Currently, tensions are increasing between China and Japan over the ownership of the uninhabited Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. Protests that are sometimes violent have erupted in both countries over this dispute. The islands are currently controlled by Japan, but China and Taiwan claim the islands (called the Diaoyu in Chinese) belong to them. The Japanese government has said it plans to buy the islands. This paper will look at the Japanese and Chinese sides and show why the islands should belong to China.
Since 1534, the islands have been part of the Chinese territory, where they were part of the Ming Dynasty's sea defense. After the Chinese lost the first Chinese Japanese War in 1984, they signed a treaty that gave the islands around Formosa to Japan. But the treaty never named the Diaoyu Islands. The islands had Chinese names and were by China's border. The Japanese interior minister didn't want to include the islands in Japanese territory.
The Japanese occupied the island in 1895. More recently, they sold them to a Japanese family, which they did have a legal right to do. How could they sell what they didn't own? Occupying a place does not give you ownership.
Sources claim that in 1895, Taiwan was ceded to Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki immediately after the Sini-Japanese war. During the Treaty of San Francisco, Japan ceded Taiwan and the surrounding islands to China. During this Treaty. Japan refused to cede Senkaku Islands to China though it was mandated to do so (Opurum, 2012).The Chinese renamed the islands Diaoyu to which Japan did not object.
According to the BBCnews (2012), Japan recenty launched a bid to purchase Senkaku Islands from China. The Japanese government quoted that it would purchase the 3 islands at a total cost of 2.05 billion Yen. This shows that the Japanese governemt had all along irregularly occupied the islands confirming that the China legally owns the Islands.
Japan says the islands were uninhabited and not under Chinese control before 1895.they have been over the islands since 1972.From 1895 to 1940, there was a Japanese factory on the island and about 200 Japanese lived there. Japan says China only claimed to own the islands in 1971 after they found out there was oil and gas under the sea near the islands. According to Lee (2006) the San Francisco Treaty regarding ownership of Taiwan the Chinese government raised no objestion to the ownership of Japan belonging to Japan. The Islands were included under US administration of the Islands as part of Japan.
Japan claims that the Cairo Declaration did not include the Senkaku Islands as a Chinese terrritory. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura says that China also recognized the Islands as part of Japan after the Potsdam declaration (Yutaka, Toru & Yomiuri, n.d).
References
Yutaka, I., Toru, M., & Yomiuri, S. (n.d.). Japan, China embark on 'propaganda war' /
Government
changes tactics on Senkaku Islands, begins appeals to international
community : National : (The Daily Yomiuri). Retrieved October 13, 2012, from
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T121012003485.htm
Lee, S. (2006) Territorial Disputes among Japan, China and Taiwan concerning the Senkaku
Islands (Boundary & Territory Briefing Vol.3 No.7)
BBC News - Japan confirms disputed islands purchase plan. (n.d.). BBC - Homepage.
Retrieved October 13, 2012, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19540469
Opurum, K (2012) Who Owns Senkaku Islands, Japan Or China? Retrieved 10th Sep. 2012
from:http://leadership.ng/nga/articles/37288/2012/10/12/who_owns_senkaku_islands_
japan_or_china.html
