Renkaku Islands
The Renkaku Islands (Dayashinese: 蓮角志 Renkaku Shima), known in Menghe as the Sandu archipelago (산두 군도 / 汕頭群島, Sandu Gundo), are a chain of islands off the southwestern coast of Dayashina. At their southern tip, they approach the coastline of Menghe's Ryonggyŏng Province, reaching a distance of 180 kilometers at their closest point. The island chain defines the boundary between the East Menghe Sea and the South Menghe Sea.
Until recently, the Renkaku Islands were the subject of a territorial dispute between Dayashina and Menghe. In 2001, the Menghean government formally withdrew its claim to the Renkaku Islands, as part of a broader deal which included debt forgiveness after the 1999 Menghean financial crisis.
Early history
The first Menghean sea charts of the chain's southernmost island date to the 1st century BCE, but descriptions on the maps suggest the island was known for a longer time, as a popular stopping place for fishermen and pearl divers. Subsequent explorations of the islands took place during the following centuries, with a definitive map of the islands and their favorable harbors completed in 802.
During Menghe's Sŭng dynasty, the smaller islands were a popular haven for pirates, who could easily raid coastal shipping as it passed in and out of the East Menghe Sea. The Sŭng Emperors approved a number of punitive expeditions against the pirates, and set up garrisoned outposts on some of the islands, but did not permanently settle them. In 945, the Sŭng fleet conducted a decisive anti-piracy campaign, but by the 12th century pirates dominated the area once more.
In 1342, the Kaeyo Emperor of the Yi dynasty dispatched Prince Gyŏng to "decisively rid the Sandu Islands of pirate havens and establish permanent garrisons for their control." A second expedition, in 1348, brought the two larger islands under Menghean rule, seizing them from Dayashinese feudal lords suspected of providing a haven for pirates. During the century and a half that followed, the garrisoned forts built on these islands grew into permanent colonial settlements, attracting fishermen and merchants from the mainland.
During the Menghean Black Plague, the Sandu Islands were particularly hard-hit, losing up to 80% of their population by 1512 under some estimates. The survivors fled to the mainland, and the coastal forts were abandoned, though some fishing communities remained behind or were re-settled after the plague subsided. When the Myŏn dynasty consolidated its control over the mainland in the 16th century, they made no efforts to re-settle the Sandu colonies, and as late as 1762 the officials of the Myŏn court "appeared... completely oblivious to the fact that the [Sandu] islands were even under their control." Yet the surrender of the Duke of Yok in the southeast in 1526 had formally ceded all of his holdings to the Myŏn state, including the islands themselves. During this period, settlers from the Dayashinese mainland moved onto the larger islands, displacing the small fishing communities that remained behind.
Dispute
The first formal complaint about the islands was submitted to the Dayashinese government in 1908, by a group of historians within the Federal Republic of Menghe. At the time, it received little public attention. During the late 1910s and early 1920s, however, there was a surge of such petitions, part of a wave of Menghean nationalism that culminated in Kwon Chong-hoon's military coup of February 18th, 1927. While Menghe and Dayashina strengthened their cooperation during this period with an eye to defeating the Casaterran colonial powers, the islands remained a persistent source of tensions between them.
After the end of the Pan-Septentrion War, the Allied Occupation Authority recognized Menghe's borders as those which the country had enjoyed in 1926, though it interpreted this phrasing as lifting Menghe's claim to the Renkaku Islands. The Democratic People's Republic of Menghe, which overthrew the Republic of Menghe government in 1964, dismissed the treaty cessions as illegitimate, and asserted that the Sandu archipelago was part of the province of Ryonggyŏng.
Tensions repeatedly escalated to the brink of war during the decades that followed, with Menghean aircraft and warships approaching the islands only to be turned back by the Dayashinese air force or coast guard, respectively. In the 1980s, classified documents recovered by Dayashinese spies and Menghean defectors referred to plans, if hypothetical and optimistic ones, for a naval invasion of the islands, supported by large numbers of small craft from the mainland.
The Menghean government which followed the Decembrist Revolution was quick to de-escalate the DPRM's aggressive rhetoric, even moving military units out of Ryonggyŏng to training and construction duties elsewhere in the country. Formally, however, it never backed down on its claims to the Sandu archipelago. Disagreements over the disputed outlying islands remained a consistent obstacle in Menghean efforts to promote trade with Dayashina in the 1990s.
Resolution
A lasting solution to the Sandu-Renkaku dispute came from one of the most unlikely sources: the 1999 Menghean financial crisis. In its initial bailout response, the Menghean government took over a large number of non-performing loans, many of which were owed to Dayashinese companies. Fearing a mass default, international investors began to leave the country, but in late 2000 the Menghean government presented an unexpected offer: in exchange for debt forgiveness, it would formally surrender all territorial claims to the Renkaku island chain, and recognize it as a legitimate Dayashinese territorial possession.
While presented abroad as an abrupt offer, this decision had been the subject of long and contentious debate within the upper ranks of the Menghean Socialist Party. While Cho Ha-jun, the Minister of the Economy, was the first to suggest this plan, Choe Sŭng-min strongly endorsed it, defying the expectations of many senior officials. Nationalists and conservatives within the Party fiercely opposed the deal, accusing the reform faction of selling out Menghe's territorial sovereignty for financial gain. In turn, Cho and Choe defended the proposal as a necessary and pragmatic move to continue the nation's economic development. When the conservative faction confronted him after he presented the offer in October 2000, Choe famously replied, "Anyone who would jeopardize the future well-being of our five hundred million people, in exchange for a string of rocks which we do not even administer, is not fit to hold a position of leadership and is not welcome in my administration."
In March 2001, Chairman Choe visited the largest of the Renkaku islands in person to sign the treaty in the town of Minamishimabara. He insisted on signing the treaty in person, to affirm that the Menghean government would not back out of this agreement, and he also expanded the trip to include a broader, high-profile tour of the area, to ensure "that the foreign media do not think I am coming as a broken man." An interview conducted during this tour also produced one of Choe's iconic quotes from the middle reform period: "Every time I visit Dayashina, I am impressed by the quality of life of its citizens... my highest hope as leader of Menghe is that my people may one day live as well."
The resolution of the Renkaku Island dispute was a milestone in Dayashina-Menghe relations, removing a long-standing source of tension between the two countries. It also sent a signal, to Dayashina and to the wider world, that despite its nationalist rhetoric at home, the Choe regime was still willing to follow a pragmatic course on economic issues. By 2004, Dayashinese investment in Menghe had exceeded 1998 levels, and Menghe's international credit rating gradually recovered.