China's territory not allowed for sale: FM spokesman

[Ray]

Your usual bull. We all understand that you hate China, but your selective reading is just beyond bias. Even your own sources state that China lost those islands to Japan 1891 when Japan took them by force. That would amount to Germany not returning Alsace and Lorraine to France after world war I then claiming them to be their own. China controlled those islands for hundreds of years.

And again, if China pulled such a stunt: trying to buy the islands and nationalize them, you'd all accuse China of being some hegemonic bully. But since its Japan, its all our fault somehow.

When you are incapable of reply, lacking facts to support, you take the cover of such inane terms as 'bull'.

Chinese history is based on fairy tales.

Heard of the Yellow Emperor and Cangjie?

Here it is:

Cangjie is a legendary figure in ancient China (c. 2650 BC), claimed to be an official historian of the Yellow Emperor and the inventor of Chinese characters.

Legend has it that he had four eyes and four pupils, and that when he invented the characters, the deities and ghosts cried and the sky rained millet. The Cangjie method, a Chinese character input method, is named after him.

If that is not fairy tale, what is - four eyes and four pupils!

 

[Ray]

Records of the Grand Historian, also known by its Chinese name Shiji.

Sima Qian wrote it in which he recounted Chinese history from the time of the Yellow Emperor until his own time.

Most volumes of Liezhuan are descriptions of events and persons. This has been attributed to the belief that the author critically used stories passed on from antiquity as part of his sources, balancing reliability and accuracy of the records.

Stories = fairy tales!

 

[Ray]

Even your own sources state that China lost those islands to Japan 1891 when Japan took them by force.

And which source you are quoting that is mine which states so?

This one:

Satirical drawing in Punch Magazine (29 September 1894), showing the victory of "small" Japan over "large" China.

That is not my source!

 

[mayfair]

not fairy stories if you know chinese history, the island as well as taiwan was taken during sino-japan war in 1891 and later on respectively. before that it was part of china since ming&qing dynasty. S.korean has similar issue with japan, some of their claim island was part of korea before 1931.

Chinese maps before 1891 acknowledge Senkaku's as a part of the Okinawa prefecture.

 

[Oblaks]

Initially, the Ryūkyū Kingdom was a tributary state of China. Kings of Ryūkyū sent envoys to China and requested Chinese emperors to confer the title of King of Ryūkyū upon them, this custom began from 1372 during the Ming Dynasty and lasted until the downfall of the kingdom in 1875. But as a state which was smaller and weaker than Japan, it was eventually invaded by the Japanese feudal domain of Satsuma in 1609, and held as a semi-independent state until it was formally annexed and transformed into Okinawa Prefecture in 1879. .

By this reasoning, we can go back to the argument that all former tributary states of china should be claimed by China also. Those are what we know today as Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan, Philippines, Malaysia... just to name a few.

 

[amoy]

Chinese maps before 1891 acknowledge Senkaku's as a part of the Okinawa prefecture.

Which map? Even in reference to Mr Oblak's link Senkaku Islands dispute - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A 1785 Japanese map, the Sangoku Tsūran Zusetsu (三国通覧図説) by Hayashi Shihei adopted the Chinese kanji (釣魚臺 Diaoyutai) to annotate the Senkaku Islands, which were painted in the same color as China.[6][11] The primary text itself can be found here.[12]

also Oblak's link

Following the Meiji Restoration, the Meiji Japanese government formally annexed what was known as the Ryukyu Kingdom as Okinawa Prefecture in 1879. The Senkaku Islands, which lie between Ryukyu Kingdom and Qing empire, became the Sino-Japanese boundary for the first time.
In 1885, the Japanese Governor of Okinawa Prefecture, Nishimura Sutezo, petitioned the Meiji government asking that it take formal control of the islands.[6] However, Inoue Kaoru, the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, commented that the islands lay near to the border area with the Qing empire and that they had been given Chinese names. He also cited an article in a Chinese newspaper that had previously claimed that Japan was occupying islands off China's coast. Inoue was concerned that if Japan proceeded to erect a landmark stating its claim to the islands, it would make the Qing empire suspicious.[6] Following Inoue's advice, Yamagata Aritomo, the Minister of the Interior turned down the request to incorporate the islands, insisting that this matter should not be "revealed to the news media".[6]

 

[Oblaks]

Which map? Even in reference to Mr Oblak's link Senkaku Islands dispute - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Old maps cannot be used as grounds for establishing sovereignity. Different maps have come out some claiming the islands as part of Japan and some as parts of China

Following the Meiji Restoration, the Meiji Japanese government formally annexed what was known as the Ryukyu Kingdom as Okinawa Prefecture in 1879. The Senkaku Islands, which lie between Ryukyu Kingdom and Qing empire, became the Sino-Japanese boundary for the first time.
In 1885, the Japanese Governor of Okinawa Prefecture, Nishimura Sutezo, petitioned the Meiji government asking that it take formal control of the islands.[6] However, Inoue Kaoru, the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, commented that the islands lay near to the border area with the Qing empire and that they had been given Chinese names. He also cited an article in a Chinese newspaper that had previously claimed that Japan was occupying islands off China's coast. Inoue was concerned that if Japan proceeded to erect a landmark stating its claim to the islands, it would make the Qing empire suspicious.[6] Following Inoue's advice, Yamagata Aritomo, the Minister of the Interior turned down the request to incorporate the islands, insisting that this matter should not be "revealed to the news media".[6] .

This quote suggests that China was trying to occupy those islands (Senkaku) which are known to be already part of Japan at that time. During 1885 they when they learned that the Chinese are trying to occupy it, Instead of trying to immediately take control of those islands, they decided to keep silent about it as they were planning the first sino-jap war which the japs won and eventually take full control of the islands.

 

[Ray]

Senkaku Islands are clearly part of Japan

Reference is made to the statement from the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the September 30, 2010 issue of The Citizen under the headline "China's sovereignty over Diaoyu Islands indisputable".

There has clearly been certain misinterpretation of history and the facts concerning China's claims to its territorial sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands.

As we have stressed in our previous letter to the editor, there is no doubt that the Senkaku Islands are clearly an inherent territory of Japan, in light of historical facts and based on international law. To reiterate, Senkaku Islands were formally incorporated into the territory of Japan by a Cabinet Decision on January 14, 1895.

This decision was made after a thorough 10-year investigation of the Senkaku Islands that started in 1885, in which the Government of Japan confirmed that the islands had been uninhabited and showed no trace of having been under the control of China. Therefore, there is no territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands.

I would herewith like to respond to each claim made in the statement referred to at the start: China's argument that the Senkaku Islands appeared on China's maps and records since the Ming Dynasty does not prove that the Senkaku Islands had been ruled under the sovereignty of China.

For example, in the official history of the Ming Dynasty, Taiwan was referred to as "Eastern Barbarian Lands" in the "foreign biographies". This implies that Taiwan, not to mention the Senkaku Islands, was recognised as foreign territory by the Ming Dynasty.

Books published in medieval times is not exact, and to use that as evidence for effective control over a certain territory is unreasonable.

China's claim that the Senkaku Islands were within the periphery of its "maritime defense zone" at lease since the Ming Dynasty does not serve as a justification that China had actual control over this zone. This concept was just a visionary one and China had not actually controlled and chased off the foreigners outside of this zone.

China also claims that the Senkaku Islands were marked as lying within China's borders in a map published by Japan between 1783 and 1785, and uses this to justify China's sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands.

The "map published by Japan" referred to by China most likely refers to the Sangoku Tsuran Zusetsu, which is "An Illustrated Description of Three Countries" by Hayashi Shihei.

Except for mainland Japan, the surrounding areas are poorly illustrated in this map. In addition, this map shades Taiwan in a colour different from that of China, implying that, if we were to believe this illustration, Taiwan was an independent nation back then.

China's argument that the Senkaku Islands were ceded to Japan after the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-1895 and therefore the 1943 Cairo Declaration, which stipulated that Japan should return all China's territories it occupied, included these islands, is inaccurate, as Japan incorporated Senkaku Islands after confirming that these islands were "terra nullius".

Therefore, these islands were not ceded to Japan as a result of the war; it was already Japan's territory. China did not object to Japan's acquisition of the Senkaku Islands during the negotiations on the Shimonoseki Treaty after the Sino-Japanese war in March 1895, even though they were in the position to do so, nor during the following 76 years until 1971.

After World War II, the Senkaku Islands were put under the administration of the US Government as a part of Japanese territory because these islands were officially incorporated into Japan before the end of Sino-Japanese War.

Due to the issue of representation between mainland China and Taiwan, China was not a signatory of the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951, but this does not stand as a proof that China has "long maintained that it is illegal for US to have unilaterally exercised so-called 'administrative rights' over the Senkaku Islands."

It was only after 1971 that China started objecting toward the fact that these islands had been put under the administration of the US following the San Francisco Peace Treaty, which means that China did not consider the Senkaku Islands as part of its territory before that.

There are several official documents that describe the position of the Chinese Government perception on Senkaku Islands as a part of Okinawa, Japan. In a thank you letter sent from a Chinese Consular in Nagasaki, Japan in May 1920, regarding the lost Chinese fisherman near the Senkaku Islands, it referred to the Senkaku Islands as part of Okinawa.

On January 8, 1953, the People's Daily, the official newspaper in the People's Republic of China, refers to Senkaku Islands as part of Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa) In addition, in the world atlas issued by China in 1960, the Senkaku Islands were also treated as part of Okinawa.
Sincerely,

Shuichiro Kawaguchi,
Deputy Chief of Mission,
Embassy of Japan,
Dar es Salaam

http://www.thecitizen.co.tz/editori...enkaku-islands-are-clearly-part-of-japan.html

 

[asianobserve]

Resources hungry Asia is tangled up in resources brinkmanships (principally fueled by Chinese land grabbing schemes) from the North to the South, East to West... Indeed this century will be an Asian one. (The next great war may also be in Asia between China and the rest of Asia...)

 

[Ray]

 

[Ray]

Resources hungry Asia is tangled up in resources brinkmanships (principally fueled by Chinese land grabbing schemes) from the North to the South, East to West... Indeed this century will be an Asian one. (The next great war may also be in Asia between China and the rest of Asia...)

China is a peaceful country which loves Peace.

And Peacefully they will usurp what they want.

Fudging history along the way.

Barbarians will be made Hans as they have always been done.

And anyone disagreeing even with facts is 'bull' as per some Chinese posters!

These Chinese posters forget the most important part of 'bull' that they speak about.

The alphabets 'ly'.

They want to bull-ly their way with their fudging as true and want all to toe their line!

 

[Ray]

All one can say is China tussi GREAT ho!

 

[J20!]

When you are incapable of reply, lacking facts to support, you take the cover of such inane terms as 'bull'.

Chinese history is based on fairy tales.

Heard of the Yellow Emperor and Cangjie?

Here it is:

Cangjie is a legendary figure in ancient China (c. 2650 BC), claimed to be an official historian of the Yellow Emperor and the inventor of Chinese characters.

Legend has it that he had four eyes and four pupils, and that when he invented the characters, the deities and ghosts cried and the sky rained millet. The Cangjie method, a Chinese character input method, is named after him.

If that is not fairy tale, what is - four eyes and four pupils!

And what does that have to do with FACTUAL MAPS depicting Chinese territory? Again: your usual bull, quoting unrelated bull to support erroneous claims. Show me a map that was plotted from fairy tales. Not bedtime stories. Chinese maps AND RECORDS SHOW THAT CHINA OWNED THE Daiyu islands till the Japanese forcibly acquired them during the Sino-Japanese War.

Following the Meiji Restoration, the Meiji Japanese government formally annexed what was known as the Ryukyu Kingdom as Okinawa Prefecture in 1879. The Senkaku Islands, which lie between Ryukyu Kingdom and Qing empire, became the Sino-Japanese boundary for the first time.

After China lost the war, both countries signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki in April 1895 that stipulated, among other things, that China would cede to Japan "the island of Formosa together with all islands appertaining or belonging to said island of Formosa (Taiwan)".[7]
The treaty, however, was nullified after Japan lost the Second world war in 1945 by the Treaty of San Francisco, which was signed between Japan and part of the Allied Powers in 1951.

 

[J20!]

And which source you are quoting that is mine which states so?

The wikipedia quote you pulled out, but as per usual, only clipping parts that satisfy your bias:

The Senkaku Islands (尖閣諸島 Senkaku Shotō?, variants: Senkaku-guntō[1] and Senkaku-rettō[2]), also known as the Diaoyu Islands or Diaoyutai Islands (simplified Chinese: 钓鱼岛及其附属岛屿; traditional Chinese: 釣魚台群島; pinyin: Diàoyútái Qúndǎo) or the Pinnacle Islands, are a group of uninhabited islands controlled by Japan in the East China Sea. They are located roughly due east of mainland China, northeast of Taiwan, west of Okinawa Island, and north of the southwestern end of the Ryukyu Islands.

The very next paragraph says:

Japan controlled the islands from 1895 until its surrender at the end of World War II. The United States administered them as part of the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands from 1945 until 1972, when the islands reverted to Japanese control under the Okinawa Reversion Treaty between the United States and Japan.[3]

What's the use of discussing Chinese territorial disputes on an INDIAN FORUM? Indian members will always ignore any information supporting Chinese claims, no matter how legitimate and support opposing claims, regardless of how weak those claims are.Prime example, Ray, who will twist any Chinese issue to satisfy his own anti-China agenda.
The latest of his masterpieces:

China is a peaceful country which loves Peace.

And Peacefully they will usurp what they want.

Fudging history along the way.

Barbarians will be made Hans as they have always been done.

And anyone disagreeing even with facts is 'bull' as per some Chinese posters!

These Chinese posters forget the most important part of 'bull' that they speak about.

The alphabets 'ly'.

They want to bull-ly their way with their fudging as true and want all to toe their line!

 

[J20!]

China is a peaceful country which loves Peace.

And Peacefully they will usurp what they want.

Fudging history along the way.

Barbarians will be made Hans as they have always been done.

And anyone disagreeing even with facts is 'bull' as per some Chinese posters!

These Chinese posters forget the most important part of 'bull' that they speak about.

The alphabets 'ly'.

They want to bull-ly their way with their fudging as true and want all to toe their line!

Then I'm guessing in this case that your argument also applies to Taiwan? Are they "Fudging"history too?

Its funny how Taiwan has many claims that match China's, even in the South China Sea, yet I never here you calling them "bullies" too... Is their evidence "fairytale s" too?

I bet you'll probably ignore these questions too.

 

[mayfair]

The Senkakus and Sovereignty

Nicholas Kristoff, the well known Asian affairs commentator, holds forth on the Senkaku Island dispute today in the NY Times. His piece is long and there are several parts I'd like to highlight.

First, the "weak government means war" thesis:

The reason to worry is that nationalists in both China and Taiwan see the islands as unquestionably theirs and think that their government has been weak in asserting this authority. So far, wiser heads have generally prevailed on each side, but at some point a weakened Chinese leader might try to gain legitimacy with the public by pushing the issue and recovering the islands.

Time for analysts to get on board with reality: right now the Chinese government enjoys good legitimacy and is strong and yet China is growing ever more belligerent. Make the connection guys -- in this case growing strength drives growing expansion.

Second, on the US role:

The other problem is that, technically, the U.S. would be obliged to bail Japan out if there were a fight over the Senkakus. The U.S. doesn't take a position on who owns the islands, but the Japan-U.S. security treaty specifies that the U.S. will help defend areas that Japan administers. And in 1972, when the U.S. handed Okinawa back to Japan, it agreed that Japan should administer the Senkakus. So we're in the absurd position of being committed to help Japan fight a war over islands, even though we don't agree that they are necessarily Japanese.

In reality, of course, there is zero chance that the U.S. will honor its treaty obligation over a few barren rocks. We're not going to risk a nuclear confrontation with China over some islands that may well be China's. But if we don't help, our security relationship with Japan will be stretched to the breaking point.

Kristof writes that there's zero chance we'd honor our treaty. Zero chance? We'd just ignore Japan instead? The problem is that a few years ago the US and Japan held joint military exercises in those selfsame Senkaku Islands, which implies that the US would in fact honor the security treaty. Especially since armed clashes between Japan and China are likely spread to take in other Japanese held areas, such as Yoniguni Islands or Okinawa. Can you imagine how Japan and the rest of the world would take it if the US did not come to the aid of its ally? I think "zero chance" is simply wrong.

Kristof writes on the sovereignty issue:

So which country has a better claim to the islands? My feeling is that it's China, although the answer isn't clearcut. Chinese navigational records show the islands as Chinese for many centuries, and a 1783 Japanese map shows them as Chinese as well. Japan purported to "discover" the islands only in 1884 and annexed them only in 1895 when it also grabbed Taiwan. (You can also make a case that they are terra nullis, belonging to no nation.)

Quite a few problems here. Kristof's own evidence refutes him -- Japan could not claim to discover them in 1894 if a 1783 map by Japan has them. In fact as the pro-PRC Wiki page notes, the governor of Okinawa had requested their inclusion into the Japanese empire in 1885. Japan finally incorporated the islands in Jan of 1895, prior to the annexation of Formosa. As I have noted many times, prior to the announcement of the possibility of oil there in 1968, both PRC and ROC maps showed the islands as either Japanese or lying outside the territory of China. This whole dispute is a post-1969 fantasy retrojected into the past. Sorry, Nick, but this dispute is very clear. UPDATE: The Washington Times has published an excerpt from the 1969 map.

But more importantly, the whole way sovereignty is thought about here is ridiculous. The Chinese claim is like one of those medieval European claims that were revived to use as a pretext to annex a neighboring kingdom: "My fourth cousin's second wife was your great-great-great uncle's daughter therefore I own your kingdom!" The current Chinese method is like the "Courts of Reunion" that the Sun King used to claim adjacent states, manufacturing current sovereignty by retrojecting modern claims on sovereignty into selectively reconstructed history.

Essentially, using a Qing claim to support the current PRC claim is like arguing that Turkey owns Egypt because the Ottoman empire once did. The Ottomans are gone and so is their sovereignty. The Qing are gone and their empire has dissolved into independent states. The difference is that after 1911 Chinese nationalists decided to inflate China out to the old borders -- much as if Turkish nationalists had decided to reconstruct a Greater Turkey along the old Ottoman lines, and were currently trying to annex Serbia, Greece, Egypt, and Jordan. We are still living with the consequences of post-Qing Chinese re-expansionism and will be for another 50 years, through the next several rounds of hegemonic warfare.

Another sovereignty issue is one for that stream of Taiwan nationalists who argue based on the Qing claim that Taiwan owns the Senkakus. My response would be that if you recognize Qing sovereignty as extending into the modern era and shaping claims to the Senkakus, then you recognize PRC sovereignty over Taiwan based on the Qing claim. You can't pick and choose among Qing claims just because they suit your appetite for expansion. Taiwan doesn't own the Senkakus.

The last paragraph is a bit of mainstream media hubris:

As Chinese nationalism grows, as China's navy and ability to project power in the ocean gains, we could see some military jostling over the islands. You read it here first.

No, we didn't read it here first, Nicholas. This blog has been pointing this out for several years, and many others were there before I was, including the US and Japanese Navy officers who put together joint exercises in the Senkakus. As is always with the mainstream media, you guys are way behind academia, the government, and the blogs.

 

[KS]

They have the means and more importantly the will to impress their 'claims' upon the other party.

There is no use 'grudging' them.

 

[Ray]

Then I'm guessing in this case that your argument also applies to Taiwan? Are they "Fudging"history too?

Its funny how Taiwan has many claims that match China's, even in the South China Sea, yet I never here you calling them "bullies" too... Is their evidence "fairytale s" too?

I bet you'll probably ignore these questions too.

Are you aware that Taiwan was shown in Chinese map as 'Eastern Barbarians'?

 

[J20!]

Are you aware that Taiwan was shown in Chinese map as 'Eastern Barbarians'?

I bet you'll probably ignore these questions too.

Apparently I'd win that bet. Stop with the sidetracking and answer the questions Ray.

 

[Ray]

Apparently I'd win that bet. Stop with the sidetracking and answer the questions Ray.

Dont get cute.


What questions?

You quote some source that you attribute to me and yet you do not let me know!