竹島問題の歴史

13.6.08

1892 German Map of East Asia

In 1878, Watanabe Kouki, Director of the Bureau of Documents the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), wrote the following about Matsushima (Liancourt Rocks) in a document entitled "Argument concerning Matsushima" (Matsushima No Gi).
“Our Matsushima (Liancourt Rocks) seems to be called Hornet
Rocks in the West. It also seems that Europeans recognize Takeshima (Ulleungdo) as Matsushima and, furthermore, imagine another island with the name of Takeshima. And all the foreign maps indicate that Hornet Rocks belong to our country” (Watanabe Kouki)

我松嶋ナル者ハ洋名ホルネットロックスナルカ如シ然ルヲ洋客竹嶋ヲ認テ松嶋ト為シ更ニ竹嶋ナル者ヲ想起セシ者ノ如シ而テ此ホルネットロックスノ 我国ニ属スルハ各国ノ地図皆然リ

Notice that Watanabe referred to Liancourt Rocks as "our Matsushima" (我松嶋), which he said was referred to as "Hornet Rocks" in the West. He also said that Europeans referred to Takeshima (Ulleungdo) as Matsushima, and used "Takeshima" to refer to another island, which was almost certainly the non-existent island of "Argonaut." This is evidence that Japanese, and even Europeans, in 1878 considered Liancourt Rocks (Matsushima) to be Japanese territory. It is also evidence that there were two Matsushimas. One was Japan's Matsushima (Liancourt Rocks), and the other was the European's Matsushima (Ulleungdo). Watanabe seemed to understand quite well the island name confusion in the Sea of Japan.

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The map to the right was taken from a book entitled "Meyers Kleiner Handatlas," which was published in Leipzig, Germany in 1892. The title of the map is "CHINA UND JAPAN," but it also includes Korea and Mongolia. The territories of these countries are defined by color. Chinese territory is shown in red, Japanese territory in greenish yellow, and Korean territory in brown.

(1892 was two years before the Sino-Japanese War and eight years before the 1900 Ordinance #41, which mentioned Seokdo.)


This is the close-up of the islands between the Korean peninsula and the Japanese mainland. Ulleungdo was labeled as "Matsu S. (Dagelet I.)" and Liancourt Rocks as "Liancourt In." The non-existent island of Argonaut does not appear on the map. The location of these islands seems to be quite accurate.

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Notice that Ulleungdo Matsu S. (Dagelet I.) and Liancourt Rocks were colored in green, which was the color used for Japanese territory. This suggests that the mapmaker believed "Matsushima" (Ulleungdo) and Liancourt Rocks to be Japanese territory. Since Ulleungdo was Korean territory at the time, it seems that the mapmaker simply associated the name "Matsushima" with Japanese territory. This map supports Watanabe Kouki's 1878 claim that Europeans believed Liancourt Rocks to be Japanese territory.

10 comments:

  1. Gerry,

    I tried to post again. I hope this won't be bad. Please correct my bad English. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Gerry,

    Lots of thanks for the correction!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Beautiful maps. Thank you, for sharing those maps, pacifist.

    I think those maps and the documents which clearly excluded not only Takeshima/Liancourt Rocks but also Ulleungdo are the concrete evidences that Japanese Meiji government were not trying to "grab the island" but simply incorporated their own island which were not occupied by other countries following international law. Otherwise, they had definately incorporated Ulleungdo, either. however, Japanese then knew "Matsushima" is actually Ulleungdo and Korea had strong historical claim, and they didn't incorporated it even though it was far more important than Takeshima/Liancourt Rocks for military pourpose.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks Kaneganese, that's true. If Japan had a malicious mind to invade Korea, she must have incorporated Ulleungdo as you say.

    BTW, Matsushima (Ulleungdo) in these western maps may have encouraged Mutoh Heigaku to write "Argument for the Development of Matsushima" (1876) as he said that he was told by an American in Vladivostok that Matsushima was Japan's island.

    So it is quite natural for one of the international merchants to write that kind of thing in those days. However, Meiji government was careful about the matter and examined precisely by themselves which seems to be quite fair.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous14/6/08 00:51

    Pacifist, what you done once again is simply post bad maps.

    These maps show Ulleungdo as Japanese territory. Europeans had long known Ulleungdo (Matsushima-Dagelet) was Korean land for centuries.

    Those familiar with the region knew about these errors such as seen in Oppert's book printed around 1870.

    Please read this.
    MatsushimaKorean

    Maybe some foreign map who were confused showed Liancourt Rocks as Japanese territory. However, Japanese maps showed them as Korean.

    TrespassMap

    DokdoKorean

    ReplyDelete
  6. Steve,

    I am posting about the truth about the environment just before the 1900 Ordinance.

    I'm not interested in the maps centuries ago, we are just talking about the situation in the late 19th century.

    These evidences support the theory that Seokdo in the 1900 Ordinance can't be Dokdo, as you may already notice.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous14/6/08 01:49

    Pacifist, what you posting are maps that show Ulleungdo as Japanese land. These maps were wrong we know that.

    In other words, you are deliberately misleading your readers....pretty sad.

    Since when do 19th Century Western-foreign maps represent the territorial perceptions of Chosun Koreans...?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Steve,

    The western maps which show Ulleungdo was Japanese territory were due to the name confusion.

    Matsu-shima or Matsu island is obviously a Japanese name and the name of Matsushima had been remembered in Japan as the remained island in Japan after Japan gave Takeshima away.

    So western people misunderstood that Argonaut island was Takeshima which was given back to Korea, and Dagelet island was Matsushima which remained in the Japanese territory. (So anyway, Liancourt Rocks or Hornet Rocks were Japanese territory.)

    So these maps are wrong in a sense as you say but they were the most accurate ones in the late 19th century.

    I won't say that one can decide the teritorial border on these maps. I am saying that the circumstances around these islands in the late 19th century, just before the 1900 Ordinance, didn't favour your insistency that Seokdo was Dokdo.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous21/6/08 12:36

    Dear Mr dokdo-takeshima.com

    It will be great if you allowed me to post what you have said.

    please give me a permission

    thnx,

    ReplyDelete
  10. Dear anonymous,

    You should post all the arguments not only Steve's opinion.

    I think it'll be good to examine all the possibilities including Steve's opinion, but to post only one-sided opinion will obscure the truth.

    ReplyDelete

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