1900 Korean Imperial Decree No. 41 Separates Uldo Archipelago From Uljin County
On October 25, 1900, Korea issued Imperial Decree No. 41, which included the following administrative actions.
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- Ulleungdo, which had been subordinate to Uljin Prefecture since the reign of King Sejong, shall be renamed Uldo and elevated to county.
- Uldo County office shall rule over all of Uldo proper and its dependencies including Jukdo and Seokdo.
The decree was published in Official Gazette No. 1716 (관보 제1716호) on Oct 27 and distributed to the international community, including Imperial Japan, with representations in Seoul.
This decree states that Ulleungdo be renamed to Uldo (mod. Ulleungdo), and that the county hall shall govern Ulleungdo, Jukdo, and Seokdo. Japan claims that there is no evidence to identify the island "Seokdo" as Liancourt Rocks, and that there is no record that proves the effective occupation by Korea before Japanese Cabinet decision of Jan 28, 1905. Korea claims that the island "Seokdo" mentioned in this document is Liancourt Rocks, and thus Liancourt Rocks was still officially part of Korea as an ancient territory since 512. Korea presents evidence that Koreans living on Ulleungdo referred to Liancourt Rocks as Dokseom (or Dolseom; literally "rocky island") in speech and Dokdo 獨島 in writing as a phonetic transcription (음독 音讀, umdok; おんよみ 音読み on-yomi), while the name "Seokdo" 石島 ("rocky island") in the Ordinance was an instance of logographic translation (훈독, 訓讀, hundok; くんよみ 訓読み kun-yomi).
Korea also claims Liancourt Rocks was effectively managed by seasonal fishermen and divers in recent times as a result of King Gojong's Ulleungdo Reclamation Program (鬱陵島開拓令) issued in Dec 1881. A first-person account by one of the first settlers since the reclamation program has been presented as one evidence to the fact of the claim. A South Korean scholar claims to have uncovered evidence that Korean fishermen effectively occupied engaged in "whaling" in Liancourt Rocks waters in the 1880s and that sea lions were hunted and sea-lion-derived products were exported to Japan in 1904 prior to the Japanese Cabinet decision of 1905 to incorporate a supposed terra nullius.
Read more about this topic: Liancourt Rocks Dispute
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