners or other unique contents made by ordinary citizens, Kim said.

"Japan already used UCC as a way of promoting its claim over the sea name. We also should make the best of the global trend to prevent world mapmakers from identifying the waters as the Sea of Japan," he added.

VANK’s worldwide campaign has been successful as the National Geographic and other mapmakers have adopted the East Sea. But the Sea of Japan is still dominant worldwide because of the ambiguity of the East Sea.

Japanese groups claim that the name East Sea is not suitable as an international geographic name because it could refer to various places including the neighboring East China Sea. The East Sea is a translation of the Korean name in English.

In a related development, the Cultural Heritage Administrator Yoo Hong-jun called for renaming the East Sea as the Sea of Korea.

Foreign ministry officials vowed their "determination" to carry their point in the IHO meeting.

Song Young-wan, director general of the International Organization Bureau, leads the South Korean delegation consisting of representatives from the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries and state-run research institutes at the meeting.

"We are determined to prevent the IHO assembly from voting on the unilateral use of Sea of Japan," an official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said, asking not to be named. "If the assembly pushes ahead with a vote, we will try best to persuade most member countries to abstain.”

But the general tone seems to be leaning toward the unilateral use of the Sea of Japan, mainly because of Japan’s full-fledged lobbying, said the official.

Japan registered the Sea of Japan as the official name of the waters with the IHO in the early 1920s. In 1928, the Sea of Japan was adopted in the first edition of Limits of Oceans and Seas, but at that time Korea could not participate because it was under Japanese occupation.

The IHO has since updated the map guidebook three times, but the Sea of Japan has been appeared as the sole appellation in all of them in the revised editions.

Date Posted: 5/6/2007

http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article-east...?parentid=69316


this was sparked by this video:

part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmUVm-sRIWw
part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkYpaPfFmPc
part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBHz0uwGIrI

and to counter that:

part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CifGz-Ah_rk

go follow the links in youtube to watch the other part 2 and part 3, i'm too lazy to post them

Now this sounds like a terrorist movement, nothing more than stirring anti-Japanese sentiments among the people doing these unnecessary things, which are the reason why it sounds so forceful.

Those three videos were to counter the Korean initiative. Not the other way around.

go to hell you, the japan video was started first and then the koreans created that video to counter the japanese video

Wow, after watching the Korean documentary, I see the there is compelling evidence towards using not only the East Sea, but Sea of Korea.

1. Korea, China and all other North East Asian countries called it East Sea for over 2 millenia.
2. Western countries used the name Sea of Korea, Oriental Sea, East Sea way more frequently than Sea of Japan from 1000AD to 1900AD.
3. Even all official Japanese maps use the name Sea of Chosun before 1900AD. There are 18 examples.
4. Japan changed the name while Korea was under colonization which prevented Korea's representation in the matter.
5. Sea of Japan is a residue of Japan's imperialistic era, only adopting the name less than 100 years ago.
6. Plus many more good arguments.

Good Stuff. Does Korea really have a chance to win this?

nope, because japan is much more influential and the korean government is stupid, they don't prepare for this kind of events, they only make a commotion after it happens