China's Territorial Disputes (15 page)

3 The Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute

1    For a detailed assessment of the Tiao-yu-tai/Senkaku issue with regard to concepts of sovereignty and international law, see Peter N. Upton, “International Law and the Sino-Japanese Controversy over Territorial Sovereignty of the Senkaku Islands,”
Boston University Law Review,
1972, vol.52, 763-790; Comment, “The East China Sea: The Role of International Law in the Settlement of Disputes,”
Duke Law Journal,
1973, 823-865; Victor H. Li, “China and Offshore Oil: The Tiao-yu-Tai Dispute,”
Stanford Journal of International Studies,
1975, vol.10,143-162; and Tao Cheng, “The Sino-Japanese Dispute over the Tiao-yu-tai (Senkaku) Islands and the Law of Territorial Acquisition,”
Virginia Journal of International Law,
1974, vol.14, no. 2, 221-266.
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2    The Chinese view is most strongly articulated by Kiyoshi Inoue, “The Tiaoyu (Senkaku) Islands Are China’s Territory,”
Beijing Review,
12 May 1972, vol.15, part 19. For a Taiwanese perspective (in Chinese), see Hungdah Chiu, “A Study of the Tiaoyutai Islets Problem,”
Chengchi Law Review,
1972, vol.6, 241-270. Historical Arguments supporting the Chinese claim are presented in the most meticulous details (in Chinese) in Tianying Wu,
A Study of the Diaoyu Islets Claim Before the Sino-Japanese War: With Arguments Against Professor Toshio Okuhara
(Beijing: Social Science Literature Publishing Company, 1994).

3    The Japanese view is most succinctly articulated by Toshio Okuhara, “The Territorial Sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands and Problems on the Surrounding Continental Shelf,”
Japanese Annual of International Law,
1971, vol.15, 97-106.

4    For an authoritative statement on the Japanese claim, see “The Foreign Ministry’s View Concerning the Rights to Ownership over the Senkaku Islands” issued by the Japanese Foreign Minister on 8 March 1972, as reported by
Asahi Shimbun,
9 March

1972. The third paragraph of the statement read in part

even under the San Francisco Peace treaty, the Senkaku islands are not included in the territory our country relinquished on the basis of Article 2 of the Treaty. They are placed under U.S. administration as part of Nansei Islands, in accordance with Article 3, and are included in the areas the administrative rights over which are to be reverted to our country under the Okinawa Reversion Agreement.

(see Cheng, “The Sino-Japanese Dispute over the Tiao-yu-tai [Senkaku] Islands

and the Law of Territorial Acquisition,” 244)

5    A certain Tatsushiro Koga, who had supposedly been engaging in the business of collecting guano and albatross feathers on the islands since 1884. See Okuhara, 99.

6    For the positions of China (including Taiwan) and Japan on the East China

Continental Shelf claims, see Wei-chin Lee, “Troubles Under the Water: Sino-Japanese Conflict of Sovereignty on the Continental Shelf in the East China Sea,”
Ocean Development and International Law Journal,
1987, vol.18, no. 5, 585-611; and Ying-jeou Ma,
Legal Problems of Seabed Boundary Delimitation in the East China Sea
(Baltimore: Occasional Papers/Reprint Series in Contemporary Asian Studies, 1984).    
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7    For a clear and concise exposition on how tiny uninhabited islets, barren atolls and rocks may affect the sovereign claims of nations over the fish and mineral resources within the waters extending 200 miles off their shores, see John M. Van Dyke and Robert A. Brooks, “Uninhabited Islands: Their Impact on the Ownership of the Oceans’ Resources,”
Ocean Development and International Law Journal,
1983, vol.12, nos.

3-4, 265-300.

8    Choon-Ho Park,
East Asia and the Law of the Sea
(Seoul: Seoul National University

Press, 1983), 4243, n3.    ^

9    
Ibid.,
4-6.

10    Seventies Monthly Newsmagazine,
Diao Yu lai Shi Jian Zhen Xiang
[The True Facts of the Diao Yu Tai Affair] (Hong Kong : Xinhua Publishing Company, 1971), 13.

11    Park,
East Asia and the Law of the Sea
, 11.

12    
Ibid.
, 34.

13    
Japanese Annual of International Law
(henceforth
JAIL
), 1979/1980, vol. 23, 82, n14.

14    Seventies Monthly Newsmagazine,
Diao Yu Tai Shi Jian Zhen Xiang,
17-18.

15    
Ibid.

16    Selig S. Harrison,
China, Oil and Asia: Conflict Ahead
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), 197.

17    Seventies Monthly Newsmagazine,
Diao Yu Tai Shi Jian Zhen Xiang
, 121-123.

18    
Mingpao Monthly
(Hong Kong), “The Japanese Government’s Unreasonableness,” October 1970, 84.

19    Seventies Monthly Newsmagazine,
Diao Yu Tai Shi Jian Zhen Xiang
, 24-26.

20    
Ibid.,
26-27.

21    
Ibid.,
27-30.

22    Yao Limin, “Thunderous Roar of the Chinese People: Remembering the Tenth of April Washington March,”
Mingpao Monthly,
May 1971, 11-16.

23    “From ‘United’ to Face-off,”
Mingpao Monthly,
October 1971, 66-68.

24    You Haoran, “ ‘May Fourth’ Retrospective and Prospects for the Tiaoyutai Movement,”
Mingpao Monthly,
May 1971, 2-10.

25    Liu Daren, “Commemorating Hong Kong’s August 13 Protect Tiaoyutai Demonstrations,”
Mingpao Monthly,
September 1971, 94-96.

26    Seventies Monthly Newsmagazine,
Diao Yu Tai Shi Jian Zhen Xiang
, 31-34.

27    
Ibid.
, 19.

28    Cheng, “The Sino-Japanese Dispute over the Tiao-yu-tai (Senkaku) Islands and the Law of Territorial Acquisition,” 264, n139.

29    Daniel Tretiak, “The Sino-Japanese Treaty of 1978: The Senkaku Incident Prelude,”

Asian Survey,
December 1978, vol.18,1241, n17.

30    
Ibid.
, 1241.

31    Vladimir Tsvetov, “Newspaper Poll Reveals Diet’s Reticence to PRC Treaty,”
FBIS Daily Report,
USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M2,18 April 1978. Moscow in Japanese to Japan, 0830 GMT 14 April 1978. Soviet sources were included in the study for triangulation purposes, as the Soviet Union was most interested in what transpired between China and Japan over the Sino-Japanese Peace and Friendship Treaty.

32    Editorial, “Concrete Actions Gladden Hearts,”
Ming Pao
(Hong Kong),14 April 1978.

33    Editorial,
Ming Pao,
16 April 1978.

34    “Government to Act Calmly,”
FBIS Daily Report,
Asia and Pacific, Japan, C9,13 April 1978. Tokyo KYODO in English, 1227 GMT 13 April 1978.

35    Editorial,
Ming Pao,
17 April 1978.

36    Tretiak, “The Sino-Japanese Treaty of 1978,” 1242.

37    ‘Japanese Agency Reports PRC Servicemen Aboard Vessels,”
FBIS Daily Report,
USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M4,1 May 1978. Moscow PRAVDA in Russian 26 April 1978.

38    “PRC Ignores Two Requests for Talks on Senkaku Issue,”
FBIS Daily Report,
Asia and Pacific, Japan,19 April 1978, C1.Tokyo KYODO in English 1246 GMT 13 April 1978.

39    “LDP Group Urges ‘Resolute Action’,”
FBIS Daily Report,
Asia and Pacific, Japan, C10,13 April 1978, Tokyo KYODO in English 0555 GMT 19 April 1978.

40    “PRC Fishing Boats Reenter Japanese Waters,”
FBIS Daily Report,
USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M1, 19 April 1978. Moscow TASS in English 1336 GMT 18 April 1978.

41    “Japan’s Public, Press Reaction to Senkaku Intrusion Noted,”
FBIS Daily Report
, USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M4, 24 April 1978. Moscow TASS in English 1904 GMT 21 April 1978.

42    “Construction of Refuge Port,”
FBIS Daily Report
, Asia and Pacific, Japan, 26 April 1978. Tokyo KYODO in English 0545 GMT 26 April 1978.

43    “Sonoda, Party Reactions,”
FBIS Daily Report
, Asia and Pacific, Japan, C8-C9, 13 April 1978. Tokyo KYODO in English 0614 GMT 13 April 1978.

44    “Japanese Agency Reports PRC Servicemen Aboard Vessels,”
FBIS Daily Report
, USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M4, 1 May 1978. Moscow PRAVDA in Russian 26 April 1978.

45    “LDP Leaders Ask for Resolution of Issues Before Japan-LDP Talks,”
FBIS Daily Report
, USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M1, 26 May 1978. Moscow TASS in English 1655 GMT 25 May 1978.

46    Editorial,
Ming Pao
, 23 April 1978.

47    
JAIL,
1986, vol.29,111, n34.

48    Editorial,
Ming Pao
, 16 August 1978.

49    Deng Xiaoping, quoted in Chi-kin Lo
China’s Policy Toward Territorial Disputes: The Case of the South China Sea Islands
(London: Routledge, 1989), 171-172.

50    Yuriy Afonin, “PRC Maintains ‘Hegemonic’ Policy toward Japan,”
FBIS Daily Report,
USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M1, 12 April 1978. Moscow in Japanese to Japan 0830 GMT 10 April 1978.

51    “Japanese Concern over Senkaku Incident Growing,”
FBIS Daily Report
, USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M1, 26 April 1978. Moscow TASS in English 1359 GMT 25 April 1978.

52    Michael J. Green and Benjamin L. Self, ‘Japan’s Changing China Policy: From Commercial Liberalism to Reluctant Realism,”
Survival,
summer 1996, vol.36, no. 2, 39.

53    “Japanese Attitude Toward PRC Reviewed,”
FBIS Daily Report
, USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M1,31 May 1978. Moscow SOVETSKAYA ROSSIYA in Russian 26 May 1978.

54    “‘Unlikely to Affect’ Economic Ties,”
FBIS Daily Report
, Asia and Pacific, Japan, C2,

18 April 1978. Tokyo KYODO in English 1240 GMT 17 April 1978.

55    I. Latyashev, “US Pressure for Anti-Soviet Sino-Japanese Treaty Cited,”
FBIS Daily Report
, USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M1, 23 May 1978. Moscow PRAVDA in Russian 20 May 1978.

56    Igor Latyashev, “Pravda Cites US Pressure on Japan to Conclude PRC Treaty,”
FBIS Daily Report
, USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M4, 31 May 1978. Moscow PRAVDA in Russian 26 May 1978.

57    I. Latyashev, “Senkaku Islands Intrusion Raises Doubts about PRC Treaty,”
FBIS Daily Report
, USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M2, 19 April 1978. Moscow PRAVDA in Russian 17 April 1978.

58    “JCP Chairman Comments,”
FBIS Daily Report
, Asia and Pacific, Japan, C1, 21 April

1978. Tokyo AKAHATA in Japanese 15 April 1978.

59    “JCP Official Criticizes PRC on Senkaku Islands Intrusion,”
FBIS Daily Report
, USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M1, 25 April 1978. Moscow TASS in English 1343 GMT 24 April 1978.

60    
JAIL,
1986, vol.29,134, n55.

61    Shintaro Ishihara, as quoted in “Senkaku Issue a Litmus Test for the US: Shintaro Ishihara, Writer,”
Sankei Shimbun,
5 November 1996.

62    “Possibility of Heliport on Islands,”
FBIS Daily Report
, Asia and Pacific, Japan, C2, 20 April 1978. Tokyo KYODO in English 0558 GMT 20 April 1978.

63    
Inside China Today
(News On the Web Today),14 February 1997. http://www.insid-echina.com:80/china/diaoyu/diaoyu.html (accessed 20 January 1999).

64    Susan J. Pharr, “Japan’s Defensive Foreign Policy and the Politics of Burden Sharing,” in Gerald Curtis (ed.)
Japan’s Foreign Policy After the Cold War
(Armonk NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1993), 252.

65    
Feng Yun Ti Nien Tai
[Tumultuous Age], 2nd edn, (Taipei: Lian Ching Chu Pan Shi Ye Kong Si, 1991), 315.

66    
Ibid.
, 316.

67    Phil Deans, “The Diaoyutai/Senkaku Dispute: The Unwanted Controversy,” 17