뉴스레터

September 25, 1904. The logbook of the Japanese warship Niitaka (軍艦新高行動日誌), hereinafter the Niitaka Report, which had been dispatched to lay a submarine cable between Ulleungdo and Jukbyeon, records, "Dokdo (獨島) is how the Koreans write the name of Riancodo and our (Japanese) fishermen call the island Riancodo."

January 28, 1905. The Japanese government claims that Dokdo is a terra nullius with "no traces to prove it has been occupied by any other country" and resolves to incorporate the island as part of Japan's Shimane Prefecture by giving it the name "Takeshima" (竹島). Shortly afterwards on the 22nd of February, the Shimane Prefecture's governor Matsunaga Takeyoshi (松永武吉) announces the incorporation of Dokdo through Shimane Prefecture Notice no. 40.

March 29, 1906. Uldo County's governor Shim Heung-taek reports to Gangwon Province's governor Yi Myeong-rae about the Japanese officials who visited Uldo (the island Ulleungdo's former name) the day before to inform that "Dokdo (獨島), which belongs to our county (本郡)" has become Japanese territory and left after investigating Ulleungdo's current circumstances.

April 29, 1906. Gangwon Province governor Yi Myeong-rae relays Shim Heung-taek's report to the Deputy Prime Minister of Joseon's State Council and receives the instruction (Instruction no. 3) ordering "a re-investigation of the island's current circumstances and what actions the Japanese took there since there are no grounds for them to claim that Dokdo is Japanese territory."

By declaring the island as a terra nullius, Japan incorporated Dokdo in 1905, an island Koreans referred to as Dokdo and positively stated as one "which belongs to our county." And even after a hundred years has passed, Japan is still claiming sovereignty over the island. Is it because the phrase "Dokdo, which belongs to our county" no longer carries weight as proof that Korea has sovereignty over the island? That is why it seems necessary to once more review the history of that very phrase.

The History Behind the Discovery of "Shim Heung-taek's Report"

The original copy no longer exists of the report Uldo County governor Shim Heung-taek sent to the governor of Gangwon Province about the Japanese officials' inspection of Dokdo and investigation of Ulleungdo. However, the fact that there had been such a report along with a full text of it was introduced by Shin Seok-ho in 1948 through his paper "About the Affiliation of Dokdo."*

According to Shin Seok-ho, he investigated Dokdo for about two weeks between August 16 and 28 in 1947 to write the paper and make it clear that Dokdo was originally a Korean island. In another paper titled "A History of Dokdo,"** Shin Seok-ho states that his investigation of both Ulleungdo and Dokdo had been initiated as a countermeasure against claims of sovereignty over Dokdo Japan was making at the time. In 1947, the Far Eastern Commission based in the United States announced that "Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine." Encouraged by this fundamental policy of the Allied governments, Japan set forth on making its sovereignty claim over Dokdo. It was when news of Japan's claim reached Korea that the Dokdo issue first surfaced in Korea since the end of the war. To prove and report to the MacArthur's headquarters that Dokdo is Korean territory, South Korea's interim government conducted an on-site investigation of the island and its history by organizing the Dokdo Investigation Team that included Shin Seok-ho and dispatching it along with Joseon Alpine Club's Ulleungdo Academic Survey Team. That was when a duplicate copy (副本) of Shim Heung-taek's Report was discovered at Ulleungdo's county office. In his 1948 paper, Shin Seok-ho thus states that "this paper has been based on the duplicate copy of the report kept at the county office of Ulleungdo."

It remains unknown as to exactly when the original of "Shim Heung-taek's Report" disappeared. During the sovereignty dispute over Dokdo in the 1950s and 1960s between Korea and Japan, Korea has only been able to confirm its existence from the Japanese publication "View of the Government 2" (Seifu kenkai) dated September 25, 1954, which states that "the original is currently being kept in our country's archives of official documents."

In April 1978, a research group on Dokdo called the "Research Council on Materials of Modern Korean History" was formed and resumed conducting comprehensive academic surveys on Dokdo. Song Byeong-gi (former professor at Dankook University), a member of the council, discovered and published about the document "Supplement to the Report" (報告書號外), dated April 29, 1906, bound with the "Issues in Each Gwanchaldo (各官察道案) 1" issued by the Joseon State Council's Foreign Affairs Bureau. The document not only includes the entire text of the report by Shim Heung-taek, but also describes the content of Instruction no. 3 issued by the Deputy Prime Minister of Joseon's State Council that negates Japan's sovereignty over Dokdo. The document's discovery thereby further clarified that Japan's claims on Dokdo had been illegal.

The report by Shim Heung-taek is therefore an important piece of proof showing that, even prior to 1905, the people of Ulleungdo had acknowledged Dokdo as an island that belonged to Ulleungdo. In other words, the document is key evidence that proves Japan illegally incorporated Dokdo. A Japanese official's remark about the document can therefore be rendered a poor counterargument by saying "Shim Heung-taek praised the Japanese inspection team when they presented him with a sea lion captured from Dokdo, which would have been an impossible sort of response had the governor genuinely considered Dokdo as part of Ulleungdo."***

* "Sahae"(史海), Issue no. 1, Joseonsa yeonguhoe [Research Society of Joseon History] (Dec 12, 1948)
** "Dokdo"(1965)
*** Seifu kenkai 2 [View of the Government 2](Feb 10, 1954)

Behind "Dokdo, which Belongs to Our County"

It remains uncertain as to exactly when Koreans began using the name Dokdo to refer to Dokdo. Among the historical sources discovered so far, the very first appearance of the name Dokdo comes up in the aforementioned 1904 Niitaka Report and the next appeared in Shim Heung-taek's Report. Except for the Empire of Korea Imperial Order no. 41 of 1900, which refers Dokdo as "Seokdo" meaning rocky island, the only historical materials from before 1910 that mention the name Dokdo are those two reports and a couple of news reports about Shim Heung-taek's report in the May 1, 1906 editions of the Korea Daily News (Daehan maeil sinbo), the Imperial Post (Jeguk sinmun), and the May 9, 1906 edition of the Capital Gazette (Hwangseong sinmun), which also reported on the Instruction no. 3 given by the Joseon State Council's Deputy Prime Minister.

In his paper "About the Affiliation of Dokdo," Shin Seok-ho shares his guess that "it may have been the people of Ulleungdo who came up with the name after Ulleungdo was developed in 1881, the 18th year of King Gojong's reign." While Joseon was under the rule of the Kings Taejong and Sejong, residents of Ulleungdo had all been relocated to the mainland, so until the 18th year of King Gojong's reign, Ulleungdo remained an uninhabited island. Ever since the incident involving An Yong-bok and Park Eo-don caused the so-called "Ulleungdo dispute" between Joseon and Japan over the sovereignty of Ulleungdo, Joseon dispatched officials every two or three years to inspect (搜討) Ulleungdo. However during King Gojong's reign, the illegal entry of Japanese fishermen into Ulleungdo and their pillaging there markedly increased to the point where the king sought for people who wished to relocate to Ulleungdo, cultivated the island, and had (an official count of) 54 people of 16 families move to Ulleungdo in July 1883.

The widely accepted theory as to the origin of the name Dokdo is that it came from the word "Dokseom," which means a "rocky island" in the Jeolla provincial dialect. Meanwhile, most of the people who moved to Ulleungdo in 1883 came from the provinces of Gyeongsang, Gangwon, or Chungcheong. The number of families on the island increased to 200 by 1889, but it is uncertain as to where those residents who later arrived had originally come from. In any case, considering where the island's residents originally came from before officially relocating to Ulleungdo according to the Joseon government's policy to repopulate the island, the guess Shin Seok-ho made about the origin of the name Dokdo seems to be incorrect.

Yet, even before the above residents relocated to Ulleungdo, a considerable number of people from the mainland's Jeolla Province had already been living on Ulleungdo. Ahead of adopting the measure to repopulate Ulleungdo, King Gojong ordered Yi Gyu-won to conduct a survey of the island, and according to Yi Gyu-won's report "Inspection Log of Ulleungdo," 141 people from Joseon and 78 people from Japan had been living on Ulleungdo at the time. Out of those 141 people from Joseon, 115 were from the Jeolla Province (from places such as Heungyang, Samdo, or Chodo), 14 from the Gangwon Province, 11 from the Gyeongsang Province, and 1 from the Gyeonggi Province.***

In the meantime, residents of the islands Chodo and Geomundo (Samdo) that belonged to the Heungyang county of South Jeolla Province are also known to have traveled to Ulleungdo and Dokdo. It is said that they would usually go to Ulleungdo in the spring, fell juniper trees, make them into boats, and return with them in the fall. Proof of this can be found from "Sulbi Sounds," an oral tradition passed down for nearly four centuries in the village Jangchon at Geomundo's west islet and a song which has now been designated as Intangible Culture Property no. 1 of South Jeolla Province. There is also the description from the Comte de la Perouse, which gives Ulleungdo the name "Dagelet" after having "newly discovered" the island in May 1787. People from the Jeolla Province who went fishing to Ulleungdo would also travel to Dokdo. According to an article from the March 19, 1962 edition of the Korean newspaper Minguk Ilbo, residents of Seodo-ri in Geomundo have captured sea lions (gajae) at Dokdo, also called "Dolseom," since the 1820s.

Although there are no remaining records that directly mention the origin of the name Dokdo, the many people from the Jeolla Province who traveled in and out of Ulleungdo and Dokdo since the Joseon dynasty must have used the Jeolla provincial dialect "Dokseom" to indicate Dokdo and when the time came to spell out the name in writing. The Chinese character "獨" which is pronounced "Dok" must have been adopted to write the island's name as "獨島." Then came the 1904 Niitaka Report stating that "Dokdo (獨島) is how the Koreans write the name of Riancodo." The name "Seokdo" (石島) that appears in the Empire of Korea Imperial Order no. 41 also seems to have resulted from using Chinese characters that represent the name "Dokseom" because "dok," the equivalent of "dol" in standard Korean which refers to rock, has been replaced by the Chinese character "石" of the same meaning.

*, ** Bang Jong-hyun, "Dokdo eui haru" [A Day on Dokdo], Ilsa gugeohak nongip (1963)
*** "Ulleung-gun ji" [Ulleung County News](2007)

Proof of Japan's Illegal Incorporation of Dokdo

The phrase "Dokdo belonging to our county" in Shim Heung-taek's report therefore seems to constitute as clear proof that Japan's incorporation of Dokdo in 1905 had been illegal. That much has not changed with the passing of a hundred years. Then how is it still possible for Japan to continue to claim its sovereignty over Dokdo and convey that through formal schooling?

To question Japan's constantly puzzling behavior, quotes from the report by Shim Heung-taek and the Instruction no. 3 are reiterated as below.

Supplement to the Report (報告書號外)

In the report by Shim Heung-taek (沈興澤 報告書), governor of Uldo (欝島郡守),

"Dokdo, which belongs to our county (本郡), is located in the open sea about 100 ri off shore. On the fourth day of this month (March 28, 1906, or March 4 according to the lunar calendar) around the fifth period (辰時) of the day (between 7 to 9 a.m.), a steamship (輪船) came and anchored in the county's Dodong harbor (道洞浦). A group of Japanese officials (官人) came to the county office (官舍) and mentioned of their own accord that "Since Dokdo has now become Japanese territory (領地), they have come to the island (來島) to carry out an inspection." The group consisted of Higashi Bunsuke (東文輔), the governor of Oki Islands (隱技[岐]島司) which belongs to Japan's Shiname Prefecture (島根縣), a secretary (事務官) named Jinzai Yoshitaro (神西田太郞), Yoshida Heigo (吉田平吾), the head of their tax inspection bureau (稅務監督局長), Kageyama Kanhachiro (影山巖八郞), the head of a police (警部) substation (分署長), one police officer (巡査), one assemblyman (會議員), one doctor (醫師), one engineer (技手), and about ten other attendants (隨員). They asked about the number of families (戶摠), the size of the population, land, and agricultural yield, not to mention the extent of our staff and budget as if they had come to investigate and record the whole of our circumstances. I hereby report the above and ask for your consideration on the matter."

April 29 (Lunar April 6), 1906, the 10th year of King Gwangmu's Reign (光武)
Yi Myeong-rae (李明來), Governor of Chuncheon (春川郡守), Acting Governor of Gangwon Province(江原道觀察使署理)
The Honorable (閤下) Deputy Prime Minister (叅政大臣) of the State Council (議政府)

Instruction No. 3

The report sent has been fully reviewed. Conduct a re-investigation of the island's current circumstances and what actions the Japanese took there since there are no grounds (全屬無根) for them to claim that Dokdo is Japanese territory (獨島領地設).
Dated May 10. The End.