Syngman Rhee Line  The Syngman Rhee Line (Hanja: 李承晩線, ) refers to a marine boundary line established by South Korean President Syngman Rhee in his "Peace Line" (, Hanja: 平和線) declaration of January 18, 1952, establishing a wide area of maritime sovereignty, beyond internationally accepted territorial waters, around the entire Korean Peninsula. This included placing the Liancourt Rocks (Dokdo/Takeshima) in South Korean territory. After the outbreak of the Korean War, General Douglas MacArthur declared a maritime security area surrounding the Korean peninsula, effectively barring entry of foreign shipping crafts. South Korea had demanded that the MacArthur line should continue to be enforced. On August 10, 1951, however, the United States sent Korean Ambassador Yang You Chan the Rusk documents, stating that the official policy of the United States was that the MacArthur line would be abolished by the Treaty of San Francisco. The treaty was signed on September 8 of the same year, about a month after the documents were sent, and was to come into effect on April 28, 1952. In response, the South Korean government declared the Syngman Rhee Line three months before this date, when the extinction of the MacArthur line and the return of sovereignty to Japan were meant to be established. The Proclamation asserted that the "Government of the Republic of Korea holds and exercises the national sovereignty" over the maritime area, suggesting the claim was for a wide extension of territorial waters. Representations over this issue were received from many other governments, and clarifications were made noting that the Proclamation stated it "does not interfere with the rights of free navigation on the high seas" so the Proclamation did not "mean extension of territorial waters into the high seas". The "peace line", however covered even more of the high seas than the area delineated by General MacArthur. It claimed an area averaging 60 nautical miles from the Korean coast. It also became apparent that Rhee was no longer addressing the Korean security or the threat of communism because the declaration's main target was Japan. In initial statements, Rhee maintained that the purpose of the line was to protect Korea's marine resources around the Sea of Japan; therefore it banned non-Korean fishing boats from inside the territory, and Liancourt Rocks in particular. According to the Report of Van Fleet Mission to Far East made in 1954, the U.S. government stressed that the one-sided declaration of the Syngman Rhee Line was illegal under international law.