Project Syndicate.
TOKYO – Japan has been in the news lately, owing to its dispute with
China over six square kilometers of barren islets in the East China Sea
that Japan calls the Senkakus and China calls the Diaoyu Islands. The
rival claims date back to the late nineteenth century, but
the recent flare-up, which led to widespread
anti-Japanese demonstrations in China, started in September when Japan’s government purchased three of the tiny islets from their private Japanese owner.
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda
has said that he decided to purchase the islands for the Japanese
central government to prevent Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara from
purchasing them with municipal funds. Ishihara, who has since resigned
from office to launch a new political party, is well known for
nationalist provocation, and Noda feared that he would try to occupy the
islands or find other ways to use them to provoke China and whip up
popular support in Japan. Top Chinese officials, however, did not accept
Noda’s explanation, and interpreted the purchase as proof that Japan is
trying to disrupt the status quo.
In
May 1972, when the United States returned the Okinawa Prefecture to
Japan, the transfer included the Senkaku Islands, which the US had
administered from Okinawa. A few months later, when China and Japan
normalized their post-World War II relations, Japanese Prime Minister
Kakuei Tanaka asked Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai about the Senkakus, and
was told that rather than let the dispute delay normalization, the issue
should be left for future generations.
So
both countries maintained their claims to sovereignty. Though Japan had
administrative control, Chinese ships would occasionally enter Japanese
waters to assert their legal position. For China, this was the status quo
that Japan upended in September. In Beijing recently, Chinese analysts
told me that they believe that Japan is entering a period of right-wing
militaristic nationalism, and that purchasing the islands was a
deliberate effort to begin eroding the post-WWII settlement.
