Dear East Asia Forum,

My name is Jiwoo Park, who is a 2nd grade student in a Korean high school. I am writing this email to request you to correct an error in your article and rebut Japanese claim for Dokdo as its territory over there.

Your article, “Japan and South Korea’s battle over Dokdo/Takeshima at the Olympics” reported by Joseph Egidio in Oct 9, 2021 tries to show our Korean position toward this issue as clear as can be, for which I sincerely appreciate. But I’ve found a serious error in that article and also I’d like to show how baseless the Japanese claim quoted in the article was.

First, it’s about factual error. The report says “The dispute over the rocky outcrops, located roughly halfway between the two nations...,” It is evidently wrong. What is important to count distances from each territory is not the distance from its shore but the distance from the end of territory. Dokdo is two times farther from Japanese territory than from Korean territory. It’s only 87.4 km away from Ulleung island, the obvious Korean territory while it is 157.4 km from Oki islands in Japan. 

Thank you very much for reading through my email. I hope the error in the report as I suggested will be corrected as a renowned news site as you. I also hope that you would take serious research toward Dokdo issue based on historical facts. I wish your site best luck.