明治時代の竹島＝独島に対する太政官指令・宣言に関する日本の研究

Hori Kazuo's view that the Dajokan, Japan's highest national institution, proclaimed in 1877 that “Takeshima and one other island”, namely Takeshima (Ulleungdo) and Matsushima (Dokdo = Liancourt Rocks = Takeshima), had no connection to Japan, was accepted without question by researchers for 20 years after the publication of his paper, including Shimojo Masao and Tsukamoto Takashi. However, in 2007, Shimojo changed his idea. He argued that while in Shimane Prefecture, “Takeshima and one other island” referred to present-day Ulleungdo and Dokdo = Takeshima, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Dajokan considered both Takeshima and one other island to refer to Ulleungdo. This study will first show that Shimojo's argument is based on a misreading of the documents, and then shed light on how subsequent research on the Dajokan Directive and Proclamation has been conducted in Japan. After Shimojo realized that he had misread the documents, he changed his view on “Takeshima and one other island” one after another and has no definite opinion. Meanwhile, Tsukamoto Takashi inherited Shimojo's view, and claimed that the Dajokan excluded “Ulleungdo and another Ulleungdo” from Japanese territory. In response, Ikeuchi Satoshi thoroughly analyzed the documents related the Dajokan Directive and proved that Hori's view was correct, while at the same time severely criticizing Tsukamoto's view. In response, Tsukamoto admitted that his theory of “Ulleungdo and another Ulleungdo was unreasonable” because it goes against the usage of the Japanese language, but otherwise remained silent. Thus, the debate over the Dajokan Directive and Proclamation seemed to have ended. However, Tsukamoto and five other members of the Shimane Prefecture Takeshima Issue Research Group established the Takeshima Materials Study Group and continued their study for three years, publishing the Study Group Report in 2022 and denying Hori's view. The book argued that before the Dajokan Directive, the central Japanese government had created maps and documents that showed Ulleungdo as Matsushima, and therefore “one other island”, Matsushima that the Ministry of Interior and the Dajokan had excluded from Japanese territory, was not Dokdo = Takeshima. As evidence, they cited the “Complete Map of Japan”, which the Japanese government exhibited at the Vienna World Exposition in 1873 but later lost, and the “Complete Map of Great Japan”, which was said to have been presumably created by the geography department after October 1876. At present, Shimane Prefecture may have adopted the view of the Study Group Report, in the educational leaflet "Takeshima" published in 2022, they argued that the Dajokan Directive had nothing to do with Takeshima = Liancourt Rocks, and that there was no directive that said Takeshima = Liancourt Rocks were not part of the Japanese territory. In response to this viewpoint, Park Byoung-sup pointed out that the claims in the Study Group Report were full of doubts and errors, while also presenting a map, “Complete Map of Large School Districts in Great Japan”, in which the Ministry of Education depicted Ulleungdo as Takeshima, as evidence that refutes the claims in the book. Furthermore, the "Study Group Report" claimed without any basis that the “Isotakeshima Memorandum” was compiled by the Edo Shogunate, but this was actually created by the Geography Division in 1875, and Park claimed that based on the recognition in the book, the Geography Division treated Takeshima (Ulleungdo) and Matsushima (Dokdo = Takeshima) as outside of Japanese territory, and did not depict the two islands on the "Complete Map of Great Japan". Meanwhile, the Japanese government, which has remained silent on the Dajokan Directive and Declaration, has indicated its intention to add the Dajokan Directive at exhibition in the National Museum of Territory and Sovereignty. The contents of the exhibition will likely incorporate those of the Study Group Report. However, the “Takeshima and one other island” that was excluded from the territory refers to Ulleungdo and Dokdo = Takeshima, as is clear from the Dajokan Proclamation “Determining Takeshima and one other island as outside the territory” recorded in the Dajo Ruiten, the only precedent and legal collection at the early Meiji period. Researchers tend to overlook this book, but the Dajo Ruiten and the Ministry of Home Affairs' atlas, Complete Map of the Great Japan (1883) are important documents that prove that Dokdo = Takeshima was not Japanese territory at the time of the Dajokan Proclamation. The atlas recognized that there were no Japanese islands off the Oki Islands, and so did not include Takeshima and Matsushima.