Tokyo Olympics: calls grow in South Korea to boycott Games over island dispute with Japan

The South Korea-controlled Dokdo islets, which Japan claims and calls Takeshima, are marked with a blurred dot on the map on the IOC’s website

Seoul’s foreign ministry has been calling for the islets’ removal from the torch relay map since July 2019, but Japan’s Olympics organisers have so far refused

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South Korean Marines take part in a military exercise on the Dokdo islets in 2019. Photo: South Korean Navy/Yonhap via Reuters

Published: 2:17pm, 31 May 2021Updated: 12:21pm, 1 Jun 2021

South Korea is facing mounting pressure to boycott the Tokyo Olympics over an official map that marks a group of disputed islets as Japan’s territory.

The Korea-controlled Dokdo islets, which Japan claims and calls Takeshima, are indicated with a barely discernible dot on a map of the Olympic torch relay route found on the International Olympic Committee’s website.

South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party on Sunday “strongly” urged Tokyo to amend the map and lambasted the IOC for applying a double standard, citing how it had asked for the islets to be removed from a “Unification Flag” – used to represent an all-Korea unified team at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics – after it became the target of protest in Japan.

No such request has yet been made of Tokyo, however, with an IOC representative referring the issue to Japan’s Olympics organising committee when questioned by reporters.

Seoul’s foreign ministry has been calling for the islets’ removal from the torch relay map since July 2019, but Japan’s Olympics organisers have so far refused – opting instead to make the dot indicating the islets less visible, a move slammed as “trickery” by Korean media.