SEOUL • South Korea has summoned Tokyo’s ambassador to protest against new educational guidelines requiring high school students to be taught that disputed islands belong to Japan..
SEOUL • South Korea has summoned Tokyo’s ambassador to protest against new educational guidelines requiring high school students to be taught that disputed islands belong to Japan.
Seoul has controlled the islets in the Sea of Japan, also known as East Sea, since 1945, when Tokyo’s brutal colonial rule on the peninsula ended.
Tokyo also claims the islands, known as Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan, accusing Seoul of occupying them illegally.
South Korea and Japan are both market economies, democracies and US allies, and both are threatened by nuclear-armed North Korea, but their relationship is heavily strained by historical and territorial issues.
Tokyo yesterday approved guidelines requiring high school textbooks and teachers to tell pupils that the islands are Japan’s, mirroring measures applied last year in elementary and middle schools.
The guidelines, which are available on the ministry’s website, say schools should “introduce issues involving our country’s territories, such as the Takeshima islands and Northern Territories, being our country’s own territories”.
