2008 - Oct. 3 - Japanese Government officially made Cabinet Decision "It is apparent that Takeshima is an inherent part of the territory of Japan."

A day before yesterday, Japanese government made cabinet decision, saying "It is apparent that Takeshima is also an inherent part of the territory of Japan as well as Northern Territories." This has much bigger importance in Japanese political system than July's Japanese government's decision to describe "Takeshima" in a teachers's handbook on the new curriculum guidelines for middles school social studies. "Cabinet Decision（閣議決定）"　is practically a highest decision making techniques of the polictical administration in Japan. In fact, more numbers of Japanese newspapers reported the news ( ex. Kyodo New Agency(共同通信), Asahi Shimbun(朝日新聞), Too Nippo(東奥日報) , Nikkan Sports(日刊スポーツ), Nishinippon Shimbun(西日本新聞), Kumamoto Nichinichi Shimbun(熊本日日新聞) , Tokyo Shimbun(東京新聞), etc... ) than the last time, though most TV news ignored it as usual. They won't take it as a big issue until South Korea reacts firmly.

From Sankei Shimbun(産経新聞) (Japanese)

Japanese Government officially made Cabinet Decision "It is apparent that Takeshima is an inherent part of the territory of Japan."

The government decided the answer book "It is apparent that Takeshima was an inherent territory in our country as well as northern territories" in the description of Takeshima over the teacher's handbook on the new curriculum guidelines for middles school social studies, in the Cabinet Council held on the 3rd Oct. This is an answer to question drift book by Muneo Suzuki, an assembly member of the House of Representatives.

In the teacher's handbook, as for Takeshima, it was evasively described as "It is necessary to deepen understanding about our country's territory in a way identical with the Northern territories by mentioning that there exist differing assertions between our country and Korea over Takeshima.". It was clearly different from the one for the northern territories, which had been described, "It is a inherent territory to our country" .

The decision says that "It was more clearly described that Northern territories were being unlawfully occupied by Russia", and for Takeshima, "there were no remarkable difference in the description from the one for the northern territories." And it re-assured the recognition that the illegal occupancy to Takeshima by South Korea is "Violation of sovereignty to our country" at the same time. Moreover, it was also emphasized that unsettled sovereignty issue between another country does not exist except for northern territories and Takeshima.

Last time Japanese government decided to describe "Takeshima" in a teacher's handbook on the new curriculum guidelines for middles school social studies in July, South Korea reacted emotionally and even summoned its ambassador to Japan Mr. Kwon Chul Hyun. (He silently came back soon, though.) And last month, Korea even protested to the mention of "Takeshima/Dokdo" in Japan's Defense "White Paper", the mention which is same as last year. But this time, strangely, it looks like Korean doesn't really care about this decision so far.

Does this mean Korean finally accepted that even "倭奴(=Japanese)" has its right to say what is right as right? For example, Korean newspaper Donga Ilbo simply reported the fact as follows.

From Donga Ilbo（東亜日報）

Japanese Cabinet Lays Claim to Dokdo

The Japanese Cabinet yesterday defended a new handbook for middle school education that claims the Dokdo islets as Japanese territory.

The Cabinet in a meeting presented a document saying, “The description on the handbook makes it clear that Takeshima (the Japanese name for Dokdo) is Japan’s sovereign territory, as is the northern territory of the Kuril Islands.

The document was drawn up to answer a question posed by a member of the Lower House on whether the islets belong to Japan or Korea.

Tokyo said through the document, “On the northern territory, the handbook gives a more detailed description to the effect that it is now illegally occupied by Russia. The manner of description of Takeshima is no different from that of the northern territory.”

“The Kuril Islands and Takeshima are the only unresolved issues in territorial sovereignty.” More on Donga.com...

Reference;
2008 - Korean Teacher Union Calls on Japan to Apologize for Dokdo

2008 - June - Japanese News Update

2008 - July 14 - The New Guidelines for Teacher's Handbook