After raising 5 million won (about $4,560) it raised for victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that ravaged the Tohoku region of Japan, the South Korean city of Yangju is instead using the money for a scholarship after the Japanese government approved a textbook claiming the Liancourt Rocks are Japanese territory rather than South Korean.
The issue of who has sovereignty over the Liancourt Rocks is not new. I believe the islets were historically South Korean territory, which makes South Korea’s historical claims over the islets stronger. However, the islets were described as Japanese territory in the Treaty of San Francisco, which makes Japan’s legal claim stronger. I would like to see some compromise over the issue, perhaps Japan could recognize South Korea’s sovereignty over the islets, while South Korea leases out the islets (or more importantly, the water around them) for use by Japan. However, the nationalists in both countries would see any budge on the issue as a sign of weakness (see linked posts). This also has to do with the fact that Japan’s right-wing nationalists (who I regularly describe as an unholy marriage between the mafia, the Ku Klux Klan and the tea party movement–they have ties to the yakuza, they are intensely racist, and they have a far-right political agenda) influence the approval of textbook content.
Since the territorial dispute is not a new issue, nor is Japan’s controversial textbook-approval methods, I think it’s petty of Yangju to withdraw the donations.