China's Territorial Disputes (9 page)

American and Japanese revisionists are now playing up this so-called “development cooperation” through the Japan-Chiang(Kai-shek)-Park (Chung Hee) “United Oceanic Development Company” to grab our country’s submarine resources. ... Taiwan Province and the islets appertaining to it, which includes the Diaoyu (islands), constitute China’s sacred territory. The oceans surrounding these islands and the Chinese coast and the submarine resources containing therein all belongs to China, which would resolutely not allow others to lay their dirty fingers on them. Only the People’s Republic of China has the right to explore and develop the submarine resources of this region.

It also pointed out that the director of Japan’s Self Defense Agency, Yasuhiro Nakasone, was sufficiently militaristic to include these islands within the defense perimeter of Japan’s “Fourth Military Expansion Plan.”
¹⁷
Incidentally, as prime minister of Japan, the same Nakasone proposed in 1983 a 1,000-mile radius sphere of interest around the Japanese Isles, which would include the area of the disputed claim, and even Taiwan, and once again drew accusations from its Asiatic neighbors and China of an attempt to revive Japan’s militarism and imperialism.

So far, whatever negotiations that had been going on were confined to the semi-official “Level I” negotiators, but “Level II” social forces within Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, and especially the Chinese communities in North America, were already starting to organize, opposed to what they perceived as unseemly willingness on the part of their own governments to compromise, perhaps even sacrifice, their country’s sovereignty for the benefits of economic development. Beginning 6 September 1970, reports surfaced in Hong Kong about Japanese Maritime Safety Agency patrol crafts obstructing Taiwanese fishing boats from coming too close to the vicinity of the disputed Tiaoyutai Islands.
¹⁸
Already earlier on 2 September 1970, a journalist from Taiwan had hoisted the national flag of the Republic of China on the largest island, but the flag was subsequently removed by the Okinawa police. This incident seemed to have served as the catalyst for a series of demonstrations and protest marches, with participants numbering in the hundreds against “resurgent Japanese militarism” and the need to defend Chinese sovereignty on Tiaoyutai. The first protest marches and demonstrations were held in January 1971 and organized by Taiwanese and Hong Kong students in the major American cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, New York and Washington DC.
¹⁹
The largest protest in New York attracted some 1,500 marchers. In February, fifty-three separate “Committees for the Movement to Protect Chinese Sovereignty on Tiaoyutai” sent an open letter to the president in Taipei, signed by 1,300 people, requesting him to protest the Japanese action of tearing down the flag, send in the military, and cease participation in the three-nation cooperative development talks.
²⁰
The president had to send a personal emissary to investigate and explain the government’s case in engaging in joint development talks.

Demonstrations on the issue erupted again all over North America in April, in response to the announcement by the United States that it intended to return the administrative mandate of the rocks to Japan in May the following year, together with its sovereignty over Okinawa. A march on Washington’s Constitution Avenue attracted a reported 3,000 people,
²¹
with speakers calling on both Chinese governments to stand firm against “Japanese aggression on Chinese territory.”
²²
Not even stern warnings from Taiwan officials against “possible Chinese Communist infiltrators” could dampen the enthusiasm of the thousands of Taiwanese students and intellectuals in North America who wrote articles in university newspapers, printed pamphlets, and marched to “protect Tiaoyutai.”
²³
The North American Taiwanese and Hong Kong demonstrators explicitly portrayed the Tiaoyutai protests as a continuation of the spirit of the May Fourth 1919 student movement that protested the awarding of China’s Shandong province to Japan as a concession by delegates to the Versailles Conference.
²⁴
Smaller-scale but equally noisy protests also occurred in Hong Kong and Taiwan. A protest assembly in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park on 13 August 1971 attracted over 2,000 people from all walks of life,
²⁵
but the Taiwanese protests were mostly confined to students on campuses because of government regulations on demonstrations.
²⁶
Confronting an active Communist menace on the Chinese mainland, Taiwan’s authorities had good reason to fear that, if its people were to adopt too assertive a territorial stance, they would alienate its very important American and Japanese military, economic and ideological allies. Whatever form it took, the power of civic protest had been formidably registered. From now on, popular action and public opinion which may be instigated by groups and organizations which have their own objectives to exploit the Tiaoyutai/Senkaku issue will have to be reckoned with by the governments who have a stake in the resolution of the dispute.

On 12 March 1971, according to the Japanese daily
Yomiuri Shimbun,
the Japanese government had decided not to discuss any further the plan to develop jointly the oceanic resources of the Tiaoyutai vicinity with (South) Korea and

Taiwan. On 18 March 1971, in a letter of reply to inquiries regarding the Tiaoyutai affair forwarded by Taiwanese students in the United States, the secretary to the Taipei president made reference to Taipei’s stance that the “China (Taiwan), Japan, (South) Korea Oceanic Development and Research United Committee” was a non-official organization, “where matters discussed have nothing to do with the sovereignty of the Tiaoyutai islands.”
²⁷
In other words, official pronouncements from Taipei wanted to stress its right to explore and develop the continental shelf surrounding the Tiaoyutai Islands, but were conspicuously silent or evasive on the issue of the sovereignty of the islands itself. Thus, while China all but ignored the rocks, being preoccupied with an overwhelming Soviet military threat just across their common border, Taiwan was faced with the prospect of US-People’s Republic of China normalization of relations and the loss of its seat in the UN, and did its utmost to play down the controversy, which allowed the Japanese claim to the rocks to go unchallenged on the ground. However, the sound and fury of the “Movement to Protect Tiaoyutai” in North America, Hong Kong and Taiwan, China’s vehement opposition and Japan’s withdrawal from the scheme spelled the virtual end of any viability for the idea of joint development of sea-bed resources by Japan, Taiwan and Korea, at least if it did not involve China. Korea subsequently dropped out of all future talks, but Japan and China are still periodically involved in discussions on sea-bed hydrocarbon development, and Japan still holds regular talks with China and Taiwan on fishing rights. However, because of the unresolved sovereignty issue involving the Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands, such talks are no longer publicly announced before they take place, and no communiques are ever issued afterwards, for fear of galvanizing the nationalist forces of the countries involved.

Nationalist sentiment in Japan over the disputed islands seemed to take a little more time to find its voice, but it did not remain silent for long. Having witnessed the abrupt cancelation of sea-bed petroleum mining projects which might have allowed a Japan almost completely dependent on imported oil to be self-sufficient in the mineral, and believing the Chinese side to be unfairly contesting what was formerly Japan’s territory now legitimately returned to her, editorials in major newspapers backed the Japanese government’s position on Senkaku to the hilt. Between March and May 1972, demonstrations by gangs of youths in sound-trucks took place in Tokyo before the Sino-Japanese Memorandum Office and its Japanese counterpart, the Japan-China Memorandum Trade Agency; all political parties were brought into line to support the government’s position with official statements; and television programs on the government-owned Japanese Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) featured panel discussions with right-wing writers and activists calling on the government to defend the independence, security and national prestige of Japan, by force if necessary.
²⁸
Such agitated behavior died down after the Americans handed over administrative control of the Senkaku islands to the Japanese together with Okinawa on 15 May 1972, but the nationalist right wing of Japanese politics had apparently found a worthy cause to rally around.

The second incident: the Sino-Japanese Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1978

If it was not entirely clear in the first incident how significant was the interaction between Japanese right-wing groups and their state government, subsequent incidents would demonstrate that it was significant to the extent that they supported and reinforced each other’s agenda, at least when it came to the question of territorial sovereignty. Since Japan and the PRC established official relations with each other in September 1972, both countries had tried to start negotiations on the signing of a formal bilateral treaty. Unofficial talks over such a Sino-Japanese Peace and Friendship Treaty (PFT), first mooted in 1974, were halted when Japan could not agree to China’s insistence on the inclusion of an “anti-hegemony” clause tacitly aimed at the Soviet Union. Official talks on the treaty had no sooner resumed in February 1978 before the issue of disputed sovereignty over the Senkaku islands arose. Apparently, some pro-Taiwan and anti-treaty LDP “back-benchers” in the Diet did not want negotiations over the treaty to proceed before the issue of sovereignty over the islands was settled to the satisfaction of Japan. They seemed to believe that the PRC so badly needed Japan’s support for the “anti-hegemony” clause against the Soviets, since the Soviet Union was then negotiating a similar treaty with China’s enemy Vietnam, that China would be prepared to compromise over the sovereignty of the disputed islands. Japanese agriculture and forestry minister Nakagawa Ichiro, a leader of the right-wing Seirankai (Blue Storm Group) within the LDP was quoted as saying that only by settling the sovereignty issue regarding Senkaku could the PFT proceed.
²⁹
On 7 April,100 Dietmen opposed to the treaty met with the Japanese foreign minister and requested that he bring up the matter on meeting with leaders of the PRC.
³⁰
An
Asahi Shimbun
opinion poll of 339 Dietmen on the proposed treaty showed that only forty-nine favored the inclusion of the “anti-hegemony” clause in the treaty.
³¹
The anti-treaty forces figured that they could either scuttle the talks by adopting an intransigent posture over Senkaku, or at least exact the islands as a price from the Chinese for agreeing to the “anti-hegemony” clause. Both ways would produce their gains.

Until then, both Chinese and Japanese negotiating parties had managed to keep this contending issue out of the treaty negotiations, but now that it had been forced out into the open, Chinese leader and foremost PFT proponent Deng Xiaoping could not afford to be attacked by his political rivals for being “soft” on Japanese encroachment on Chinese territorial sovereignty. Still, it was a surprise to most people when, on 12 April 1978, more than a hundred fishing trawlers bedecked with PRC national flags reached the waters around the Diaoyu Islands, and more than thirty of them entered into its 12-mile territorial sea. According to Japanese official sources, the fishing trawlers were equipped with machine-guns, and draped with white characters on black cloth proclaiming the Diaoyudao to be Chinese territory.
³²
Speaking to members of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the lower house of the Diet, the Japanese foreign minister Sunao Sonoda said that the intrusion by Chinese fishing trawlers into Senkaku waters was not accidental, but premeditated and planned.
³³
However, not wishing to exacerbate the already tense situation any further, Sonoda appealed for calm, and the same committee was told by Takashi Ueno, councilor of the Japanese Self Defense Agency, that his agency was not considering calling out military forces to deal with the fishing operation.
³⁴
In his address to a group of visiting Japanese parliamentarians, Politburo member and Vice-premier Geng Biao said he believed that the entry by PRC fishing trawlers into the sea around the Diaoyu Islands was indeed accidental and unplanned by any official agency, but he would order an investigation into the affair.

Apparently, China did not want to get involved in a diplomatic row with Japan over the islands because China had wanted a quick end to the treaty nego-tiations.
³⁵
Even so, the fact that so many fishing craft could have “accidentally” set sail unobstructed from the major Chinese ports of Foochow, Shanghai and Tsingtao was telling.
³⁶
As Tokyo’s JIJI news agency noted, in addition to fishermen, Chinese servicemen could be identified aboard the vessels, and were even leading the flotilla’s operations,
³⁷
thus confirming that the incident was “accidental” only in name. It was in truth a visible and forceful demonstration by China that it would not let the Japanese claim over the disputed islands go unchallenged, or allow their territorial integrity to be compromised by the need for a peace treaty. Unsurprisingly, the Chinese side brushed aside all Japanese entreaties for talks on the disputed islands issue.
³⁸

The fishing expedition ended within two weeks, but Japanese nationalist sensibilities had been touched off, and the affair would not be so easily settled. On 13 April 1978, a group of right-wing LDP Dietmen calling themselves the “Asian Problems Study Group” submitted a resolution to their prime minister and party executive committee charging the Chinese with a “glaring infringement of Japanese sovereignty and of hegemony-seeking,” and urged the government and the party to “take resolute action to preserve Japan’s territorial integrity in the Senkaku Islands.”
³⁹
On 18 April 1978, the Okinawa prefectural assembly adopted a resolution calling on the Tokyo government to “take vigorous steps to defend national sovereignty.”
⁴⁰
Highlighting the role which economic resources play in the Senkaku Islands dispute was a similar appeal to the government made by participants in a mass rally of Okinawa fishermen in Naha, who demanded urgent and effective measures to safeguard their safety in, and access to, the fishing grounds within the islands’ territorial waters.
⁴¹
Later, LDP Dietmen from Okinawa and the Okinawa Prefect Federation of Fishery Associations adopted a resolution calling on the central government to prohibit foreign fishing in Senkaku waters by maintaining strict surveillance.
⁴²
In a rare demonstration of national solidarity on matters relating to China, all major Japanese political groupings again signaled that they would not give ground on territorial issues by supporting the government in accusing the Chinese of having directed the whole affair.
⁴³
Prominent LDP figures like Nakasone, chairman of the LDP Council on General Issues and Yasui, chairman of the Diet’s House of Councilors, called on the government to oppose any territorial claims on Beijing’s part;
⁴⁴
while justice minister Setoyama, education minister