Despite Japan’s repeated territorial claims and international ignorance over South Korea’s ownership of its easternmost islets, Seoul appears to be sticking to its so-called “quiet diplomacy” to avoid unnecessary attention.

Just days after South Korea lodged a complaint with Washington for its backing of Japan’s name for the waters between Tokyo and the peninsula, government data revealed that a mere 1.5 percent of world maps around the world recognized Seoul’s ownership over its islets of Dokdo.

A Japanese media outlet also reported that its government plans to take the Dokdo sovereignty issue to the International Court of Justice, sparking potential tensions with South Korea.

“We are irritated,” a Seoul official said on the condition of anonymity. “But we must not, and have no need to, overreact as that’s exactly what Japan wants. We will deal with the issue firmly but calmly.”

South Korea has long believed it has no reason to overreact and draw international attention to an island that was its territory to begin with.

Tokyo has for decades laid territorial claims over Dokdo, which it calls Takeshima. The group of small volcanic islets lies in rich fishing grounds in the East Sea between South Korea and Japan, and are believed to contain large gas deposits.

The naming of the waters between the two neighboring states has been a sensitive issue for Korea, as it continues to battle Tokyo’s attempt to claim ownership over the rocky islets.

Facing difficulty in having “East Sea” as the only international appellation, the South Korean government has been pushing since April to have the International Hydrographic Organization use two official names for the waters.

Koreans call the waters “East Sea” while Japan and the majority of the world currently call them “Sea of Japan.”

Among 3,380 world maps issued by a variety of countries, only 49 maps, or 1.5 percent, stated Dokdo as Korean land, a ruling party lawmaker here said, quoting data he received from the Foreign Ministry.

More than 92 percent did not state the owner of Dokdo while 2.8 percent marked it as a disputed region, Rep. Kim Ho-yeon said.

Meanwhile, the Japanese government was moving to take the Dokdo issue to the international court, according to the Sankei Shinbun in Tokyo.

Japan has made the request to Korea to have the international court decide which country owns the islets also in 1954 and 1962. Seoul turned down both requests, dissatisfying the conditions in taking a case to the international court.

“It is an unchanged position of the government that Korea’s sovereignty over Dokdo cannot be subject to any kind of judgment,” the unnamed official in Seoul said.

“We have not received any proposal from the Japanese government and have no plans to accept such proposal,” he added.

Earlier this week, reports revealed that the U.S. maritime boundary agency recently notified the IHO it backed the use of “Sea of Japan,” sparking protest from Seoul. The State Department spokesman echoed such position the next day.

Major newspapers in the U.S. have been stating the waters “Sea of Japan” for the past five years, a local expert on the issue said.

“According to the research on The New York Times, The Washington Post and other major newspapers in the U.S. over the past five year period, there wasn’t a single case in which the waters were concurrently named,” Seo Kyoung-duk, a Korean PR expert and a visiting professor of Sungshin Women’s University said.

Since 2009, expert groups belonging to the 27 member nations of the IHO have been discussing ways of unifying the official appellation of the waters. Only a number of countries, such as the U.S. and Britain, have delivered their position to the IHO so far.

Members of the international body, which has previously designated hydrographic names throughout the world in 1929, 1937 and 1953, are scheduled to meet next year to update the hydrographic information and data in their publication. The group has, until now, used the title “Sea of Japan.”

Arguing the misunderstanding was triggered by Japan’s coercive demand during its colonial rule to use the Japanese language for the designation of Korea’s mountains, seas and even names of individuals, Seoul has been striving to promote the East Sea as the official title for decades.

By Shin Hae-in (hayney@heraldcorp.com)