Dokdo & Takeshima.

This is coolbert:

"Across the fours seas, all are brothers. In such a world why do the waves rage, the winds roar?" - - Hirohito 1941.

Thanks to the France 24 public television broadcast from only a short time ago we have an update on yet one more island dispute in east Asia, the "rocks' as they are called Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese.  Rocks, islets more or less uninhabitable currently occupied by a Korean husband and wife couple and NOT permanently by anyone else, sovereignty of the "rocks" a point of contention between the two nations. In English these "rocks" referred to as Liancourt.

"Japan, S.Korea play hot potato with protest note"

"Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda speaks to the media in Tokyo on August 8. South Korea on Thursday returned a protest letter from Japan's prime minister without answering it, further angering Tokyo amid a bitter row over disputed islands."

"It was the latest move in an increasingly bitter tit-for-tat dispute that has engulfed two of Asia's largest economies for nearly two weeks."

"The Liancourt Rocks, also known as Dokdo . . . in Korean, and Takeshima . . .  in Japanese are a group of small islets in the Sea of Japan (East Sea). Sovereignty over the islets is disputed between Japan and South Korea."

"In 1991, the South Korean government sent two South Korean citizens to the Liancourt Rocks, an octopus fisherman and his wife, to be permanent residents on the islets."

That fresh water supply on the islets contaminated by guano from the prodigious numbers of sea birds found in the area. The United States perhaps can raise the American flag over the island and invoke the Guano Treaty exercising sovereignty and resolve the matter once and for all. That I doubt very much. These islets inhabited in a specious manner controversial the Guano Treaty not applying under such circumstances but at least a thought.

Again, as in all these cases, it is NOT so much the value of the "land" coveted by the various involved parties but the sea bed contiguous that is at question. Under that sea bed so it is thought are "vast" deposits of natural gas and perhaps oil? Sort of like in the Gran Chaco where a bloody war was fought - - oil wells when dug coming up dry.

As usual, "emotion clouds reason" and these situations normally are not resolved to the satisfaction of everyone. Sorry, it is just not so.

coolbert.