China – Japan Conflicts | History of East China Sea : Senkaku-Diaoyu | eBooks Downloads

Few days back, China and Japan were again in news due to their decades old conflict over East China Sea. The Tensions aroused again since China announced a new airspace defense zone including the skies over the long-disputed Senkaku-Diaoyu islands on Saturday, November 30, 2013. According to new announcements planes flying in the area would have to notify Chinese authorities. Japan and its ally the United States have sharply criticized the move.Initially Japan agreed to obey the new guidelines by China but afterwards when USA sent two unarmed B-52 bomber planes over the islands without informing China, Japan also followed their footsteps. Now two of Japan’s airlines JAL and ANA Holdings also refused to submit flight plans to Chinese aviation authorities. China issued warning of “emergency defensive measures” against planes that fail to comply with the rules.

This Sino-Japanese tension is over the eight uninhabited islands, which are situated in waters rich with oil, natural gas and fish. The tension build up after the Japan purchased three of the islands in the group from a private Japanese owner. These islands are known as SENKAKU in Japan and DIAOYU in China.

 

Geography of the Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands

 

The East China Sea is bounded on the east by Kyushu and the Ryukyu Islands of Japan, on the south by the island of Taiwan, and on the west by mainland China and the Asian continent. It is connected with the South China Sea by the Taiwan Strait and with the Sea of Japan by the Korea Strait; it opens in the north to the Yellow Sea.

The disputed islands between China and Japan

The trouble in Sino-Japanese relations has been the territorial dispute over a group of tiny islands in the East China Sea called Senkaku by Japan and Diaoyu by China. They are located 200 kms northeast of Taiwan, 300 kilometers west of the Japanese island of Okinawa, and 300 kilometers west of the Chinese mainland. These islands are controlled by Japan and claimed by China (and by Taiwan). The islands themselves are small, uninhabitable and of little economic value, but the waters around them are rich fishing grounds and are thought to hold important oil deposits.

 

History of Senkaku-Diaoyu Islands Disputes

Japanese Point of View

1. The Senkaku – which it formally annexed in 1895 – were terra nullius before that and were not part of the territories that China had to cede to Japan after its military defeat in the 1894-95 Sino-Japanese War.

2. In 1951, acc. to San Francisco Peace Treaty [SFPT], which did not list Senkaku among the territories that Japan should return to China. The fact that the United States transferred control of the
islands to Tokyo in 1971 at the same time as it reverted control of Okinawa

3. China asserted its claim to the islands only after a 1968 survey which indicated the possible presence of oilfields in waters nearby.

Chinese Point of View

1. Chinese fishermen have fished around the Senkaku-Diaoyu since ancient times, and that the islands had always been Chinese territory [as per writings and maps dating back to the Ming dynasty] before Japan secretly seized them in 1895.

2. This appropriation was then made official in the unequal treaty of Shimonoseki signed after the Sino-Japanese War. China’s right to a return of all territories lost to imperial Japan was clearly stated in post-WWII documents like the Potsdam Declaration and the Cairo Declaration.

3. As for the SFPT, Japan shouldn’t invoke it since China did not participate in the negotiations. China further argues that the US arbitrarily and illegally included the islands under its trusteeship, again violating Chinese sovereign rights, and therefore had no right to then transfer them back to Japan in 1971.

Although China first claimed the Senkaku-Diaoyu Islands in 1971, it never did much to pursue its claim until recently. In 1972, China and Japan normalized their diplomatic relations, then the Senkaku-Diaoyu dispute came up, but was quickly put to the side so that the two countries could focus on rebuilding their relationship after years of isolation at the beginning of the Cold War. The interests of improving economic and political ties, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai and Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka agreed in 1972 to shelve the issue indefinitely. Since the normalisation of relations in 1972, the tensions reached its peak when in 1996, Japanese built a lighthouse and raised their flag on alleged Chinese territory, an island called Diaoyu Tai. A wave of protests swept across Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China. After that number of times, two countries came face-to-face. 

• The construction of a lighthouse on one of the Senkaku-Diaoyu islands by Japanese nationalist organization in 1996.  
• The successful landing of Chinese activists there in 2004.  
• The 2010 fishing boat incident that was a prelude to the 2012 confrontation.

 

 

Here are details of the above mentioned incidents that took place from time-to-time that leads to worsening of the Sino-Japanese relations :

In September 1996, a group of protesters and journalists sailed from Hong Kong vowing to place a Chinese flag on the islands and tear down the lighthouse. Their ship was blocked by Japanese vessels about five kms from the main island. Among the few who jumped into the water intending to carry out their mission, a Hong Kong politician drowned. To this day the incident remains vivid in the memories of many.

Another confrontation would have erupted in 2004 when Chinese activists landed on one of the islands but got suppressed after intervention of Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro. The year 2005 marks the worst year for Sino-Japanese relations. In April 2005, anti-Japanese protests were staged in at least ten cities across China. It is in this political climate that China rebuked Japan’s announcement to allocate rights for test-drilling of a natural gas field in a disputed area of the East China Sea.

The Diaoyu Tai Islands are located in this disputed area. They consist of five islets and three rocks of seemingly insignificant economic value. However, recent studies suggest that the surrounding seabed might be rich with oil deposits. It became apparent that the acquisition of territorial sovereignty over these islets might legitimize a claim to the adjacent territorial sea including the valuable mineral rights.

After both events, nothing was done to prevent future confrontations, which allowed the conflict to fester and enter a downward spiral. In 2012, the Japanese government nationalized three of the islands that were held by private citizens. China responded forcefully to this move, triggering the most severe confrontation between the two countries since diplomatic normalization.


 International CRISIS Group
 International Affairs, University of Geneva
 The NewZealand PostGraduate Law e-Journal

 
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