US INDOPACOM Changes ROK-US Joint Exercise Location Label from 'Sea of Japan' to 'Sea'

US Navy Also Removes 'Sea of Japan' Notation

The United States Indo-Pacific Command (hereinafter IndoPacCom) changed the designation of the training area from "Sea of Japan (SEA OF JAPAN)" to "At Sea (AT SEA)" for the joint US-ROK naval exercise conducted in the East Sea on the 27th of last month, as confirmed on the 5th.

U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Homepage

A Ministry of National Defense official explained, "We requested the change again this time, and IndoPacCom altered the designation," adding, "There have been past instances where IndoPacCom changed the Sea of Japan designation at our request."

Looking at past materials from IndoPacCom, there are still many instances of the Sea of Japan designation related to the East Sea, and occasionally expressions like "the sea east of the Korean Peninsula" appear. This time, considering the ongoing dispute between Korea and Japan over the East Sea designation, the term "sea" was used. The US military also labeled the East Sea as "Sea of Japan" during the trilateral US-ROK-Japan missile defense joint exercise on February 22, which drew protests from the Korean side.

The US Navy recently removed the "Sea of Japan" designation from its website. The US Navy website shares the same article as IndoPacCom regarding the joint US-ROK naval exercise, but unlike IndoPacCom, the US Navy website had maintained the "SEA OF JAPAN" designation.

The reason the US military has consistently used the "Sea of Japan" designation is that when using official document place names, only one designation decided by the US Board on Geographic Names (BGN) is used. The US BGN has officially designated the East Sea as "Sea of Japan."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.