I have not much to say about the whole Dokto/Takeshima row that’s on, but I must heartily recommend Marmot’s coverage. (Here, here, and here, but check yourself for newer posts as well.)

Nora Park expresses my own misgivings about the argument well:

Mr. Ban, are we going to go to war over a stamp or a small town assembly’s vote? Let me know so I can be sure to pack.

I don’t want to pack, I’m not about to leave, but good grief, how far is either side willing to go?

I don’t know what the Korean media says, but I at least one Korean I know said that the Takeshima Day law was passed by “The Japanese government”, which I take to mean the national government, rather than by some little unimportant Prefecture (which is the real case). I know, there are resources there, I know, it’s national pride—though, if some little town in Arkansas passed a law declaring a “Korea is Bad!” day, would Korean protest America in the same way?

Pride that is too easily hurt doesn’t seem like pride at all, but rather insecurity. Korea’s government would do better to laugh it off, and just bolster troops on the island and present its evidence of having a claim. (Surely there is a lot to present.)

It just seems to me a really, really bad time to be fighting over all this, you know, while North Korea is still, well, busy busy busy with its own little projects. How would everyone feel if this spat provided the crucial window of time North Korea needs to produce a couple of more nukes? Hmmm? Priorities, people.

Then again, maybe this is the key to destroying Confucianism. How can anyone respect their elders when they look back into history and see these kinds of arguments going on while they (mutually!) had so much bigger fish to fry?

For those of us who cannot visit Dokdo, here is cyberdokdo.