Syngman Rhee Line

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The Syngman Rhee Line (Hangul: 이승만 라인) refers to a boundary line established by South Korean President Syngman Rhee in his "Peace Line"(평화선) declaration of January 18, 1952, including Liancourt Rocks in Korean territory.

The president has stated that the purpose of the line was to protect marine resources around the Sea of Japan, therefore it banned any fishing boat except for Korean from fishing around Liancourt Rocks, in particular.

The fishing boats, which were mostly Japanese, that violated the boundary line were seized by South Korea. Japanese records claim that such ships were often gunned by South Korea. Japanese Government protested strongly, but the abolition of the line had to wait even for the approval of the Japan-Korea Fishery Agreement in 1965. Japanese records claim that until an agreement was reached, 3929 of Japanese people were arrested, 328 of Japanese ships were seized, and casualty was 44 of Japanese. ^[1]

Japanese Government released 472 Korean people in Japan who had been imprisoned as illegal immigrants in exchange for the restoration of Japanese detainees according to the demand of the South Korea Government, and Japanese Government granted the special permission of residence to the prisoners.

[edit] Solving the problem

Solving the problem required many years. The following are causes that were an obstacle to its settlement:

1. There was no formal diplomatic relation between Japan and South Korea.
2. The normalization talks between Japan and South Korea became complicated due to the compensation claim, and was not advanced at all.
3. The United States took the middle ground and did not intervene it, because of the opinion that the problem was bilateral issue.

[edit] History

• September 2, 1945 Japanese Government accepted the Potsdam Declaration.
• January 29, 1946 Governmental and Administrative Separation of Certain Outlying Areas from Japan. SCAPIN#677(Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers Instruction Note　No.677)
• June 22, 1946 Area Authorized for Japanese Fishing and Whaling. SCAPIN#1033(MacArthur Line)
• August 13, 1948 Republic of Korea was founded. Syngman Rhee was sworn-in as first president of South Korea.
• August 10, 1951 US government official stance that "the MacArthur Line isn't effective continuously", it had been shown by the Rusk documents.
• September 8, 1951 Treaty of Peace with Japan
• January 18, 1952 South Korean Government declares the Syngman Rhee Line instead of the MacArthur Line.
• April 28, 1952 Treaty of Peace with Japan became effective.
• January 12, 1953 South Korea Government ordered to seize a Japanese fisher-boat that go into the Syngman Rhee Line, deeply.
• July 12, 1953 The South Korea police gunned Patrol boat of Japan Coast Guard.^[2]
• 1965 Japan-Korea Fishery Agreement was concluded. Syngman Rhee Line was repealed.

[edit] See also

• Rusk documents
• Treaty of San Francisco
• Japan-Korea relations
• Japanese-Korean disputes
• Tsushima Island
• Liancourt Rocks
• Dai Ichi Daihoumaru Ship case
• Report of Van Fleet Mission to Far East

[edit] References