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Q&A: China-Japan islands row

The row concerns eight

small islands or rocks in the East China Sea
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Ties between China and Japan have been repeatedly strained by a territorial row over a
group of islands, known as the Senkaku islands in Japan and the Diaoyu islands in
China. The BBC looks at the background to the row.

What is the row about?

The eight uninhabited islands and rocks in question lie in the East China Sea. They have a total
area of about 7 sq km and lie northeast of Taiwan, east of the Chinese mainland and southwest
of Japan's southern-most prefecture, Okinawa.
They matter because they are close to strategically important shipping lanes, offer rich fishing
grounds and are thought to contain oil deposits. The islands are controlled by Japan.

What is Japan's claim?

Japan says it surveyed the islands for 10 years and determined that they were uninhabited.
That being the case, on 14 January 1895 it erected a sovereignty marker that formally
incorporated the islands into Japanese territory. The Senkaku islands became part of the Nansei
Shoto islands - also known as the Ryukyu islands and now as modern-day Okinawa prefecture.
After World War II Japan renounced claims to a number of territories and islands including
Taiwan in the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco. But under the treaty the Nansei Shoto islands

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came under US trusteeship and were then returned to Japan in 1971, under the Okinawa
reversion deal.
Japan says that China raised no objections to the San Francisco deal. And it says that it is only
since the 1970s, when the issue of oil resources in the area emerged, that Chinese and
Taiwanese authorities began pressing their claims.

What is China's claim?

China says that the Diaoyu islands have been part of its territory since ancient times, serving as
important fishing grounds administered by the province of Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign
Affairs says that this is "fully proven by history and is legally well-founded".
Taiwan was ceded to Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895, after the Sino-Japanese war.
When Taiwan was returned in the Treaty of San Francisco, China says the islands - as part of it
- should also have been returned. But Beijing says Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek did not
raise the issue, even when the Diaoyu islands were named in the later Okinawa reversion deal,
because he depended on the US for support.
Separately, Taiwan also claims the islands.

Have there been incidents before?

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs says that the issue should be shelved for future settlement
and that the two sides should try to prevent it from becoming "a disturbing factor" in bilateral
ties. There have nonetheless been sporadic incidents over the islands.
In 1996 a Japanese group established a lighthouse on one of the islands. Chinese activists then
sailed repeatedly to the islands and in one incident, Hong Kong activist David Chan jumped into
the sea and drowned. Since then, there have been periodic attempts by Chinese and Taiwanese
activists to sail to the islands. In 2004, Japan arrested seven Chinese activists who landed on
the main island.
There have also been face-offs between Japanese patrol boats and Chinese or Taiwanese
fishing vessels. In 2005, 50 Taiwanese fishing boats staged a protest in the area, complaining of
harassment by Japanese patrols.
In September 2010, Japan seized a Chinese trawler that collided with two coast guard vessels
near to the islands, sparking a serious diplomatic row. Small anti-Japanese protests were held
in several cities in China. A visit by 1,000 Japanese students to the Shanghai Expo and a
concert by a top Japanese band were also cancelled.
In the end, Japan released the entire crew of the trawler - first the 14-member crew and then the
captain, several days later.
In April 2012, a fresh row ensued after outspoken Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara said he
would use public money to buy the islands from the current private owner.

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In August of the same year, a group of activists sailed to the islands from Hong Kong, with
seven landing on one island. All were detained and later sent back. Several days later, at least
10 Japanese nationalist activists also landed on the islands with flags.
Tensions continued to rise and in early September, two men were detained in Beijing for ripping
the flag off the Japanese ambassador's car in late August, in an apparent protest over the
islands.
Following that, the Japanese government reached a deal to buy the disputed islands from
private owners. On 11 September, China sent two patrol ships to waters near the island as
Japan signed the purchase contract.

So what next?
The Senkaku/Diaoyu issue complicates efforts by Japan and China to resolve a dispute over oil
and gas fields in the East China Sea that both claim.
It also highlights the more robust attitude China has been taking to its territorial claims in both
the East China Sea and the South China Sea in recent months.

More on This Story

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Row sees China cancel Japan visit

14 SEPTEMBER 2010, ASIA-PACIFIC

Fallout widens from island dispute

between China, Japan
By Junko Ogura and Jethro Mullen, CNN
updated 12:02 PM EDT, Mon September 17, 2012

Editor's note: Are you there? Send your stories and photos to iReport.
Tokyo (CNN) -- The widening fallout from an increasingly volatile territorial dispute between China
and Japan prompted a Japanese company to halt work at plants in China on Monday, and the
United States to urge the two sides to avoid letting the situation spiral out of control.
The electronics company Panasonic said Monday that it was suspending operations at three plants
in China after two of them were damaged amid violent anti-Japanese protests set off by the clash
between Beijing and Tokyo over a group of small islands in the East China Sea.
Japan calls the islands Senkaku; China calls them Diaoyu.
Background: How remote rock split China, Japan
The United States, a key military ally of Japan, has called on the two sides to find a peaceful
resolution to the disagreement, which is generating more and more unease in the region and starting
to hurt economic links between the world's second and third largest economies.

Tensions rise over Asian islands

Why is Japan feuding over islands?

Issues 2012: China

"It's in everybody's interest for Japan and China to maintain good relations and to find a way to avoid
further escalation," U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Monday at a joint new conference in
Tokyo with his Japanese counterpart, Satoshi Morimoto.

Despite describing the U.S.-Japan alliance as the "bedrock of peace and stability" in the Asia-Pacific
region, Panetta reiterated that Washington doesn't take a position on competing sovereignty claims.
He did, however, express concern about the demonstrations in China.
Parts of Panasonic's facilities in Qingdao, Shandong Province, and Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, were
damaged by anti-Japanese protestors on Saturday, the company said. It is halting work at the
factories until Tuesday, it said, as well as at a plant in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, where some
employees have staged a strike over the island issue.
Unrest took place in dozens of other cities in China over the weekend. Thousands of protesters
hurled bottles and eggs outside the Japanese Embassy in Beijing on Saturday, expressing anger
over Tokyo's announcement last week that it had acquired several of the disputed islands from a
Japanese family to bring them under public ownership.
China declared the purchase to be "illegal" and sent six surveillance vessels to carry out patrols on
Friday around the remote islands in an effort to underscore its claim to sovereignty.
The ships briefly entered Japanese territorial waters despite warnings not to do so, the Japanese
Coast Guard said. The islands, situated in the East China Sea between Okinawa and Taiwan, are
under Japanese control, but China claims they have been a part of its territory "since ancient times."
Asia's disputed islands -- who claims what?
The events last week ratcheted up the tensions between the two East Asian nations, where lingering
resentment from past conflicts remains close to the surface.
That was in evidence in Beijing at the weekend. Waving Chinese national flags and holding portraits
of the late leader Mao Zedong, the mostly young protesters chanted "down with Japanese
imperialism" and called for war as they made their way down the streets under the watchful eyes of
police and guards.
Messages and photos posted on Chinese social media sites showed angry mobs in numerous cities
ransacking Japanese stores and restaurants as well as smashing and burning cars of Japanese
make.
In the southern industrial city of Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, a protest Sunday in front of a local
Communist Party office over the island dispute descended into violence when the security forces
moved in, said resident Ronald Rossi.
The demonstrators began smashing large plant pots and other objects in the street so they could
throw the shards at the police, Rossi said. The anti-Japanese tone of the protest was clear from the
slogans and images on display, he added.
Japanese news media organizations have also reported incidents of assaults on Japanese citizens
in China in the past few days. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman insisted Friday that the public
anger was not aimed at the Japanese people, whose safety would be protected in China according
to law.
The authorities rarely permit protests in China, prompting suspicion that the nationwide rallies over
the weekend were government-sanctioned. In Beijing, police walking alongside the demonstrators
were seen to ask spectators to join in instead of blocking the street.
By Saturday night, China's state-run media had started appealing for restraint, running
commentaries that condemned violence and lectured the public on the expression of patriotism. In a
sign of rising concern over the gathering of large crowds, the authorities in cities that had seen the
most ferocious protests canceled entertainment and sporting events.
"Violence cannot be tolerated simply because the protests are aimed at Japan," said an editorial
published Monday by the Global Times, a newspaper affiliated with the ruling Communist Party.

On Monday morning, the streets leading to the Japanese Embassy in Beijing appeared to blocked
off by the authorities.
After his meetings in Japan, Panetta is due to travel to China, where he will meet with "top military
and civilian leaders including Defense Minister Gen. Liang Guanglie," according to the Pentagon.
Animosity between China and Japan over the disputed islands runs deep.
They have come to represent what many Chinese see as unfinished business: redressing the impact
of the Japanese occupation of large swathes of eastern China during the 1930s and 1940s.
China says its claim goes back hundreds of years. Japan says it saw no trace of Chinese control of
the islands in an 1885 survey, so formally recognized them as Japanese sovereign territory in 1895.
Japan then sold the islands in 1932 to descendants of the original settlers. The Japanese surrender
at the end of World War II in 1945 only served to cloud the issue further.
The islands were administered by the U.S. occupation force after the war. But in 1972, Washington
returned them to Japan as part of its withdrawal from Okinawa.
A public initiative begun in April this year by the outspoken governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, to
raise money to acquire the islands for the city authorities set off a new cycle of tensions that included
civilian protesters from both sides landing on the islands to stake their nations' claims.
Ishihara's move put pressure on the government of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to step in with its
own bid, which resulted in the controversial deal last week with the Kurihara family, the private
owners up until that point.
Japan's attempts to portray the purchase as a routine internal real-estate transaction, with the
islands passing from one Japanese owner to another, has failed to placate the Chinese authorities.
CNN's Junko Ogura reported from Tokyo and Jethro Mullen from Hong Kong. CNNs Stan Grant in Beijing contributed to this
report.

How a remote rock split China and Japan

By Hilary Whiteman, CNN
updated 4:41 AM EDT, Tue September 18, 2012

Hong Kong (CNN) -- The wave of anti-Japanese protests currently sweeping across China has its
roots in history but more recently can be traced back to April, when the firebrand governor of Tokyo
announced plans to buy a group of islands claimed by Japan, China and Taiwan.
He did so without the apparent knowledge or approval of the Japanese government.
Spying an opportunity to assert Japanese control over the Senkaku islands, or Diaoyu as they're
known in China, Governor Shintaro Ishihara launched an online appeal fund to buy them from their
private owners.
Donations poured in, prompting a sharp rebuke from China and forcing the Japanese government to
wade into the dispute with its own offer for the contested land.
Who is Shintaro Ishihara?
Ishihara has a long history of making inflammatory comments about China, so much so that in 1999,
when he was appointed Tokyo governor, Japan's then chief cabinet secretary, Hiromu Nonaka,
sought to reassure China that relations would remain "friendly."

China protests over islands

Tensions rise between Japan and China

Before taking office, Ishihara was a well-known author whose name became famous in his early
twenties after writing "A Season of the Sun," which won Japan's most prestigious literary prize.

Tensions rise over Asian islands

He's an outspoken nationalist who in the past has cast doubt on historians' account of the 1937
Rape of Nanking, in which hundreds of thousands of Chinese were killed by Japanese troops.

Why is Japan feuding over islands?

After launching the fund, Ishihara likened China's claim to the islands as like "a burglar in Japan's
house."

Disputed islands in East China Sea

What was China's reaction?

Back in June, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin dismissed Ishihara's attempt to buy
the islands as "irresponsible," and repeated China's ownership claim.
"The Diaoyu Islands are China's territory since ancient times," he said. "The willful talk and action of
some Japanese politicians is irresponsible and tarnish and smears Japan's reputation."
When did the Japanese government step in?
Faced with the prospect of the islands falling under the jurisdiction of the Tokyo metropolitan
government, the Japanese government stepped in with its own bid for the disputed islands.
On September 11, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura confirmed that the government
had approved the islands' purchase from private owners for 2.05 billion yen (US$26.2 million).
In an interview with CNN, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda claimed there was no
territorial dispute within China and the only question of ownership emanated from within Japan.
"The Senkaku Islands are an inherent part of Japanese territory, historically as well as under
international law, so there's no territorial claim issue between the two countries," he said.
"Right now, it is the ownership issue -- whether the individual owns these islands, or the Tokyo
metropolitan government or the state. And I think we have to clearly and solidly explain these
stances to the Chinese side."
China responded by dispatching six patrol ships to the surrounding waters, ignoring a warning from
the Japanese coastguard not to approach. They entered the disputed waters for a short time before
leaving, Japan's coast guard reported.

Clinton: Diplomacy to end land disputes

At a press conference, Ishihara said of the Chinese patrols: "We'd better shoo off those who walked
into someone's home in dirty shoes, we should shoo them away."

Land disputes await Clinton in China

"I think China has gone crazy. We can't put up with their attitude like Mine is mine, but yours is mine
too," he added, in quotes that appeared on the Tokyo Metropolitan government website.

History clouds China-Japan island dispute

Citing a government statement, state-run news agency Xinhua said the patrols were "aimed to
demonstrate China's jurisdiction over the Diaoyu Islands," while the Japanese prime minister
said the government would "take all possible measures to ensure security" around the islands.

Tensions mount between China and Japan

How a war of words turned into protests

While the verbal sparring between the Chinese and Japanese governments has played out in a
series of statements, protesters from both sides have been taking direct action to assert their
countries' control over the islands.
In late August, Japan deported 14 Chinese protesters who were arrested after five swam ashore the
Diaoyu/Senkaku islands and waved the flags of China and Taiwan. Nine others aboard the waiting
vessel were also detained.

Days later after the Chinese landing, Japanese activists also made the journey to the remote islets
to raise the Japanese flag, prompting China to lodge "solemn representations to the Japanese
ambassador," according to Xinhua.
The Japanese landing sparked protests by thousands of people in a number of Chinese cities,
including Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shenyang, Hangzhou, Harbin and Qingdao, according to Xinhua.
That was on August 19, almost one month before violent anti-Japanese protests erupted across
dozens of Chinese cities, forcing the temporary closure of operations at three
plants belonging to Japanese electronics company Panasonic.
Background to the dispute
The question of ownership of the islands extends back to 1895 when Japan says China ceded
sovereignty of the islands when it lost the Sino-Japanese war. Japan then sold the islands in 1932.
During the second World War, the U.S. administered the islands but in 1972 returned them to Japan
as part of its withdrawal from Okinawa.
China says its ownership extends back hundreds of years. Analysts say its policy on the islands has
been maintaining the status quo.
According to Xinhua, "both sides agreed in 1978 to put the issue aside and solve it in the future,
using a guideline described as 'laying aside disputes and engaging in joint exploitation' to solve
territorial issues with neighboring countries."
"China's proposal is that we should maintain status quo, neither side should take action to escalate
the differences. Regrettably the Japanese government has disrespected the Chinese proposal,"
saidShen Dingli, the Executive Dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in
Shanghai, in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Why are the islands considered valuable?
Aside from a strong sense of nationalism, a 1969 United Nations report provided added incentive for
countries to claim ownership of the islands.
The report, by the U.N. Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE), indicated the
possibility of large oil reserves in the vicinity, according to Globalsecurity.org.
The islands are close to strategically important shipping lanes and their legal owners would also
have the right to fish surrounding waters.
What happens now?
The Chinese government has been calling for restraint and "rational patriotism" when it comes to
public protests. The United States has also weighed in on the issue with U.S. Defense Secretary
Leon Panetta urging "calm and restraint on all sides."
As Panetta spoke, Noda was telling senior government officials to stay on their guard in dealing with
mass anti-Japanese protests, according to Japanese news agency Kyodo.
Meanwhile, the prospect of economic sanctions has been raised in a strongly worded opinion piece
in the state-controlled China Daily newspaper.
Jin Baisong wrote that World Trade Organization rules could be used to limit export of "important
materials" to Japan.
"The global financial crisis increased Japan's reliance on China for its economic well-being. So it's
clear that China can deal a heavy blow to the Japanese economy without hurting itself too much by
resorting to sanctions," said Jin, deputy director of the department of Chinese trade studies at the
Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, which is affiliated to the
Ministry of Commerce.