Photo: Scale model of Dokdo Islets at the City Hall subway station in Seoul. Credit: the Blue Roof.

Around the Liberation Day 광복절 on August 15, Seoul’s subway users noticed something missing. At Gwanghwamun 광화문, Anguk 안국 and Jamsil 잠실, three highly trafficked stations near major tourist attractions, the scale models of Dokdo Islets 독도 were removed. Similarly, the War Memorial of Korea 전쟁기념관 also removed the scale model of the islets.

Dokdo Islets, known internationally as Liancourt Rocks, has long been a source of tension between South Korea and Japan. South Korea considers the islets, located 87 kilometers to the east of Ulleung-do 울릉도 island, to be the easternmost point of its land territory, guarded by the Korean police force. Japan, however, long claimed ownership of the islets, arguing that it did not give up the islets as a part of the 1951 San Francisco Treaty that officially ended the Pacific Theater of World War II.

Japan has sent its naval patrol boats to the islets over 80 times a year - this year, most recently on August 12 - as a show of force over what it considers an illegally occupied territory. Koreans have considered Japan’s argument to be deeply insulting, as it signals Tokyo’s lingering ambition for territorial conquest.

The subway stations and the War Memorial all said that the scale models had to be removed because they were showing signs of wear. But the Yoon Suk-yeol 윤석열 administration’s groveling to Japan, unilaterally giving up on issues such as reparation for WWII-era slave labor and release of radioactive wastewater from the failed nuclear power plant in Fukushima, has invited skepticism from the public. (See previous coverage, “Seoul’s Capitulation on Slave Labor.”) 

The skepticism grew when it was reported that the Yoon administration had no plans to conduct the annual Dokdo Defense Exercise 독도방어훈련, typically held around Liberation Day. The day after the report, the Ministry of National Defense 국방부 announced that it had the plan after all, and held the exercise on August 21. The exercise, which apparently was slapped together with just one week’s planning, involved only five ships, a dramatic scale-down from a typical exercise that involved more than a dozen ships as well as multiple aircrafts and amphibious special forces.