U.S. legislator to receive honorary doctorate

U.S. Congresswoman Diane Watson will receive an honorary doctorate from Chung-Ang University in Seoul on Wednesday for her contribution to the friendship between Korea and the U.S., school officials said Monday.

The Democratic congresswoman from California, 66, is considered one of the U.S. politicians who are friendly to Korea. 

She supported a 2007 House resolution, which called for Japan to apologize over the issue of Korean comfort women during its colonial rule. Following the U.S. resolution, other countries such as the U.K., the Netherlands and Canada also adopted their own statements. 

In 2008, the U.S. parliamentary library was to record the name of Dokdo as the “Liancourt Rocks,” which derives from a French whaling ship that was wrecked on the rocks in 1849, and to categorize it as “disputed.” A subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs sent a letter to then President George Bush to review the decision and she also joined other Congress members in signing the letter at the time.