Japan has scored a victory in its continuing international campaign to portray the Dokdo islets in the East Sea as a disputed territory. The US Board of Geographic Naming (BGN) has changed its description of the islets' status to one of undesignated sovereignty.

While we regret the authoritative US organisation's misguided decision about the indisputable Korean territory, we suspect that it could be an unforeseen result of the latest round of controversy between Korea and Japan over Dokdo. The issue reared its head again when Tokyo mentioned its territorial claim to the island in a history teaching guidebook earlier this month. If so, the government faces a serious dilemma between its usual policy of strategically ignoring such claims and the need to refute any Japanese claim on the islets.

Over the past several decades, Seoul's Foreign Ministry has prevailed with the convincing logic that Korea should make no response to Japan's "Takeshima" claim, as long as the nation maintains effective control over the island with historical, geographical and legal justification. Otherwise, Korea may be dragged into a Japanese scheme to bring the case to the International Court of Justice.

Yet, times have been changing and the mode of diplomacy has also changed, rendering useless the previously valued style of subtlety and protocol. The age of global communication, with the internet and other media, has brought public diplomacy to the fore. These days, everyone takes part in the exchange of messages of both domestic and international importance. Dokdo could not be kept in the confines of quiet diplomacy no matter how much our Foreign Ministry wanted it to be.

The US BGN and hundreds of other foreign organizations interested in geographical details, and perhaps thousands of internet portals, must be watching for any new developments in the international arena so as to reflect them in their databases and search engines - with or without spontaneous input from the parties concerned. The BGN could have been approached by Japanese officials asking for the change, but it could also have made the change on its own.

Considering these circumstances, it is inadequate to blame the Foreign Ministry and the Korean Embassy in Washington for their "oversight" in failing to prevent the change of description of Dokdo by the BGN and some other major US organisations. Seoul did send instructions to overseas missions to check practices of foreign organisations regarding Dokdo following the publishing of the Japanese teachers' guidebook, but there apparently was not enough time to do anything about it.

This does not mean that we could acquiesce to foreign organisations' taking what they believe to be a neutral stance on the Dokdo issue. The newly-formed Foreign Ministry task force, the Korean Overseas Information Service, the Northeast Asia Foundation and other official and private organizations should make concerted, ceaseless efforts to inform international bodies of the nature of Dokdo. The US BGN in particular should be asked to reverse its change of description.

Dokdo is beyond a matter of national prestige. Its economic value is incalculable. But more than anything else, the island should stand as the symbol of our resolve to disallow a resurgence of Japanese imperialistic desires and to maintain peace in Northeast Asia. Seoul's quiet diplomacy on Dokdo is now resolutely finished. (The Korea Herald/ ANN)