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The 25th of October was the day Emperor Gojong stipulated in 1900 through Imperial Edict no. 41 that the island Dokdo is an annex of the island Ulleungdo. To commemorate the occasion, several civic organizations and local governments host a variety of events every year. This month's interview therefore takes the opportunity to learn more about Dokdo from Dr. Kim Byung-ryul who has formerly served as professor at Korea National Defense University and has extensively studied and published works on the island.

Interviewer: Hong Seong-keun (Research fellow, NAHF Institute of Dokdo Research)

Kim Byung-ryul (Former Professor of Security Policies, Korea National Defense University)

Dr. Kim Byung-ryul graduated from the Korea Military Academy and earned his doctoral degree in law from Korea University. Until recently, Dr. Kim was a professor in the department of security policies at Korea National Defense University and has served as director for the Dokdo Research and Preservation Association, the Korean Society of International Law, and as president of the North Gyeongsang Provincial Research Group on Dokdo Material. His publications include "People Guarding Dokdo," "The Secret Behind the Mt. Baekdu Demarcation Stele," "Dokdo or Takeshima?" and "The Japanese Military's History of Pillaging Dokdo."

Q1 What have you been preoccupied with as of late after retiring from your professorship at Korea National Defense University nearly a year ago?

Kim Byung-ryul After publishing the book "Dokdo: A Directory of Dokdo Material" in 1998, I've been using my being busy as an excuse to put off its revision. So, lately I've been going through the book from beginning to end, comparing original sources to their copies that were included in the book in order to correct typos and misinterpretations. The book contains records from various countries including Korea, Japan, the United States, Russia, Britain, and France. Documents from the times of the Tokugawa bakufu and the Meiji Restoration are particularly significant, but the book only had excerpts of them, so I've been adding details on parts beyond such excerpts. I've also been translating original sources into modern day Japanese so as to retranslate such text into Korean. And I'm re-reviewing the draft of the San Francisco Peace Treaty I discovered and disclosed for the first time by comparing it with drafts discovered later on by professors Lee Seok-Woo and Jung Byung-joon.

Q2 You made a rather unusual career choice to study law in graduate school after graduating from the Korea Military Academy.

Kim Byung-ryul Not everyone becomes a general by graduating from the Korea Military Academy. In the United States, more than half of military academy graduates go into the reserve and serve as motivators in all walks of life. Most military academy graduates knowingly or unknowingly develop the tendency to consider issues from a systematic point of view. That is because academies specifically train them to operate that way.

Early into my career as an officer, I received commissioned education by enrolling in a graduate program in law at Korea University. A book I happened to read back then made me take an interest in Dokdo, and because I had been on active duty, I was able to collect original sources related to Dokdo from all over the world with help from other officers stationed overseas. And once I became a professor at Korea National Defense University, it became easier to publicize to professors and students of national defense universities in other countries the fact that Dokdo was once stolen by Japan for its war with Russia.

Q3 What sparked your interest in Dokdo to make you study issues surrounding the island all this time?

Kim Byung-ryul As a master's student, I read "A Historical-Geographical Study of Dokdo" by Kawakami Kenzo and its content was completely different from what I knew at the time. I was greatly shocked. To relieve that intellectual shock, I began reading all the research articles and books by Korean scholars I could get a hold of and started to review in person the original sources Korean scholars and Kawakami Kenzo were referring to. I guess that was how I got involved in studying Dokdo issues.

Q4 "People Guarding Dokdo" has enjoyed popularity since it was published in 1999 and "Us Guarding Dokdo" came out last year. Both books have been authored in a style easy enough for children to read, so could you please let us know what exactly you wished to impart through them?

Kim Byung-ryul Many books have been published about Dokdo here in Korea. Most of them cover the island's historical background to argue that Japan is making baseless claims, but almost none insist that we Koreans should reflect upon ourselves. Yet, we should be able to reflect on our own past to prevent ourselves from repeating the same mistakes today. So, "People Guarding Dokdo" attempted to shed light on whether there is anything Koreans need to reflect upon from antiquity. "Us Guarding Dokdo" is more focused on what Koreans should reflect upon through the modern times. Thanks to many recommendations by teachers with critical minds, lots of children have been reading the latest book. I hope many more read it and develop an interest in Dokdo.

Q5 If you were to choose the most meaningful out of the several books you published about Dokdo, could you please tell us which one and why?

Kim Byung-ryul I would have to go with "Dokdo: A Directory of Dokdo Material" I mentioned above. Consulting original sources is critical to researching the Dokdo issue, but there has been no reliable directory of such sources for more than six decades of disputing with Japan. Scholars have meanwhile been repeating the mistake of their predecessors by re-quoting sources that were quoted by their predecessors without directly consulting such sources. That is why I hoped to provide some degree of assistance to those researching Dokdo issues by publishing the book.

Q6 In any case, Dokdo has been a sensitive subject for Korea-Japan relations, so what difficulties did you experience over the course of researching Dokdo issues?

Kim Byung-ryul I never thought I'd have to decipher the Japanese epistolary style Sorobun (候文), but it turns out that it's impossible to understand documents from the Tokugawa bakufu period without knowing how to read Sorobun. So, I even took a course on deciphering ancient Japanese writing styles offered by the National Institute of Korean History. Of course, taking a single course wasn't enough to make me an expert. I continued to practice reading such styles by posing questions to experts and reading texts with them to overcome challenges, but I'm still far from perfect.

Q7 What aspects should Korea put more effort into when it comes to researching Dokdo issues?

Kim Byung-ryul I would have to say training specialists. When asked to name a prominent expert on old Japanese documents or old American documents related to Dokdo, a couple of names should readily come to mind. However, that is not the case for Korea. Most researchers work with secondary material and are only somewhat familiar with old Korean or Japanese maps and documents. Of course, it's necessary to expand one's breadth of knowledge, but doing so tends to force one to overlook details. That's why I believe we need to train experts that are focused on a particular subfield of Dokdo research. This isn't something that can be achieved through a particular program. It can only be achieved when individual researchers each chose a field of study and devote their entire career to cultivating their expertise in that field. And universities and research institutes should try to provide conditions for researchers to be able to do so.

Q8 You were deeply involved in Dokdo policies while leading the team for responding to Dokdo issues, which was part of the Presidential Commission on True History for Peace in Northeast Asia in 2005. What is the underlying goal or direction of Korean policies toward Dokdo?

Kim Byung-ryul We had those spelled out in a document when I was heading the team, but I suppose that document has been lost from going through governmental and personnel changes. The underlying goal of Korean policies toward Dokdo is to safely preserve it and pass it down to posterity. So, all policies should be designed and carried out after considering whether they correspond to that goal. If developing the island coincides with the underlying goal, it should be developed, but if not, it shouldn't be. There can of course be differing opinions as to whether a certain policy corresponds to the goal. In such cases, the departments for and against development need to get together and discuss the matter in-depth. Developing and carrying out a policy requires countless simulations, so designing and carrying one out of someone's split-second idea or a government department's self-interest may not mesh well with the nation's long-term goal.

Q9 Japan's provocations over Dokdo have been growing worse as distorted descriptions about the island are being included in the country's elementary, middle, and high school textbooks. What do you think is the most appropriate way for Korea to respond to such provocations?

Kim Byung-ryul That's a very tricky question. It is entirely up to each country to decide what content their textbooks should include. Trying to get involved in the matter can be considered as interfering in domestic affairs. However, even if it comes to that, the misconduct of publishing content that goes against universal values would have to be met with demands for correction. There are many other issues apart from that regarding Dokdo that are viewed differently by Korea and Japan. One way to wisely resolve the textbook issue is for the two countries to jointly author a textbook. As we all know, many issues between France and Germany became relieved from jointly publishing a textbook, which ultimately made history as it led to the formation of the European Union. I think we should try to pick up from where past administrations left off on their several attempts to jointly author a textbook. Without publishing a joint textbook, the gap between Korea and Japan will only grow wider and make it difficult to resolve Dokdo issues as well.

Q10 With so many institutes and organizations related to Dokdo in Korea and abroad, a lot of their projects or activities tend to overlap with one another. It seems that their roles either need to be better allotted or performed more efficiently, so what might your thoughts be?

Kim Byung-ryul When I was heading the team for responding to Dokdo issues, we tried and failed at addressing the matter. I asked the budget department for an outline of Dokdo-related budgets for different departments and tried to disentangle the circumstances by reassigning projects to suitable departments, but we ended up failing because objections were too fierce. We also tried to get research institutes to specialize in a particular field rather than covering all areas like a department store, but failed at that too. What I realized through those failures is that there are limits to reforms from above. The matter requires a broader degree of reform in which leaders of research institutes or organizations need to get together to rearrange their individual specializations, reallocate their budgets, and if necessary, even reallocate human resources among themselves. I believe attempting to do so for just a couple of years will take care of the matter.

Q11 You've been following the Foundation's activities from its beginning as a member of its advisory committee, so could you please tell us what you regard as the Foundation's achievements and offer advice on its future tasks?

Kim Byung-ryul The purpose and range of the Foundation's activities are clearly stated in the law for its establishment. However, there have been some signs of deviating from that purpose over time. I've witnessed many members who recently joined the advisory committee make various suggestions at meetings that seem to be unaware of what the Foundation is required to do based on the law for its establishment. In such cases, the Foundation should be able to review such suggestions and devise plans to respond to them with that law in mind, but I don't think it has been able to do so yet.

The Foundation has made much progress, especially in terms of the notable research outcomes it has been producing. Yet, it may be because there are so many of them, it's difficult to tell what field of study each researcher has been focused on at the Foundation. Providing a tally of how many outcomes the Foundation has produced is just a number that doesn't seem to mean much. I hope the Foundation will be able make efforts to perform an overall assessment on what outcomes each research fellow has been producing in which field, what's new about them, and what their shortcomings are so as to create further opportunities for research in the future.