China and Japan dispute over Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands

Kunal Biswas

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Chinese Fishermen landing on islands of Senkaku of Japan..

A boat, center, is surrounded by Japan Cost Guard's patrol boats after some activists descended from the boat on Uotsuri Island, one of the islands of Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese, in East China Sea Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2012. Regional tensions flared on the emotional anniversary of Japan s World War II surrender as activists from China and South Korea used Wednesday s occasion to press rival territorial claims, prompting 14 arrests by Japanese authorities. The 14 people had traveled by boat from Hong Kong to the disputed islands controlled by Japan but also claimed by China and Taiwan.











A policeman tries to control protesters as they hold a banners reading "Declare war against Japan" and "Japan get out of Diaoyu islands" outside the Japanese Embassy in Beijing Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2012. Chinese protesters gathered to protest against Japanese plans to nationalize disputed islands, which also claimed by Taiwan and China. The islands called Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese have long been a source of tension in the region.
 

tony4562

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Re: Chinese Fishermen landing on islands of Senkaku of Japan..

Next time they probably should try to get help from the sea shepherds :p

 

trackwhack

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Re: Chinese Fishermen landing on islands of Senkaku of Japan..

^^ Next time PLA should grow some balls and stop forcing poor fishermen to do this dirty job.
 

nimo_cn

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Re: Chinese Fishermen landing on islands of Senkaku of Japan..

^^ Next time PLA should grow some balls and stop forcing poor fishermen to do this dirty job.
Fishermen?

You must be kidding me!
 

Impluseblade

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Re: Chinese Fishermen landing on islands of Senkaku of Japan..

Hi, the best brain working for the west, you jumped to another fight already?

^^ Next time PLA should grow some balls and stop forcing poor fishermen to do this dirty job.
 

Ray

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Re: Chinese Fishermen landing on islands of Senkaku of Japan..

Japan is capable of enforcing her rights.
 

Ray

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Re: Chinese Fishermen landing on islands of Senkaku of Japan..

Chinese nationalists eye Okinawa

I don't know how new a development this is – there have probably been people here and there saying things all along – but in recent days it has become a lot more prominent in English-language news that some Chinese nationalists1 have been calling for Okinawan independence from Japan. Some have gone further, saying Okinawa should be "returned" to China, a truly absurd concept, but I'll get to that. Of course, much of this comes out of pro-PRC nationalist fervor, anti-Japanese sentiment, and a desire to further the PRC's national interests. There may be Chinese citizens with a genuine sympathy for the Okinawan people, and an interest in seeing Okinawan independence for the benefit of the Okinawan people, but I don't think those are the Chinese we're talking about here.....

reported on comments made by one particular Chinese officer, a Major General Jin Yinan. Jin speaks of "China's rightful ownership of all Okinawa too." What exactly his logic is, is left unclear, but one can easily imagine that he is not alone in holding these opinions. He is not quoted in this article as going so far as to say anything about former Chinese direct control over the Ryûkyû Islands (which China, in fact, never exercised or claimed to), nor even explicitly saying anything about the tributary relationship between the Ryûkyû Kingdom and Imperial China. However, he notes that when Japan formally annexed Okinawa and abolished the Kingdom in 1879, "they threw out all links to China like the Qing Dynasty [dating system] and the Chinese writing style." These two points are true, as this event severed Okinawa's tributary relations to Qing China, and with no Ryukyuan king any longer, ended the tradition of the Ryukyuan King being formally invested by the Chinese Emperor. All of Japan, including Okinawa, was now under the Western calendar (albeit with Japanese imperial year).2 With the kingdom abolished, the bureaucracy of the royal government went with it, along with the scholar-aristocrat-bureaucrat class, steeped in the Confucian Classics and models of Chinese government, which ran it. It makes sense that writing in Chinese would have severely declined in Okinawa at this time, though I don't recall reading anything explicitly discussing the matter; as the scholar-aristocrat class was abolished, they all became equal "citizens" with all the former peasants/commoners, and as the nationwide Japanese national education system was put into place in Okinawa, everyone would have begun writing more exclusively in Japanese.

But, getting to the point, the idea of Chinese historical claims to Ryûkyû is essentially absurd. China never landed troops in the Ryûkyûs, never deployed Chinese bureaucrats/administrators to administer the islands as a colony or a province, but only received tribute from a kingdom that paid ritual obeisance to the symbolic authority of the Chinese Emperor. Even in the 1870s-80s, the pro-China faction in Okinawa was never arguing that the Kingdom "belonged" in any way to China, or that they wanted to be annexed by China, but only that they wished to be allowed to continue their traditional tributary relationship. I'm not positive exactly what kind of rhetoric was used at the time by the Chinese, though, who might in fact have claimed back then as well that the Ryukyus "belonged" to China.

Not that I am saying that the samurai domain of Satsuma in 1609, or the Empire of Japan in 1879, were morally or ethically in the right to do what they did, in 1609 militarily invading Ryûkyû and subordinating it to Satsuma's authority (controlling the kingdom's foreign relations, demanding taxes, etc.), and then in the 1870s abolishing the kingdom, annexing its lands, sending mainland Japanese administrators to govern the islands, and imposing various sorts of assimilation policies aimed at wiping out Ryukyuan identity, transforming the Ryukyuan people into homogeneous Japanese citizens. If we want to talk about formerly independent kingdoms that have been conquered, Japan has no more "right" to the Ryukyus than England has to Wales and Scotland, except by law of conquest. The Okinawans have been wronged by Japan, most certainly, historically, and if anyone were arguing for Okinawan independence on the merits of that Okinawa used to be independent, and should be again, for the rights and benefits of the Okinawan people, that would be one thing.

But, here we are talking about arguments made for Chinese national interests, and I don't think that the interests of the Okinawan people really enter into it, in the arguments of these Chinese nationalists. The Financial Times of London reports on and discusses a more widespread, and varied, set of arguments, in an article entitled "Chinese Nationalists Eye Okinawa," focusing not only on Major General Jin. (My thanks to Tobias Harris for pointing out this article to me.)

They quote one Japan specialist from a Ministry of Commerce think tank, a Mr. Tang, who says, "When I was in Japan, I didn't even know that the Ryukyus were once ours." This goes back to what I was saying above, about how China never actually owned or controlled or even claimed to administer or govern the Ryukyu Islands. It was merely a tributary relationship. Fortunately, the Financial Times is on top of things, and makes the counterpoint that needs to be made:

"Once you start arguing that a tributary relationship at some point in history is the basis for a sovereignty claim in the 20th century, you start worrying a lot of people," says June Teufel Dreyer, a China and Japan specialist at the University of Miami. "Many, many countries had tributary relationships with China."

Of course, in light of Chinese control of Tibet, Uyghur lands, and numerous other lands that historically belonged to other peoples, Chinese arguments that Japan has no "right" to Okinawa and should return it seem especially hypocritical. If Okinawa deserves independence based on the fact that it was independent prior to 1879, then what about Tibet, which was independent up until 1959?

Chinese nationalists eye Okinawa « 茶有の者 – A Man with Tea
 

J20!

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Re: Chinese Fishermen landing on islands of Senkaku of Japan..

^^ Next time PLA should grow some balls and stop forcing poor fishermen to do this dirty job.
So there are fishermen in the PLA's ranks now? They aren't fishermen, they're activists, using a fishing boat to get there doesn't make them fishermen.

Kudos to them though, brave people like these are always in short supply. No Taiwanese activists this time?
 

Ray

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Re: Chinese Fishermen landing on islands of Senkaku of Japan..

So there are fishermen in the PLA's ranks now? They aren't fishermen, they're activists, using a fishing boat to get there doesn't make them fishermen.

Kudos to them though, brave people like these are always in short supply. No Taiwanese activists this time?
Good for them.

Hope the international community roots for them.
 
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Japan ups ante on Diaoyu islands

Japan ups ante on islands | Bangkok Post: breakingnews

ISHIGAKI, JAPAN: A flotilla of boats carrying Japanese nationalists, including parliamentarians, set sail on Saturday for islands at the heart of a bitter dispute with China.

Around 150 people, including eight parliamentarians, left far southwest Ishigaki bound for the archipelago in the East China Sea, a day after Japan deported pro-China activists who had sailed there from Hong Kong.

The voyage came as Beijing told Tokyo it had to immediately cease actions "harming" its territorial sovereignty.

"I want to show the international community that these islands are ours. It is Japan's future at stake," Kenichi Kojima, a local politician from Kanagawa, near Tokyo, told AFP before he boarded.


Parliamentarian Keiko Yamatani said most countries recognised Japan's sovereignty over the island chain, but added: "I think this kind of expedition will help raise awareness around the world."
The 20 vessels left the southwestern Japanese island of Ishigaki at 8:30 pm (1130 GMT), an AFP journalist on board one of the boats reported.

The fleet was expected to arrive at the archipelago, known as Senkaku in Japan and as Diaoyu in China, around sunrise (2130 GMT Saturday).

The Japanese government has refused permission for the group to land on the islands. Organisers said ahead of their departure that they would be holding a ceremony aboard boats moored "within touching distance" of the shore.

Beijing on Saturday rebuked Japan over the island visit.

"China has made solemn representations to Japan, demanding that it immediately cease actions harming China's territorial sovereignty," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The dispute over the islands is one of the major stumbling blocks -- along with issues related to Japan's military occupation of parts of China during World War II -- to smooth relations between Asia's two giant economies.

Tensions spiked as Japan deported 14 pro-China activists who sailed to the islands from Hong Kong.

Some managed to land on an island, becoming the first non-Japanese to set foot on any part of the archipelago since 2004.

"China reiterates that any unilateral action taken by Japan regarding" the islands "are illegal and invalid", Saturday's foreign ministry statement said, adding that any such actions will not undermine its claim over the territory.

It follows another statement late Friday which called on Japan to pursue "dialogue and negotiation" to resolve the dispute.

Separately, a Japanese ruling party heavyweight said Saturday that his country should beef up its coast guard to defend the islands.

"Coast guard officials are doing their best, and so the government and the ruling parties will discuss how to strengthen our backup to them," Seiji Maehara, the policy chief of the Democratic Party of Japan, told reporters.

The renewed dispute came as tensions also rose between Japan and South Korea after President Lee Myung-Bak visited islets controlled by Seoul but claimed by Tokyo.

Emotions were running high around the August 15 anniversary of Japan's World War II surrender with Beijing and Seoul angry about a visit to a Tokyo war shine on Wednesday by two Japanese cabinet members.

China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported Saturday that hundreds of people protested in the western city of Xian over Japan's detainment of the pro-China activists.

Demonstrators carried Chinese flags and banners, including one that read, "Salute the Chinese warriors who defend the Diaoyu Islands," Xinhua reported. It also said a small protest took place in front of the Japanese embassy in Beijing.

China's Global Times newspaper welcomed the release of the pro-China activists, but suggested that the dispute with Japan was far from over.

"As long as the Diaoyu Islands are still under Japanese control, there is no complete victory," it said in an editorial.
 

Ray

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Re: Japan ups ante on Diaoyu islands

Aren't they Japanese islands?
 

fzaq

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Re: Chinese Fishermen landing on islands of Senkaku of Japan..

now it's japan huh?
 

nimo_cn

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Re: Chinese Fishermen landing on islands of Senkaku of Japan..

Interesting thing is our Indian fellows are ignoring the activists' HK background, they are calling them Chinese instead of calling them hongkongness.
 

J20!

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Re: Chinese Fishermen landing on islands of Senkaku of Japan..

Interesting thing is our Indian fellows are ignoring the activists' HK background, they are calling them Chinese instead of calling them hongkongness.
You know they only admit the HongKongers or the Taiwanese are Chinese when its convenient for whatever agenda they're pushing. Maybe the HongKongers are "hegemonic" too. And the Taiwanese too for that matter, you remember those pics of them planting Chinese flags on the Diayous:




Japan is trying to steal from us. It should NOT be allowed.
 

nimo_cn

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Re: Chinese Fishermen landing on islands of Senkaku of Japan..

You know they only admit the HongKongers or the Taiwanese are Chinese when its convenient for whatever agenda they're pushing. Maybe the HongKongers are "hegemonic" too. And the Taiwanese too for that matter, you remember those pics of them planting Chinese flags on the Diayous:




Japan is trying to steal from us. It should NOT be allowed.
That is the point I was trying to make, they are just playing duplicity.
 

fzaq

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Re: Chinese Fishermen landing on islands of Senkaku of Japan..

why dont you punish them if they are stealing from you?
 
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Re: Chinese Fishermen landing on islands of Senkaku of Japan..

Japan is under USA's nuclear umbrella, interesting to see in what way US will get involved
in this? Better to stay out and arm the Japanese for now. Japanese already have a technological
edge in weaponry over China even with their peace doctrine.
 

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