On August 10th Mr Lee visited Dokdo, a group of islets in the Sea of Japan. Here the welfare of fragile marine and bird life comes second to nationalist sensitivities in the face of a rival claim to the rocks by Japan, which relinquished control of Korea after its defeat in 1945. The islets’ two permanent residents, an octopus fisherman and his wife, are joined by a supporting cast of coastguards, installers of mobile-phone masts, South Korean tourists and planters of exotic trees—which for the purposes of territorial claims help distinguish an island from a mere rock.
Back on the mainland, Mr Lee berated Japan for not redressing the grievances of Korean women forced into military prostitution during the war. He also declared that the Japanese emperor, Akihito, “did not need to come” to South Korea unless he apologised deeply for colonial rule (this after extending the emperor an invitation in 2008). So much for the “forward-looking” diplomacy Mr Lee once said would help the region to end its historical rows. Since then, the president’s popularity has slumped, and his party faces a tricky presidential election in December. Tub-thumping over Dokdo cuts across party lines.
Japan has often displayed a tin ear to South Korean sensitivities over the island, which it calls Takeshima, having acquired it in the process of annexing Korea. Yet since the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) came to power in 2009 Japanese policy had been conciliatory. One DPJ prime minister, Naoto Kan, offered a fulsome apology on the centenary of the Korean annexation. The emperor has long been in the admirable habit of apologising for Japanese aggression. More substantively, Japan’s new defence white paper talks up the importance of regional security and co-operation. It identifies South Korea as the country “that shares the closest relationship with Japan historically and in areas such as economy and culture”.
Yet few senior South Koreans have the courage to acknowledge this in public. Mr Lee’s unprecedented stunt—no South Korean president had ever visited the rocks—means that much of the DPJ’s good work risks unravelling. On August 15th, the anniversary of Japan’s surrender, two Japanese cabinet ministers visited Tokyo’s Yasukuni shrine, where war dead, including condemned war criminals, are revered. These were the first visits by high-ranking officials in three years. In protest at the Dokdo visit, Japan recalled its ambassador to Seoul. Its foreign minister, Koichiro Gemba, said Mr Lee’s provocation gave Japan little choice but to take the case to the International Court of Justice.
The threat is hollow. The court will not adjudicate unless two sides agree that a dispute exists. South Korea does not, just as Japan says its claim over some other rocks, the Senkakus, claimed by China (which calls them the Diaoyu Islands) is not in dispute. This week 14 hyperventilating patriots from China, Hong Kong and Macau steamed to the Senkakus, where Japan’s coastguard promptly arrested them.
Through all this, America watches on. Even as it wants a revamped presence in Asia, it despairs that its chief regional allies cannot get on. It says the Dokdo dispute is for the two countries to sort out. But that is to wash its hands of its own part in the saga. The 1951 San Francisco peace treaty with Japan deliberately overlooked the matter of Dokdo’s sovereignty, for fear the islands might fall into the hands of the Communist north in the Korean war. Acknowledging its role in the history wars, Alexis Dudden of the University of Connecticut argues, might persuade all the protagonists that America really wants to foster a greater sense of Asian regionalism.
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