No, this is not about an hypothetical football match between the two asian countries, but rather a short post on a geopolitical issue making waves back and forth between Japan and Korea: the naming of the sea on the eastern coast of the Eurasian continent (hey, I'm being careful here, it's precisely the name that's at stake). So, to summarize, Japan has been advocating that this piece of water should be named Sea of Japan (as it is de facto in most western maps today), while Korea pushes for the East Sea denomination. Scholar battles ensue.
I was aware of that already, but during my course on Japan and the International Political Economy given by the European Institute for Japanese Studies, much diplomatic and official attention was said to be focused on the naming dispute. After some googling, I managed to find the two eminently official versions and arguments, on each side of the Sea:
- Japan has a dedicated page on its Ministry of Foreign Affairs site. There, several documents and pamphlets try to make their point in convincing of the rightfullness of Japan's claim.
- This is however nothing compared to the heavy artillery Korea has decided to use: quite proeminently placed in the starting page of the country's official portal, a 27' video transforms the claim into an almost-Hollywoodian attempt: american-sounding off voice, dramatic music, and a lot of cheap picture effects (while not forgetting some deliciously diplomatic rounding such as [the Sea's name] was intentionally erased by an outside force).
Anyhow, time to get back to a few more pages of 日本語初歩...
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