(3rd LD) S. Korea summons Japan`s envoy to protest education handbook on Dokdo

(ATTN: UPDATES with comments by S. Korean FM, Japan's education minister; CHANGES
headline)
By Lee Chi-dong
SEOUL, Dec. 25 (Yonhap) -- South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan called in
Japanese Ambassador Toshinori Shigeie Friday to lodge a formal protest over
Tokyo's renewed campaign to reinforce its territorial claim to Dokdo, a set of
craggy islets under South Korean control, officials here said.
"Minister Yu summoned the Japanese envoy at around 4:30 p.m. and expressed
worries and regret in a grave manner over Japan's move to reinforce its school
education on the territorial matter," a South Korean foreign ministry official
said, requesting anonymity.
In the 20-minute meeting at his office, the minister was quoted as saying that
Japan's campaign may have a negative effect on developing future-oriented
relations between the neighboring countries by injecting wrong perception over
territory into its future generation.
Seoul's move came in response to Japan's education handbook released earlier in
the day that calls for high schools to teach students in classrooms that Japan is
locked in a territorial row with neighboring South Korea over Dokdo.
"Whatever claim the Japanese government makes, our (South Korean) government
stresses the position once again that no territorial dispute exists between the
two sides," Moon Tae-young, a foreign ministry spokesman, said in a statement
issued earlier.
Dokdo, which lies in the East Sea that is rich in fish and gas hydrate,
traditionally belongs to Korea, but Japan has laid claim to it since its brutal
colonization of the Korean Peninsula from 1910-45, often causing diplomatic spats
with Seoul despite ever-growing cultural and economic relations.
South Korean officials said Japan's position on Dokdo remains unchanged in
principle, but took note of the fact that Japan's Education Ministry did not
directly mention the islets in the new educational document.
The manual to be used at high schools nationwide for a decade says that teachers
"need to deepen the understanding (of students) on territorial issue by providing
accurate information based on the Japanese government's proper claim and
education at junior high school."
The education handbook for junior high schools, published last year, states
students should learn that disputes between Japan and South Korea over Dokdo are
similar to those between Japan and Russia over the Northern Territories. It
describes them as "Japan's own territory, but they are currently occupied
illegally by Russia. It also reads "Japan's demand for their return needed to be
taught correctly."
At that time, South Korea strongly protested against Japan's publication of the
handbook that could affect textbook publishers, even recalling its Ambassador to
Japan Kwon Chul-hyun.
Another foreign ministry official said in a background briefing for reporters that
the Japanese government led by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama seemed to have taken
into account its relations with South Korea in dropping the explicit description.
Hatoyama has been in an apparent dilemma, as he seeks to improve relations with
Asian neighbors under his "fraternity" campaign while struggling to win support
from conservatives ahead of key parliamentary elections next July.
But Japanese officials said they were not softening the stance on the territorial
issue.
"Nothing has changed in the fact that the Takeshima islets are the Japanese
territories," Japan's Education Minister Tatsuo Kawabata said Friday, using the
Japanese name for Dokdo, according local media reports.
He added his ministry did not include the description of Dokdo in the handbook
just in order to make it more simple and concise by adopting the expression "based
on education at junior high school."
The Dokdo issue is not only a diplomatic issue, but also a sensitive political
topic here, as anti-Japanese sentiment lingers among many South Koreans due to
Japan's colonial rule. They argue Japan has yet to offer an apology for its
atrocities during the period.
Japan's reaffirmed position on Dokdo is feared to deal a blow to Seoul's push for
better relations with Japan next year as they mark the 100th anniversary of the
colonization. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has invited Japanese Emperor
Akihito to visit South Korea next year.
South Koreans are already upset about Japan's latest decision to pay only 99 yen
(US$1.08) in a welfare pension refund to each of seven South Korean women who were
forced laborers during the colonial era.
Tokyo recently sent the funds to each of the seven women, who filed a suit
against the Japanese government in 1998 to claim the surrender value of a welfare
pension fund that they paid into while working at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
between October 1944 and August 1945, according to Japanese media reports earlier
this week.
lcd@yna.co.kr
(END)