The Japanese assert that they had incorporated Dokdo, an island that they considered to be a terra nullius, into the Japanese Empire on February 22, 1905 when the Govenor of Shimane prefecture proclaimed the islets to be under the jurisdiction of the Oki Islands branch office of the Shimane prefectural government under the name "Takeshima."

*And do you know why 1905 is significant? That's when Japan colonized Korea in the forced signing of the Protectorate Treaty of 1905 when Korea's King Kojong succumb to the power of Ito Hirobumi who was the Residency General in Korea.

Also, in September 1904, a Japanese fisherman from Okinoshima (Oki Island) named Yozaburo Nakai requested to be given exclusive rights to fish and hunt sealions in the area of Dokdo (Nakai later recounted that he initially believed the island to be Korean territory, and attempted to submit a request to the Government of Korea, but was dissuaded of this idea by the Japanese Fisheries Bureau Director, Maki Bokushin. The fisherman also asked that he be given a ten-year lease of the island for sea lion hunting. Officials in the Japanese Government took Nakai¢¥s request one step further and appealed to the government for the formal incorporation of the island. After having declared Dokdo (Takeshima) as a part of Imperial Japan in February 1905, Japanese officials entered the island¢¥s name in the State Land Register for Okinokuni, District 4 on May 17th of that year.