South Korea has one more reason to appreciate its alliance with the United States - and the US alliance with Japan. No matter what the Japanese say about their claim to the Tokdo, a rocky outcrop between Japan and Korea, there is no way they can do anything to recover them as long as US alliances guarantee the defence of both countries. It is unimaginable that Japan would try to wrest them from Korean control by force while the US has bases in both Japan and Korea.
In any case, if possession is nine-tenths of the law, the fact that a South Korean garrison occupies the islets gives Seoul the edge despite Tokyo's persistent insinuations of ownership.
Thus, it seems difficult to believe that South Korea should get excited over Japan's claim to the islets, whose Korean name, Tokdo, means 'solitary island'. This comes amid bitter recriminations between South and North Korea over the killing of a South Korean tourist in North Korea's Mount Kumkang region, as well as non-stop debate over the North's nuclear programme.
With the end of the second world war, Japan lost its tenuous hold over the islets, which the Japanese named Takeshima for 'bamboo island'. The Americans, after using them for a time as a bombing range, turned them over to South Korea. By now, a small garrison of South Korean policemen guards them against any conceivable intruders.
Ancient claims aside, those moves have a certain logic since the islets, actually two major outcroppings - one measuring 54 hectares, the other, 44 hectares - plus a number of other lesser rocks and reefs, are closer to Korea than Japan.
Although it may seem like making a mountain out of a molehill, the anger spilled over at the recent regional forum of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Singapore.