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On clear days, the island Dokdo is at a distance visible from the island Ulleungdo. Nevertheless, Shimane Prefecture in Japan has continued to celebrate Takeshima Day every year on February 22 since establishing the day back in 2006. On the 13th anniversary of the day in 2018, Takada Kiyoshi who heads the Cabinet Secretariat's Office of Policy Planning and Coordination on Territory and Sovereignty, participated in both the celebration and the symposium to commemorate the day, which is a first in the history of Takeshima Day celebrations. This is most likely part of Shimane Prefecture's strategy to turn a local issue into a national one, thereby making Dokdo a nationwide source of conflict and dispute.

To gain wider publicity for its territorial sovereignty claim over Dokdo, the Japanese government opened on January 25, 2018 an exhibition at the first underground floor of a public hall located inside Hibiya Park, Tokyo. The park itself is at the heart of Tokyo as is Gwanghwamun for Seoul. The exhibition displays old documents, maps, and various moving images to support Japan's argument that Dokdo has inherently been Japanese territory. Through Takeshima Day and the Territory and Sovereignty Exhibition in Hibiya Park, Japan wishes to claim that its people have been aware of Takeshima for a long time and incorporated the island into Shimane Prefecture in 1905, but Korea has been illegally occupying the island by going against international law to draw the Syngman Rhee Line. 

Is there any truth in Japan's argument about Dokdo?

More than anything, it is a known fact that there is no original copy of the Shimane Prefectural Notice No. 40 which supposedly announced Japan's incorporation of Dokdo. Japan's explanation for the missing copy is that it was lost in a fire that erupted at the prefectural office on August 24, 1945. The Korean government, on the other hand, possesses various official documents from the past concerning the islands Ulleungdo and Dokdo. According to such documentation, the kingdom of Joseon on the Korean peninsula recognized Ulleungdo as part of its territory and implemented a policy of regularly surveilling the island. According to Dongguk munheonbigo, an encyclopedia of Korean documents and institutions, An Yong-bok was the one who proved that what the Japanese referred to as Matsushima (松島) was in fact the island long known to Joseon as Usando (芋山島), one of the former Korean names of Dokdo. Based on the Korean notion that "land is what has been inherited from our sovereign's ancestors," such records demonstrate that Joseon had already been specifically aware of Ulleungdo and Dokdo prior to 1770 and recognized the islands as part of Joseon's territory.

How the two islands were each recognized in late Joseon can be gleaned from multiple reports like the one by Jang Han-sang and other records such as Sinjeung dongguk yeojiseungnam, the Newly Expanded Gazetteer of Korea, as well as the aforementioned Dongguk munheonbigo published in 1770. Dongguk munheonbigo stipulates that Ulleungdo is what the Japanese called Takeshima (竹島), while Dokdo is what the Japanese called Matsushima. Moreover, Usando is understood as an island separate from Ulleungdo according to Jeungbo munheonbigo, the revised and expanded encyclopedia of Korean documents and institutions published in 1908.

By the modern times, King Gojong thought carefully about how to develop and manage Ulleungdo in the early 1880s. He must have at least consulted records like Sinjeung dongguk yeojiseungnam and Dongguk munheonbigo to grasp the island's history and figure out how livelihood and farming on the island can be stabilized. Based on the consistency of records from the Joseon period, King Gojong clearly seems to have acknowledged Ulleungdo and Dokdo as Joseon territory based on their historicity and had intended to defend the islands. Japan should therefore be ashamed of celebrating Takeshima Day based on a false argument about Dokdo and spreading such an argument by opening an exhibition on territory and sovereignty.