This is an excerpt from Asian Territorial and Maritime Disputes: A Critical Introduction. You can download the book free of charge from E-International Relations.

The Senkaku Islands, controlled by Japan, are also claimed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which refers to them as the Diaoyu Dao, as well as the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan, which calls them the Diaoyutai Lieyu.[1] Japan’s administrative control at present is facing a growing challenge from the PRC’s Coast Guard and other naval assets. The tacit diplomatic stalemate, in which Beijing claims the islands but has neither brought an international legal case against Japan nor mounted a kinetic attempt to seize them that rises to the level of a casus belli, while Tokyo is refraining from enhancing its administrative control yet denies the existence of a dispute altogether, has continued to drift into competitive efforts over control of the islands in the post-Cold War period. This chapter discusses the Senkaku/Diaoyu island dispute between Japan and China and analyses it using aspects of territorial and maritime sovereignty, international law, natural resource exploration, and the role of the United States, as well as the geopolitical implications of the same. The Chinese attempt to keep the United States on the sidelines as a neutral party outside the conflict, while Japan’s lobbying of Washington attempts to clarify US commitment to the defense of the islands through the bilateral alliance. The Sino-US rivalry that has been growing since the administration of US President Barack Obama has favoured Japan’s desire for rhetorical US support, but Japan has concurrently built its own maritime forces in order to balance against the increasingly assertive Chinese activities.

Get E-International Relations delivered to your inbox, free. As you sign up, consider becoming a paid subscriber, or make a donation, to support our work.

A Diplomatic Context on the Question of Sovereignty

Sino-Japanese relations have been severely affected by bilateral disputes, which range from their respective interpretation of history to national positions on maritime and territorial conflicts. However, the dispute concerning sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands has, over the past few decades, accelerated geopolitical tensions in the East China Sea (ECS). Presently administered by Japan, the uninhabited islands of the Senkaku chain comprise five islets – Uotsuri Island, Kuba Island, Taisho Island, Kitakojima Island, and Minamikojima Island – and three rocks – Tobise Island, Okinokitaiwa Island, and Okinominamiiwa Island (Hamakawa 2007).[2] Located 190 nautical miles away from the southwest coast of Okinawa, the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands are in close proximity to China’s east coast (200 nautical miles) and Taiwan’s northwest coast (120 nautical miles) (Pedrozo 2016).

These islands lie on the key sea lines of communication in the ECS, but only became part of an intense Sino-Japanese maritime conflict in the late 1960s after surveys by the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East announced that there may be massive oil and hydrocarbon reserves off the Senkaku Islands (Chansoria 2018). Subsequently, in 1970–1971, the PRC government claimed that the Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands are historically part of Taiwan, which China also claims as its own territory, making the islands sovereign Chinese territory. Japan, meanwhile, cited legal assertions based in international law as the basis for its sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands, which it has enjoyed de facto control over since 1895 without any complaints from China. The official position of the PRC is that ‘Diaoyu Dao is China’s inherent territory in all historical, geographical and legal terms,’ according to historical evidence of the islands being administered as part of Taiwan since the Ming and Qing dynasties (MOFA of PRC 2012). But Chinese historical assertions are largely based on historical evidence, mainly under three broad categories – the use and naming of the islands by China, the jurisdiction of the islands during the Ming dynasty, and maps from the era illustrating the islands as Chinese territory.

To support its claims, Beijing makes reference to records from the Ming and Qing dynasties, including reports like Chen Kan’s record, dating to 1534, of imperial Chinese envoys sent to Ryukyu for imperial-title conferring (Shi Liu Qiu Lu), which mentions the route from China to Ryukyu, passing by ‘Diaoyu Dao, Huangmao Yu, Chi Yu’ until the land of Ryukyu marked by Gumi Mountain (today’s Kume Island). The Chinese claims hold that ‘Diaoyu Dao and Chiwei Yu belong to China and Kume Island belongs to Ryukyu, and that the separating line lies in Hei Shui Gou (today’s Okinawa Trough) between Chiwei Yu and Kume Island’ (People’s Daily 2012). The waters surrounding the Senkaku Islands were frequented by Chinese fishermen during that era. Furthermore, in published maps like Hu Zongxian’s 1561 An Illustrated Compendium on Maritime Security (Chou Hai Tu Bian) China has stated that the Diaoyu Islands are illustrated in the Map of Coastal Mountains and Sands (Yan Hai Shan Sha Tu) and the foundation of a coastal defense zone by the Ming dynasty in the decade of the 1560s was a response to threats from Japanese pirates, which China claims included the Diaoyu Islands (Hamakawa 2007; MOFA of PRC 2012). The Qing court, according to the PRC government, placed the Diaoyu Islands under Taiwanese jurisdiction (as mentioned in A Tour of Duty in the Taiwan Strait or Tai Hai Shi Cha Lu) and Chen Shoqui’s 1871 Volume 86 of Recompiled General Annals of Fujian (Chong Zuan Fu Jian Tong Zhi), held Diaoyu Dao among strategic coastal defense zones under the jurisdiction of Gamalan (present Yilan County) in Taiwan (Kerrigan 2012, 454–455). China has also referenced maps by foreigners such as the Japanese writer Hayashi Shihei in 1785, French cartographer Pierre Lapie in 1809 and the British Royal Navy in 1877, which all coloured the Diaoyu islands the same as Taiwan (MOFA of PRC 2012).

While Japan has not raised any objections to the Chinese naming of the islands centuries earlier, it has cited international law, which dictates that discovery of an island or geographical closeness are not sufficient conditions for asserting territorial sovereignty (Okinawa Peace Assistance Center 2016). Japan has also questioned the validity of maps such as Hayashi Shihei’s 1785 Illustrated Outline of the Three Countries for lack of reason to believe that the author’s intention was to draw the recognized territories of the era, since Taiwan on that map is inaccurately shown less than half the size of Okinawa’s principal island (Hamakawa 2007). Tokyo considers these maps to be insufficient evidence, contending that the maps published during the era do not state that the Senkaku Islands to the west of Kume Island were affiliated with the Ming or Qing dynasties of China, and that their mere presence on a map does not instate them as Chinese territory (MOFA of Japan 2014). In a speech by then-Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda in 2012, the Japanese stance was clarified: that the Senkaku Islands ‘are clearly an inherent territory of Japan, in light of historical facts and based upon international law’ (MOFA of Japan 2014; Noda 2012). Moreover, Japan denies any ‘issue of territorial sovereignty to be resolved’ in relation to the Senkaku Islands (MOFA of Japan 2016).

The Japanese Government, after incorporating the Ryukyu Islands into Okinawa Prefecture, placed the Senkaku Islands in the same prefecture after 1885 surveys (conducted according to the established methods of duly acquiring territorial sovereignty under international law) which showed the islands as terra nullius, i.e., uninhabited with no sign of being under control of any state (MOFA of Japan 2014). Japan has provided documents to argue that, indeed, the PRC recognised the Senkaku Islands as part of Japanese territory in the 1950s and 1960s, such as in a 1953 issue of the China’s People’s Daily (Renmin Ribao), which reports on the populace of the Ryukyu Islands (which includes the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands) battling the US occupation (People’s Daily 1953). This position is further evidenced by Beijing’s silence on America’s use of the Senkaku Islands (Taisho Island and Kuba Island) for firing drills, as well as a Chinese map publisher’s atlas in 1958 illustrating the islands as the ‘Senkaku Group of Islands’ under Okinawa (MOFA of Japan 2010; Okinawa Peace Assistance Center 2016; Sakamoto 2016).

From the perspective of international law and mutual agreements, China claims it was unfairly forced to cede the islands of Formosa, Pescadores, and other islands under the Treaty of Shimonoseki in April 1895, and hence Japan had renounced all claim and authority over those territories including the Diaoyu Islands under the 1952 Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty (People’s Daily 2012).[3] Japan, on the other hand has pointed out the lack of evidence in the treaty or its Article 2 regarding inclusion of Senkaku Islands in the ceded territories (Treaty of Peace 1895), since the Japanese Cabinet’s decision to incorporate the Senkaku Islands into Okinawa Prefecture had been taken in January 1895, before the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki (MOFA of Japan 2014). Moreover, since Article 2 of the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty does not discuss sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands, Japan claims rights over those territories in the East China Sea (United Nations 1952). However, since Article 3 of the Treaty of San Francisco places the Senkaku Islands under US administration as part of the Nansei Shoto Islands, administrative rights over all these islands only reverted back to Japan after the signing of the 17 June 1971 Agreement Between Japan and the........

© E-International