By Dr. Motoko Shuto
4 November 2012
The following is my comment on “THE CHINA JAPAN DISPUTE OVER DIAOYU: LET THE TRUTH PREVAIL!” by Dr. Chandra Muzaffar in JUST Commentary, October 2012.
I thank Dr. Chandra Muzaffar for giving me this opportunity to send my brief comments below pertaining to his article.
First, though it says that “There are books, reports and maps from the 15th century, during the period of the Ming Dynasty, that establish in no uncertain terms that Diaoyu is Chinese territory”, this is simply untrue. In reality, in the old Chinese documents during the Ming dynasty, the Senkakus, which had been uninhabited, were mentioned as they were visible from the sea during voyages to the Ryukyu Kingdom. Nothing more, nothing less. No documents have been found to prove that the islands were under Chinese administration during any periods.
On the contrary, the official maps during the Ming Dynasty clearly mentioned that the “Diaoyu” was outside the Ming‘s Defense Line. For instance, if you access the map of the East China Sea which was made in 1562 found at http://sphotos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/576443_103570713134979_1739804879_n.jpg, you will find that the “Diaoyu” was outside the Defense Line far from Fujian Province. (In the map The red line is the defense line, 190 Ri, approximately 100 km, from the coast-line. The red-line in the map was drawn by a scholar. The Senkakus are 330 km away from the coast-line, far beyond the defense line.) The “defense line” was recognized, but the “boundary” was not recognized during this era. It is primarily because under the traditional Chinese world order there was no such concept as “boundary”. It was a hierarchical world order spreading endlessly, and there were no concepts such as “internal” or “external” affairs. The latter was an extension of the former boundlessly. Thus, there was no such concept as “boundary” which was originated from the European modern state system.The Chinese Government simply hides this fact and they are telling lies to the nation and to the international community, claiming that the Senkakus are “historically Chinese territory”.
Second, the annexation took almost 10 years and it was based on the doctrine of terra nullius, not “through military force”. The Government of Japan in the early Meiji era examined the past history related to the Senkakus since 1885 upon a request of Mr. Koga, a private business person. He was from Fukuoka in Kyushu and had opened a marine product-processing business on Ishigaki Island. After having explored the Senkakus with his friends, he requested permission from the government to open a marine product- processing factory on the Senkakus in 1884. This was 10 years before the Sino-Japan War broke out. Ten years after the request, the government concluded that the islands had never been governed by any states earlier and based on the terra nullius doctrine of international law incorporated the Senkakus into Okinawa prefecture on 14 January 1895. This was two months before the peace treaty started on March 20 in Shimonoseki. Under the Shimonoseki Treaty, Taiwan and the Penghu islands, located west of Taiwan, were ceded to Japan by the Qing dynasty. But the Senkakus were not part of this treaty.
It was in the late 2000s that I first heard a Chinese General mention at a symposium in Singapore that Japan has not returned what she had obtained by the Shimonoseki Treaty. Shortly after that, China began to disseminate this misleading interpretation through the state media and recently international media. They have been aggressively expanding lobbying campaigns through a firm called Patton Boggs, paying USD35,000 per month, and have been utilizing diplomatic channels all over the world. This is Chinese propaganda, however.
In reality, since it was annexed to Okinawa prefecture, there used to be a village with a peak population of 90 Japanese households on the Senkaku islands, They lived there until the late 1930s when it became difficult to get oil for their fishing boats. During and after WW II, the Senkakus were not mentioned as the areas that Japan should agree to abandon in neither the Cairo or Potsdam Declarations nor the San Francisco Peace Treaty. Though the article says that “Both the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Declaration acknowledged this (that Diaoyu was Chinese territory)”, it is untrue because in the two declarations it was Taiwan and the Penghu islands that were articulated.
Actually, the People’s Daily of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) used to recognize that the Senkaku Islands were part of Okinawa prefecture throughout the 1950s and 1960s. For instance, an article in the People’s Daily dated January 8, 1953 said that “the Senkaku Islands were part of the Ryukyu Islands”. Also the official maps published by the Chinese government in 1953, 1958,1960 and 1967 articulated that the “Senkaku Islands”, using this name, were part of the Okinawa islands. Maps and school text books published in the Republic of China (Taiwan) as well used to note that the Senkakus were part of Okinawa during the 1950s and 1960s. Some maps and newspapers are available on the Internet.
It was since 1971 that the PRC and Taiwan suddenly changed their attitude and began to claim that the islands were traditionally Chinese territory. It was after the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) announced in its survey report that there was potential oil/LNG resources in the East China Sea. First Taiwan claimed territorial rights and the Senkakus were put within their boundary in the textbooks since 1971 in Taiwan. Soon afterwards, the PRC began to claim territorial rights, perhaps by the logic that the Senkakus are part of Taiwan, and since Taiwan is part of China, thus the Senkakus are Chinese territory.
It was Prime Minister Chou En-lai who said in 1972 that “Because of oil it has become an issue. If there’s no oil, Taiwan and the United States would not make it an issue either”, when Prime Minister Tanaka asked him about his opinion on the Senkakus when he visited Beijing to negotiate diplomatic normalization with the PRC. They did not discuss it any further at the meeting according to the diplomatic record. In later negotiations, it is widely said that they tacitly agreed that they would leave the solution of the Senkakus to the wisdom of a future generation and keep the current status quo. Actually it is not clear whether this was really a point of agreement or part of the media’s interpretation, because as far as the diplomatic documents are concerned it is not recorded.
Third, after the diplomatic normalization between China and Japan, in 1992 China unilaterally enacted the Law on Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone in which the South China Sea and the East China Sea are all included as Chinese territorial seas. At the same time, in order to avoid the path of the Communist Party of the USSR, the CCP switched its legitimizing strategy from ideology to patriotism since the early 1990s to stress that it was the CCP that had fought against Japanese fascism to save the nation. In this context they have taught that the “Diaoyu is Chinese territory” through public education and the media at large in China. Those young generations have enormously increased in number and they are pushing the government to take much tougher action against “Fascist Little Japan”. In response to such gross public mood which is, in itself, a product of state policy through “patriotic education”, China seems to have crossed the rubicon over the Senkaku issue. What is the true purpose? Are the Senkakus the ultimate goal or a step towards the goal of their strategy?
Now, China claims the islands are “part of Chinese territory historically”, but there are two points: First, which claim is more convincing, “a discovery” mentioned in the old documents with no history of administration or annexation based on the doctrine of terra nullis which was immediately followed by the local administration of Okinawa prefecture for decades? Second, based on what criteria can the state claim its “historical rights of territory”? If it were based on the widest geographical stretch of old empires, China could insist on the widest stretch of its sphere of influence under the Ming or Qing dynasties, although Tibet was not yet part of their territory during the medieval times. If so, then, other former empires during medieval times could be qualified, too, to claim its widest territorial rights as “its own historical property”. In this sense, it is a conceptual clash of “state boundary” between the Western sovereign state system and the old Chinese world order system that we are witnessing now in the South China Sea and the East China Sea.
However, in the case of the East China Sea, there is a point well beyond that. Clearly by the same logic, their territorial claims do not stop at the Senkakus but the next target is Okinawa. China is already active in expanding campaigns that Okinawa should not be part of Japan. The purpose of their strategy is first, to gain oil and other marine resources in the East China Sea, and second, to materialize the First Island Chain under the Chinese control by her navy and air forces. This strategy inevitably confronts US military presence in the Asia-Pacific region.
Although on 10 September 2012 with regard to the purchase of the islands by the Japanese government the Chinese government announced that “This constitutes a gross violation of China’s sovereignty”, obviously they had realized that there existed a person (family) who had property rights over the Senkakus and tried to purchase the islands from him. Because of this, the land-owner consulted with former Tokyo Governor Ishihara, their old friend, to consider the purchase by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Governor Ishihara responded positively and started to collect funds to purchase the islands, which eventually reached more than JPY1.4 billion. The government of Japan was worried about possible provocative actions if such purchase was actualized. Thus, in a hurry, the government decided to put the Senkakus under the perfect control of the government to keep the status quo. They had consulted with Beijing in advance, needless to say, and got tacit approval from the CPP with three conditions at least up to early August, it is said.
Immediately after the purchase announcement, however, massively devastating demonstrations continued for weeks against Japan as well as Japanese shops and factories in China, as we have seen, having caused major damage. What is worse is that China grossly curtailed major trade relations, began to exclude Japan from trade meetings and exhibitions in China, cancelled cultural exchange visits, and even ordered the removal of all Japanese books from bookstores. At Beijing customs, all Japanese newspapers that have arrived at the airport were confiscated.
How gravely and unjustly China has injured Japanese factories and shops in China by mobilizing such massive numbers of people to attend the demonstrations. It was nothing but de facto state-organized terror against Japan. It is China that is intimidating Japan’s sovereignty by constantly sending the government’s vessels near the Senkakus and trying to change the status quo by force, refusing diplomatic talks. It is China that has taken unilateral actions in breach of its obligations under the UN Charter, the WTO and other international agreements. China is not an enemy of Japan, having established heavily interdependent relations at the bilateral and regional levels. However, China is a threat in the sense that any unpredictable incidents can happen only if the CCP top leaders wish at any cost and by any means at the national and international levels.
Dr. Mokoto Shuto is a professor at the University of Tsukuba, Japan, she is also a JUST member.