뉴스레터

Question:

Japan currently uses the name "Takeshima (Jukdo)" for Dokdo. However, it is said that Japan had been calling Dokdo "Matsushima (Songdo)" until the 19th century. Why has there been so much confusion concerning the naming of Dokdo in Japan?

Answer:

In the mid 19th century, Japan started calling Takeshima (竹島) "Matsushima (松島)" and gave Matushima (松島) a new name, "Liancourt Rocks (リヤンコ島)." Takeshima (竹島) came to be called Matsushima (松島) after Philipp Franz von Siebold, a European physician/ botanist/ geographer, created the "Complete Map of Japan" (日本全圖) in 1840. Matsushima came to be called Liancourt Rocks (リヤンコ島) when a French whaling ship called Le Liancourt "discovered" Dokdo and named it Liancourt Reef in 1849.

Von Siebold and the Complete Map of Japan

Philipp Franz von Siebold (1769-1866) was born in Wurzburg, Bayern, Germany. He majored in medicine in college and then joined the East India Company. He obtained a post as the physician of the Dutch commercial office in Dejima (出島), Nagasaki (長崎). In Japan, he used his spare time between practicing and teaching medicine to study Japan's nature, flora and fauna, history, and geography. In so doing, von Siebold raised the quality of Western studies in Japan. Upon his return to Germany, he continued his research on Japan and is assessed to have played a major role in introducing Japan to the West.

The most famous of von Siebold's book on Japan is Nippon (日本誌). It was published as a series starting in 1832, and the final volume was released in 1854. "Complete Map of Japan," published in 1840, was a part of this series.

Siebold created his map based on a number of Japanese maps (i.e., 大日本細見指掌全圖, 改正日本輿地路程全圖, 改正日本圖, 新板日本國大繪圖, and 日本邊界略圖). In his map, today's Ulleungdo is marked as "Songdo," that is, "Matsushima (Mats-sima, I. Dagelat, 松島)." The island to the left of Ulleungdo, which Westerners called "Argonaut," was marked as "Takeshima (Takasima, Tak-sima, I. Argonaut, 竹島)."

However, Argonaut, which appears in ancient Western maps, does not actually exist. Accordingly, it gradually disappeared from maps over time. However, in creating the "Complete Map of Japan" in the mid 19th century, Siebold referred to Argonaut as Takeshima; he thereby unwittingly provided Japan the excuse to claim sovereignty over Dokdo.

Lack of Japan's Dokdo awareness

In 1966, Kawakami, an official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (MOFA), claimed, "Today's Takeshima (竹島) had been consistently called Matsushima (松島) until the early part of the Meiji period." He went on to explain, "However, confusion arose because Europeans made a mistake in surveying the location of Takeshima and Matsushima and because Siebold used the incorrect island name." MOFA even argued in 2008, "Japan had long been aware of Takeshima and Matsushima."

However, upon examining mid-19th century maps of Europe and America, HORI Kazuo, a Japanese scholar, made the following observation in 1987: "There are either two Ulleung-dos in the East Sea; or three islands, including Dokdo." He argued, "Japan's understanding of the two islands became confused in the process of trying to make Western and Japanese information on them coincide."

According to Hori, in the complete map of Japan published by Japan's Army General Staff in 1875 and in the one published by MOFA in 1877, "Ulleungdo is drawn as two islands--Takeshima and Matsushima--and present-day Dokdo, that is Takeshima, is not included." Also, "Ulleungdo is referred to as Matsushima, contrary to what it used to be called during the Edo period. There are maps that only show one island in the East Sea, and in some private-sector maps, there are three islands in the East Sea."

Hori contended, "There seems to have been great confusion in the Japanese government's understanding of the two islands from the 1870s to the early 1880s," and added, "There were conflicting claims on the number of islands--from one and two to three--and there were not many maps that accurately portrayed the relative distance between the two islands."

The Japanese government insists that Japan has long been aware of Dokdo and has long considered it Japanese territory. Japan blames Siebold for creating confusion over Dokdo's naming. Paradoxically enough, however, the confusion over the naming of the island actually proves that the Japanese lacked accurate awareness of Ulleungdo and Dokdo.