Tsushima Island

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Tsushima Island
Image:Tsushima-sat.jpg
Japanese name:
Kanji 対馬
Hiragana つしま
Hepburn Romaji Tsushima

The Tsushima Islands are situated wholly in the Korea Strait, East and South-east of the Korean Peninsula and between the Japanese mainland due west of the Kanmon Strait which divides Honshu from Kyushu, and which also connects Korea / Tsushima straits to the Inland Sea. The Korea Strait is thus split by the Tsushima Island Archipelago into two channels, with the slightly wider eastern channel also being more widely known as the famous Tsushima Strait. Through the island, there are two canals connecting the deep indentation of Aso Bay to the West-side with the Tsushima Strait: these are known as Ōfunakoshi-Seto and Manzeki-Seto, built in 1671 and 1900 respectively. Thirteen smaller islets surrounding the main island are considered part of the archipelago as well. The Tsushima Islands and Iki Island make up the Iki–Tsushima Quasi-National Park which has been set aside as a nature preserve and brake on over development.

Contents

Geography

Tsushima is considered a single island by the Japanese government, with an area of 696.26 square kilometres. Aso Bay (浅茅湾) is a deep sound in the center of Tsushima, which nearly divides the land of island into two parts connected by a narrow Isthmus. The northern area is known as Kamino-shima, and the southern island as Shimono-shima. Both sub-islands have a pair of mountains: Shimono-shima has Mount Yatachi (矢立山), 649 metres (2,130 feet) high, and Shira-dake, 512 metres (1,680 feet) high. Kamino-shima has Ibeshi-yama, 344 metres (1,128 feet) and Mi-take, 487 metres (1,598 feet). The two main sections of the island are now joined by a combination bridge and causeway (aerial view and water level view).


Tsushima is the closest Japanese territory to Korea, lying only fifty kilometres from Pusan; on a clear day, the hills and mountains of Korea are visible from higher elevations on the two northern mountains. The nearest Japanese port, Iki, is also fifty kilometres away located on Iki Island which lies wholly in the Tsushima Strait. The map in either the Iki Island or Tsushima Strait article shows the geographical relationship.

The Tsushima Islands were once governmentally organized as the Tsushima Province, but today they are part of the Nagasaki Prefecture of Japan. All six of the towns on the Island were administratively merged in March 2004 to form 'Tsushima City'.

Climate

Tsushima has a subtropical climate, which is strongly influenced by monsoon winds. The average temperature is 15.5°C and average yearly precipitation is 2132.6 millimetres. The highest recorded temperature is 36.0°C, in 1966, and the lowest recorded temperature is -8.6°C, recorded in 1895. Tsushima is generally one to two degrees Celsius cooler than Nagasaki throughout the year. Its precipitation is generally higher than locations on the main islands of Japan, which is attributed to the difference in their size. Monsoon winds carry loess (yellow sand) from China in the spring, and cool the area in the winter. The rainy season begins and ends later than other areas in Nagasaki, and Tsushima rarely suffers direct hits by typhoons.

Economy

According to a 2000 census, 23.9% of the local population is employed in primary industries, while 19.7% and 56.4% of the population are employed in secondary and tertiary industries. Of these, fishing amounts to 82.6% of the main industry, with much of it dedicated to catching squid on the eastern coast of the islands.

However, the number of employees in the primary industries has been decreasing, while employee growth in the secondary and tertiary industries has increased. Tourism, targeting mainly Koreans, has recently made a great contribution to the islands' economy.

Demographics and Culture

The population of the islands is about 41,000, consisting mainly of ethnic Japanese, with minority Filipino and Korean populations.

Professor Cho Kyeung-dal suggests that the local culture has experienced an intermingling of Japanese and Korean traditions over time, due in part to Tsushima's proximity to Korea . For example, Korean songs such as "Arirang" (or "Ariran") and "Chingu" are popular in the Tsushima Islands, which has led to the creation of unique festivals not found elsewhere in Japan, such as the Arirang Festival, established in 1964. Other features of Korean influence include the architecture of Kaneda Castle.

The local dialect, Tsushima-ben, contains several words with origins in the Korean language, most notably from the Gyeongsang dialect. Many signs on the islands are written in Korean for the benefit of tourists.

Religious traditions in the Tsushima Islands mirror the rest of Japan, with a majority of the population adhering to Buddhism or Shinto. There is also a small Christian community, consisting mainly of ethnic Koreans.

History

Early history

Archeological evidence suggests that Tsushima was already inhabited by settlers from the Korean peninsula and Japan from the Jomon period to the Kofun period. According to the Sanguo Zhi, a Chinese historical text, a thousand families in Tsushima founded the Tsuikai kingdom (対海国). These families exerted control over Iki Island, and established trading links with Yayoi Japan. Since Tsushima had almost no land to cultivate, islanders earned their living by fishing and trading. Japanese mythology states that Tsushima was one of the eight original islands created by the Shinto deities Izanagi and Izanami.

Beginning in the early 6th century, Tsushima was a province of Japan, known as the Tsushima province (対馬国), or Tsushū (対州). Before the rise of the Joseon Dynasty in Korea, the Koreans periodically considered Tsushima as Korean territory. After the Dynasty came to power, Korea began colonization of the islands and strongly asserted its claim to this territory. It has been claimed that the ancient Korean kingdom of Silla took Tsushima as a dependency, though it is not known whether actual control was exerted over the island. In this context, the Koreans refer to the islands as "Daemado". The discovery of a book written by American missionary Homer Hulbert mentioning Silla's annexation of Daemado has been used as proof for this claim by at least one modern Korean historian.

Under the Ritsuryo system, Tsushima became a province of Japan. This province was politically and economically linked with Dazaifu, the central city of Kyushu, as well as the central government of Japan. Due to its strategic location, Tsushima played a major role in defending Japan against invasions from the Asian continent and developing trade lines with the Korean Peninsula. After Japan was defeated by the Chinese, at that time ruled by the Táng Dynasty, at the Battle of Hakusukinoe in 663, border guards were sent to Tsushima, and the Kaneda Castle was constructed on the island.

Tsushima Province was controlled by the Tsushima-no-kuni-no-miyatsuko (対馬国造) clan until the Heian Period, and then by the Ahiru clan until the middle of the 13th century. The role and title of "Governor of Tsushima" was exclusively held by the Shoni clan for generations. However, since the Shoni actually resided in Kyushu, it was the So clan, known subjects of the Shoni, who actually exerted control over these islands. The So clan governed Tsushima until the late 15th century.

Tsushima was an important trade center during this period. After the Toi invasion, private trade started between Goryeo, Tsushima, Iki, and Kyushu, but halted during the Mongol Invasions of Japan between 1274 and 1281. Koryosa, a historian of the Goryeo dynasty, mentions that in 1274, an army of Mongol troops that included Korean soldiers killed a great number of people on the islands. However, the Mongols were prevented from further aggression against Japan .

Tsushima became one of the major bases of the Wokou, Japanese pirates, also called wakō, along with the Iki and Matsuura. Suffering from repeated invasions, the Goryeos and their successors, the Joseons, placated the pirates by establishing trade agreements, as well as negotiating with the Muromachi shogunate and its deputy in Kyushu. In 1389, General Park Hyun (朴威) of Goryeo attempted to clear the island of Wokou pirates, but uprisings in Korea forced him to return home.

On June 19, 1419, the recently-abdicated King Taejong of Joseon ordered his trusted general Yi Jong Mu to clear the island of the Wokou pirates, using a fleet of 227 vessels and 17,000 soldiers. With the Wokou gone from the island, Tsushima came under the Joseon Dynasty's sphere of influence.

Owing to food shortages on the islands in 1436, the local So clan requested help from King Sejong of Korea. In response, the king formally colonised Tsushima and made it part of Gyeongsang province, although Japan maintained claims to the island. However, under the agreement of the Gyehae treaty of 1443, the Koreans limited the amount of rice per ship and the trade to fifty ships per year.

Following this, the Joseon Dynasty, through the Kakitsu Treaty, gave the So clan a privileged position in trading with Korea. By the end of the 16th century, the So clan monopolized trade with Korea.

In the late 16th century, Japanese leader Toyotomi Hideyoshi united the various feudal lords (daimyo) under his command, planning to unite all factions with a common cause. Hideyoshi's coalition invaded Ming Dynasty China, in an attack leading to the Seven-Year War. Tsushima was the main naval base for this invasion, and in continuing support of the war, large numbers of Korean labourers were transported to Tsushima until 1603.

After Japan's invasion attempts failed, due to Ming China's support of the Joseon Dynasty, peace was re-established between the two nations. Once again, the islands became a port for merchants. Both the Joseon Dynasty and the Tokugawa shogunate sent their trading representatives to Tsushima, governing trade until 1755. During the Edo period, Japanese rule was slowly re-established, as the Joseon Dynasty did not intend to colonise the island with its own people, following its policy of leaving islands uninhabited. However, the Joseon government did not recognize the Japanese claim to Tsushima, and continued printing official maps with Tsushima as part of its own territory until 1860. In the late 19th century, the Meiji government officially incorporated the island under Japanese rule.

Because of the abolition of the Han system, the Tsushima Fuchu domain became part of the Izuhara Prefecture in 1871. In the same year, the Izuhara Prefecture was merged with the Imari Prefecture, which was renamed Saga Prefecture in 1872. Tsushima was transferred to the Nagasaki Prefecture in 1872, and its districts of Kamiagata (上県) and Shimoagata (下県) were merged to form the modern Tsushima City. This change was part of widespread reforms within Japan, starting after 1854. Japan was at this time becoming a modern nation state and regional power, with widespread changes in government, industry, and education.

Twentieth century

Between 1895 and 1904, the Japanese navy blasted the Manzeki-Seto canal twenty-five metres wide and three metres deep, which was later expanded to forty metres wide and four and a half metres deep (Nagasaki prefectural website), through a mountainous rocky isthmus of the island, between Aso Bay from the west, and Tsushima Strait on the east, technically dividing the island into three islands (topographical map). After the First Sino-Japanese War ended with the Treaty of Shimonoseki, Japan had felt humiliated by the brazen Triple Intervention of the three great powers of Germany, France, and Russia and were forced to re-cede the valuable Liaotung Peninsula under threat of force. Consequently the Japanese leadership correctly anticipated that a war with Russia or another Western Imperialistic power was eventually likely and explains the scope, strategy and funding both of the canal project and their rapid fivefold increase of expensive naval forces in subsequent years by a cash strapped Japan. Concurrently they also vastly increased the size and modernized their merchant marine.

The Japanese, since the completion of the canal, have been able to rapidly move transports and warships between their main naval bases in the Inland Sea (directly to the east) via the Kanmon and Tsushima Straits and thence into Korea Strait, or to destinations beyond in the Yellow Sea, Japan's tactical purpose for funding the difficult and expensive canal engineering project during the era when they were still backward and struggling to establish an industrial economy.

During the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, the Russian Baltic fleet under Admiral Rozhdestvensky, after making an almost year-long trip to East Asia from the Baltic coast, was crushed by the Japanese under Admiral Togo Heihachiro at the Battle of Tsushima. The Japanese third squadron (cruisers) began shadowing the Russian fleet off the tip of the south island, and followed it through the Tsushima strait where the main Japanese body waited. The battle began slightly east-northeast of the northern island around mid-day, and ended the day after to its north with the Russian Fleet surrounded by the Japanese. Few battles in history have been so decisive.

Today, Tsushima is part of the newly reorganized Nagasaki prefecture of Japan. On March 1 2004, the six towns on the island, including Izuhara, Mitsushima, Toyotama, Mine, Kami-agata, and Kami-tsushima, were unified to create Tsushima city.

Controversial Territorial claims

After World War II, a movement to claim Tsushima arose in South Korea, citing its historical relations to the various kingdoms of Korea. In a New Year's press conference in 1949, South Korean President Syngman Rhee formally requested that Japan return the island to Korean rule. However, this claim was never seriously considered by the military government of General Douglas MacArthur. Subsequent investigations, both historical and governmental, have shown difficult assessment of the basis for this claim, as the islands have historical references dating back to the 240s AD showing them in mixed control. With the outbreak of the Korean War the next year, and the economic struggles that South Korea faced in the following decade, serious governmental talk of any territorial claims disappeared. The ownership dispute is far from over especially among some ultra-nationalist South Korean populist groups, but the economic relationship between the two nations has decreased much of the rhetoric.

Provoked by the Shimane Prefecture's claim to Liancourt Rocks, the Korean city of Masan declared June 19 as "Daema-do day" on 18 March 2005, claiming Tsushima to be part of South Gyeongsang province in South Korea, but this was rejected by the Korean government. [1] However, the Masan council replied that it would not retract its claim, stating that Tsushima was never formally handed to Japan. This proclamation stirred up some public support for the idea of Tsushima as Korean territory, to the point that the Korean government had to advise the council to formally retract the claim. So far, the Japanese government has not made any official comments on this.

Famous people from Tsushima

Further reading

  • Ian Nish, A Short History of JAPAN, 1968, LoCCC# 68-16796, Fredrick A. Praeger, Inc., New York, 238 pp.
British Title and Publisher: The Story of Japan, 1968, Farber and Farber, Ltd.
  • Edwin O Reischauer, Japan - The Story of a Nation, 1970, LoCCC# 77-10895 Afred A. Knopf, Inc., New York. 345 pp. plus index.
Previously published as Japan Past and Present, 4 Editions, 1946-1964.

See also

External links

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