Giving a name to the water between Korea and Japan is always a bit of a sensitive affair. I was suddenly reminded of this today when I opened up the Korean newspaper site Chosun.com and was suddenly presented with a pop-up window with the following text:
The staff of the English-language edition of Chosun.com wish to apologize to readers who may have been offended by a May 2 article on this website headlined “U.S.: North Korea Apparently Fires Missile into Sea of Japan”. We would like to explain that the article was not a Chosun.com article, but rather one provided to us by the Voice of America (VOA), one of our partner organizations.Due to our agreement with VOA, we do not change either the content or the headline of articles it provides. We recognize, however, that using an article that employs the term “Sea of Japan” may be offensive to some readers, especially considering the sensitive state of relations between Korea and Japan. For this, we sincerely apologize, and the article in question has been erased.
With western Europe being so friendly nowadays it’s not the same issue but I have heard the French complain about the use of ‘The English Channel.’ Who is it who calls the North Sea the German sea?
I guess, that the problem with the “East Sea / Sea of Japan” is not simply confined to an issue of naming. I believe The reason that the Koreans (and the Japanese?) are so sensitive with that name is because the Koreans have a unclarified, harsh past experience with Japan.
If, the Koreans and Japanese were in good terms like the current England and French, and they two countries had somehow solved their past issue… No. I don’t think that the name of a sea in the middle of the two countries would be such a big deal.
I had never known this was a sensitive issue ever since I was born in Japan until recently. Although I believe S. Korea has to be the most significant partner to Japan in many respects, I dislike how there have been always many Koreans who are oversensitive to Japanese in terms of diplomatic matters and other matters. It is not until the 1990s that, as our recession had got worse and worse, some socioeconomically weak Japanese had also started oversensitive, too. If you major in history, foreign refashions, or whatever, I recommend, you should be more impartial, avoiding viewing the world from your cultural background alone.