뉴스레터

Question

Japan cites the Rusk documents when claiming sovereignty over Dokdo. What are the Rusk documents?

Answer

U.S. diplomats' pro-Japanese maneuvering and the Rusk documents

The Rusk documents are the official diplomatic correspondence sent by Dean Rusk, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs, to Yang Yu-chan, the South Korean ambassador to the United States, on August 10, 1951, right before the conclusion of the San Francisco Peace Treaty between the Allies of World War II and Japan. The correspondence contains the following:
As regards the island of Dokdo, otherwise known as Takeshima or Liancourt Rocks, this normally uninhabited rock formation was according to our information never treated as part of Korea and, since about 1905, has been under the jurisdiction of the Oki Islands Branch Office of Shimane Prefecture of Japan. The island does not appear ever before to have been claimed by Korea.

Japan considered this letter an international endorsement of its claim that "Taekshima is Japanese territory," and so started the dispute over Dokdo that remains unresolved to this very day. In short, Japan embarked on a full-fledged offensive to claim Dokdo after the issuance of the Rusk documents.

The United States had not been on Japan's side regarding the matter when it first started drafting the peace treaty with Japan in 1947. Especially concerning the ownership over Dokdo, the United States had maintained a very clear stance that "Dokdo is Korean territory" until the end of 1949. Korea, for its part, had set out to reclaim our territories and rights from Japan starting in 1947, before the establishment of the Republic of Korea.

In the same year, Japan also started making preparations for the peace treaty. It was then that Japan began claiming "Takeshima" (Dokdo) as Japanese territory. Dokdo appeared in Volume 4 of Japan's Minor Islands, a series of pamphlets compiled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan in June 1947. As evidenced by the contents of the Rusk documents, Dean Rusk had a heavy bias for Japan. Then there was the pro-Japanese William J. Sebald, the U.S. Department of State's political adviser in Japan and foreign affairs director of the Allied Forces Supreme Commander (1949-1951), who played a pivotal role in changing the United States' stance on Dokdo. In short, it was the pro-Japanese U.S. diplomats in Japan who had laid the foundation for the systematic fabrication contained in MOFA's pamphlet series.

Dokdo sacrificed for the U.S. reconstruction program for Japan

The Cold War was set in motion with the announcement of the Truman Doctrine in 1947. Two years later, China became a communist state, and the Korean War erupted in the following year. Against such a backdrop, the United States, which had planned a punitive reconstruction plan for Japan, changed the plan to a generous, non-punitive one. The United States sought a resolution to the Dokdo issue, which was an obstacle to quickly fostering friendly relations with Japan; thus, the United States ended up siding with Japan on the matter.

At the time, United States' adhered to the principle of neither interfering nor becoming involved in resolving Japan or Korea's territorial disputes. The United States takes an ambiguous stance of neutrality on Dokdo in the San Francisco Peace Treaty, which does not include any provisions concerning territories save the mention that Jejudo, Geomundo, and Ulleungdo are not a part of Japanese territory. Instead, the United States left the Dokdo issue to be handled by Korea and Japan through a bilateral mechanism. The outcome is Korea and Japan's lingering dispute over Dokdo today.

The San Francisco Peace Treaty was not simply a postwar settlement procedure signaling the end of World War II. Even the Soviet Union and China were excluded from the treaty. Hence, the treaty was not for ensuring peace among all the warring parties but only between the United States and Japan. In short, it was a reconstruction program to build up a conservative, pro-American Japan to contribute to the United States' anti-communist, anti-Soviet Union objectives in the Cold War.