Jeju Peace Institute

YI Seong-Woo (Senior Research Fellow, Jeju Peace Institute)

Concerning the territorial dispute is East Asia, South Korean has endorsed the silent diplomacy in order to avoid Japanese strategic movement to make Dok-do as an international dispute area. However, Japanese government has adopted an aggressive strategy to extend its maritime territory including 4.47 million ㎢ territorial water and exclusive economic zone as the 9th largest country in the world. Facing an aggressive neighbor country, I would like to review the international academic trend of studies on territorial disputes including issues, methodology, and perspectives.

This employs one of the most popular conflict data sets, Territorial Claims Data 1919-1995 by Huth and Allee and analyzes the conflictual behaviors of the relevant parties in East Asia including South Korea, China, Russia, and Japan. Unlike the factual reality that South Korea has never claimed any territorial disputes as a challenger country, it is coded as a challenger country who tries to revise the territorial status quo. That is a result of misunderstanding that Japan effectively controls Dokdo.

As a conclusion of data analyses, this will provide policy suggestions to strengthen the territorial sovereignty of South Korea via the effective control on Dokdo. As a part of strategic approach, South Korea needs to cooperate with Russia who has no conflict of interest concerning the territorial issue in East Asia. Based on the initial cooperation, South Korea will be able to include China as another cooperation partner. Finally, South Korea can request the norm of “one nation-one rule” against Japanese political maneuvers concerning territorial dispute in East Asia.