The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 9 | Issue 1 | Number 1 | Article ID 3464 | Jan 03, 2011

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Small Islands – Big Problem: Senkaku/Diaoyu and the Weightof History and Geography in China-Japan Relations　　小さな諸島−大きな問題−−尖閣／釣魚と日中関係における歴史と地理の重さ•Japanese, Korean and Chinese texts available

Gavan McCormack

Small Islands – Big Problem:Senkaku/Diaoyu and the Weight ofHistory and Geography in China-Japan Relations

This article is available in translation inJapanese, Korean, and Chinese.

Gavan McCormack

“Senkaku Islands Colonization Day”

In December 2010, the Okinawan city ofIshigaki (within which Japanese administrativelaw incorporates these islands) adopted aresolution to declare 14 January to be “SenkakuIslands Colonization Day.” The “ColonizationDay” is intended to commemorate theincorporation of the islands by cabinet decision116 years earlier. China immediately protested.

Ishigaki was following the model of theShimane Prefectural Assembly, which in 2005declared a “Takeshima Day” in commemorationof the Japanese state’s incorporation 100 yearsearlier of the islands known in Japan asTakeshima but in South Korea (which occupiesand administers them) as Tokdo. That Shimanedecision prompted fierce protests in SouthKorea. The Ishigaki decision seems likely to dono less in China. Why should these barrenrocks, inhabited only by endangered short-tailed albatross, be of such importance tootherwise great powers? Whose islands arethey? How should the contest over them beresolved?

The Incident

On the morning of 7 September 2010, theChinese fishing trawler Minjinyu 5179 collided,twice, with Japanese Coastguard vessels in thevicinity of the islands known in Japan as theSenkaku and in China and Taiwan as Diaoyu orDiaoyutai.1 These islands are under effectiveJapanese control, but are claimed also by Chinaand Taiwan. Zhan Qixiong, captain of theChinese vessel, refused to obey the Japaneseorders to withdraw. By Japanese accounts, hedeliberately rammed his ship into theCoastguard vessels and was only laterapprehended and sent to prosecutors foroffence against Japanese law (interfering withofficials conducting their duties).

The island group is made up of 8 rocky,uninhabited outcrops, a sprinkling of poppyseeds on the East China Sea. The largest ofthem about 4 square kms, they are about equi-distant (less than 200 kms) to the coast ofTaiwan and to the Japanese Okinawan islandsof Yonaguni and Ishigaki, or a little over 400kms from Okinawa’s main island. On the edgeof the Chinese continental shelf, they areseparated from Okinawa by the deep waters(over 2,000 metres) of the Okinawa Trough.

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Following the seizure of the Chinese trawlerand the arrest of captain Zhan, the Japanesegovernment stated its position: there was “noroom for doubt” that the islands were anintegral part of Japanese territory: (wagakuni

no koyu no ryodo), there was no territorialdispute or diplomatic issue, and captain Zhanwas simply being investigated for breaches ofJapanese law.

Yet plainly there was doubt. China (both thePeople’s Republic and the Republic, or Taiwan)disputes the Japanese claim to sovereignty.2

The US, which occupied the islands between1945 and 1972, was carefully agnostic abouttheir sovereignty when returning to Japan“administrative rights” over them, and it hasreiterated that stance on many subsequentoccasions.3 As re-stated in the context of the2010 clash, the US position is that sovereigntyis something to be settled between the claimantparties.4 Furthermore, while Japan hasexercised “administrative rights” and thuseffective control since 1972, it has blocked allactivities on the islands, by its own or othernationals, thereby acting as if sovereignty wasindeed contested. Thus, with two Chinesegovernments denying it, and the US refusing toendorse it, it is surely whistling in the wind forJapan to insist there is “no dispute” overownership. Whoever initiated them, the clashesof that day raised a large question-mark overthe islands.

As news of the clash exploded into the media ofthe region, the Japanese ambassador to Chinawas summoned to hear China’s protests,demonstrations spread quickly in both Chineseand Japanese cities, diplomatic contacts weresuspended, rare earth exports from Chinastopped, concerts and student exchange visitsinvolving many thousands of both Chinese andJapanese young people cancelled. Defenceplanners on all sides dusted off plans forachieving, and if necessary demonstrating,military superiority.

Responding to Japanese claims that there was“no dispute” and that procedures against theChinese Captain would proceed with dueseriousness and deliberation (shukushuku)under Japanese law, Chinese Premier Wen

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Jiabao, in New York on 21 September,declared, “When it comes to sovereignty,national unity and territorial integrity, Chinawill not yield or compromise."

The formal Japanese position – that there wasno dispute – rang hollow from the outset. Japanhandled the crisis in a characteristic andrevealing way, by seeking first of all to escalateit from a bilateral dispute over borders to asecurity matter involving the United States.Following a meeting on 23 September, ForeignMinister Maehara declared that US Secretaryof State Hillary Clinton had given him theassurance that the Senkakus were “subject toArticle 5 of the US-Japan Security Treaty,” theclause of the treaty that authorizes the US toprotect Japan in the case of an armed attack “interritories under the administration of Japan.”5

What Clinton actually said, however, is notclear. Only weeks earlier, the US hadcommunicated its reluctance to back Japan’sSenkaku claims.6 Not only did the StateDepartment account of the September meetingnot mention the pledge claimed by Maeharabut its spokesman repeated the formal USgovernment position urging the two countriesto resolve the dispute and stated, “We don’ttake a position on the sovereignty of theSenkakus.”7 Despite Maehara’s claim, itseemed more likely, as Nicholas Kristof of theNew York Times put it on 10 September, thatthere was “zero chance the US would activateAmpo [the security treaty] over such an issue.”Weeks later, however, at a joint pressconference in Honolulu with Foreign MinisterMaehara, Clinton did specifically affirm theapplicability of Article 5 to the Senkakus.8 Itmeans that the US re-thought and reversed itsposition in the space of just over a month,evidently under keen Japanese pressure,committing itself to the possible use of force,i.e., war, in defence of islands on whose legalownership it took no position.9

However, despite extracting the ambiguous US

backing, the Japanese determination to subjectCaptain Zhan to the full weight of the Japaneselaw quickly crumbled. On 25 September,following an “autonomous decision of localprosecutors” that was almost universallyassumed actually to have been made at thehighest levels of government in Tokyo, Zhanwas released and returned home. China’sForeign Ministry demanded an apology andcompensation, and Japan’s Foreign Ministrycounter-claimed for damage caused to itsvessels by the collision. The doyen of Japan’sliberal media, the Asahi’s editor-in-chief (andformer Beijing correspondent) FunabashiYoichi, lamented that while Japan had been“clumsy,” China was to be blamed for its“diplomatic shock and awe” campaign that hadbrought the two giant neighbour countries to“ground zero, [so that] the landscape is a bleak,vast nothingness.”10 Though Funabashi couchedhis message in the measured tones of thel iberal inte l lectual seeking China’sunderstanding, Japanese resentment at China’sdramatic economic growth and increasedinternational standing was palpable.

It was widely reported in Japan that the“international community” supported Japan’sposition. Although levels of internationalsupport are irrelevant to the merits of the case,there is little doubt that, in East and SoutheastAsia, anxiety about China’s dramatic rise fedinto support for the reassertion of US alliance-based “containment.” As the Sydney MorningHerald’s China correspondent wrote, “One byone, China’s neighbours are welcoming thereassertion of US power to balance that ofChina.”11 Other media too rallied to theJapanese cause, or more broadly to the anti-China cause. Weeks after the incident, the NewYork Times quoted with approval the view ofChina as “increasingly narrow-minded, self-interested, truculent, hyper-nationalist,”12 andadjectives such as “truculent,” and “arrogant”began to attach almost as a matter of course to“China” in mainstream Western media. TheCold War was back.

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However, when Defence Minister KitazawaToshimi toured regional capitals in an attemptto drum up diplomatic support, he apparentlyfailed to find a single Defence Minister ready tooffer it.13 When Foreign Minister Maehara fileda complaint against Google, demanding itremove the Chinese names from its maps of theislands, not only did Google refuse but theattempt to censor the international media madeJapan look both desperate and, in a sense,“Chinese” in i ts heavy-handed bid tointimidate.14 Furthermore, Japan’s “humiliatingretreat” (as the New York Times put it on 25September) by its sudden release of theChinese captain signalled to the region that itwas actually lacking in the sovereignty it soloudly declared.15

Despite the resolution of the immediate crisisby Captain Zhan’s release, nationalisticpassions and fears, once stirred, were noteasily settled. Demonstrations in both countriescontinued. The tabloid daily Fuji in Tokyo (1October) denounced what it called Japan’s“appeasement (dogeza) diplomacy and widelysyndicated pundits thundered that “If Japangives in on the Senkakus, China will come andgrab Okinawa next” (Sakurai Yoshiko) or that“What China’s doing is no different fromgangsters. If Japan does nothing, it will sufferthe same fate as Tibet” (Tokyo Governor,Ishihara Shintaro).16 Tamogami Toshio, formerChief of Staff of the Air Self-Defence Forcesand now president of the “Ganbare Nippon! [Gofor it Japan!] All-Japan Action Committee” alsostressed the “threat” to Okinawa: “China isclearly aiming to annex Okinawa. So we needto put a stop to it.”17

Such views were by no means confined to theright. Apart from the liberal Asahi referred toabove, in general the left-right political dividein Japan dissolved into an “all Japan” mediafront on this issue. A broad national mediaconsensus supported the Japanese official storyof its Senkaku rights, protested China’s threatto Japan’s sovereign territory and insisted on

the importance of the security alliance with theUS in order to cope with China’s challenge.Japan’s leading financial daily declared thatJapan had to cooperate with the United Statesand Europe in putting pressure on China tobecome a “responsible ,” “c iv i l ized”country.18 When the chairman of the JapaneseCommunist Party joined the chorus declaringthe islands to be Japan’s sovereign territorythat must be defended, the Chief CabinetSecretary and the heads of both present andpast ruling parties (the DPJ and the LDP)congratulated him.19 The widely syndicatedSato Masaru lamented the blows Japan’s“national interest” had suffered because ofamateurish diplomacy and called for a firmJapanese response in kind, “as an imperialistcountry” to “China’s imperialism.”20

Sato’s role merits attention because of hisunique stance as a former Ministry of ForeignAffairs researcher and self-proclaimed rightistembraced also by the “liberal” media andintelligentsia. As of 2010, he was the mostprominent advocate of the Okinawan anti-basecause in mainland Japan, with regular columnsin Sekai and in Shukan kinyobi (which evenpublished a special issue under his editorshipon 12 November 2010), as well as a longrunning monthly column in the Okinawan dailyRyukyu shimpo.2 1 Yet Sato’s agenda ofopposition to any new Marine base in Okinawadid not f it well with his insistence onconfronting China as one imperialist power toanother. With his bottom line, as I have arguedelsewhere,22 being reinforcement of theJapanese national interest, the Henoko anti-base struggle was for him essentially a meansto that end. Enhanced US-Japan militarycooperation was not objectionable per se butthe way Tokyo was proceeding to foist the newbase on Okinawa, by discrimination, was. ForJapan to adopt, as he urged, a resolutely“imperialist” stance in opposing China requiredthat it reinforce military positions (whether USor Japanese, or some combination) in Okinawa,especially in the Okinawan islands closest to

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China.

The Okinawan vulnerability to such “nationalinterest” logic in the wake of the Septemberincident became apparent as prominentOkinawan figures, including Ginowan mayorand candidate for Okinawan Governor, IhaYoichi, and distinguished author and Okinawanspokesman Medoruma Shun, adopted itsframe.23 It became possible to imagine thatSenkaku/Diaoyu might even serve as the axis ofOkinawan conversion to greater understandingof the national government’s defence andsecurity agenda. The abandonment of theHenoko project might be tolerable to thedefence bureaucracy in Tokyo and Washingtonif it was combined with readiness to reinforceUS-Japanese mi l i tary presence andcontainment of China. To the extent that“China threat” perceptions spread, Okinawa’sa n t i - b a s e m o v e m e n t w o u l d s u r e l yweaken.24 Hatoyama’s 2009 project to turn theEast China Sea into a “Sea of Fraternity”looked in 2010 more likely to degenerate into aDPJ project for building confrontation andtension.

As the justice or legality of Japan’s claims wentunchallenged and, for the first time in thepost-1945 era anti-China sentiment began tospread at the mass level, the political dividinglines between left and right were swallowed bya wave of chauvinism. Blaming Captain Zhan(and the government of China) for reducing thebilateral relationship to the devastation of“ground zero,” Japanese elites lost the capacityto appreciate the Chinese position or to achievea self-critical awareness of their own.

The History

From the 14th century, Chinese documentsrecord and name the islands as importantreference points on the ancient maritimetrading route between coastal China (Foochow)and Okinawa.25 The designated route for tributemissions between the Ryukyu kingdom and the

Chinese court during the Ming and Qingdynasties lay via these small islands. TheJapanese geographer, Hayashi Shihei, followsthe Chinese convention, including the islands,with their Chinese names, as Chinese territory,in his 1785 map.

Hayashi Shihei’s map from his Sangokutsuran zusetsu

(General outline of three countries), 178526

The near universal conviction in Japan withwhich the islands today are declared an“integral part of Japan’s territory” isremarkable for its disingenuousness. These areislands unknown in Japan till the late 19th

century (when they were identified from Britishnaval references), not declared Japanese till1895, not named till 1900, and that name notrevealed publicly until 1950.27

The determination in 2010 not to yield one inchon the Senkaku issue may have owedsomething to the nagging fear that China’sclaim, if admitted on Senkaku, might quicklyextend to Okinawa. Japan’s claim to theSenkakus followed shortly after it hadestablished its claim over Okinawa bydetaching the Ryukyu kingdom, tied to thecourt in Beijing by a four century-long “tribute”

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relationship, from its place in the tribute order.The despatch of a Japanese naval expedition toTaiwan in 1874 to “protest” the killing ofRyukyuan (Miyako Island) fishermen, passingwithout effective protest from China, was takenby Japanese leaders to signal for internationallaw purposes that China acquiesced in Japan’sclaims. It was followed, in 1879, by extinctionof the kingdom and Okinawa’s incorporation asa Japanese prefecture. The years of the rise ofthe modern Japanese state were the years ofcrisis and decline for the Chinese imperialstate, when the country was subject toimperialist encroachment, catastrophic warsand internal rebellions. The revolutionarymodern Japanese state, founded in 1868,exp lo i ted China ’s weakness and i t smultifaceted crises to join the ranks ofimperialists, expanding at imperial China’scost, by wresting from it first the RyukyuIslands, then Taiwan and the Senkakus, thenNortheast China, till eventually it plunged theregion into full-scale war.

On the largest island of the Senkaku group, aJapanese businessman began to make a livingfrom 1884, collecting albatross feathers andtortoise shells.28 However, his requests to thegovernment in Tokyo for a formal leaseholdgrant of the territory were refused for over adecade until war between Japan and Chinafrom 1894, and the series of Japanese victoriesthat defined it, persuaded the Japanese cabinetin January 1895 to declare them Japaneseterritory, part of Yaeyama County, Okinawaprefecture. The Japanese claim rested on thedoctrine of terra nullius – the presumption thatthe islands were uninhabited and not claimedor controlled by any other country. However, itstretches common sense to see the absence ofChinese protest or counter-claim as decisiveunder the circumstance of war, the more so asthe appropriation of the Senkakus was followedjust three months later by the acquisition ofTaiwan, under the Treaty of Shimonoseki.

Nearly 40 years have passed since Kyoto

University’s Inoue Kiyoshi reached hisconclusion that, “Even though the [Senkaku]islands were not wrested from China under atreaty, they were grabbed from it by stealth,without treaty or negotiations, takingadvantage of victory in war.”29 It is a view thattoday appears to have little support amongJapanese scholars who, in general, unite indeclaring the appropriation of the islandslegitimate and in accord with international law,dismissing as irrelevant the circumstancesunder which Japan made its claim and (withfew exceptions) expressing outrage that Chinahas not accepted their reading of law orhistory.30

From 1895 to 1945, that is to say from the firstto the second Japan-China war, China was in noposition to contest Japan’s claims. A Japanesecommunity of several hundred people settledon the Senkaku group, where, inter alia, theyran a dried bonito (katsuobushi) factory, andthat settlement continued for almost a half-century till 1942. After its defeat in the Asia-Pacific War, Japan was obliged by the PotsdamDeclaration to surrender all territories seizedthrough war, but it insisted then, and hascontinued to insist ever since, that theSenkakus were part of Okinawa (and thereforenot a spoil of war).The difficulty with this isthat they plainly were not part of Ryukyu’s “36islands” in pre-modern times nor when theprefecture was established in 1879, being onlytacked on to it 16 years later.

After the Japanese surrender in 1945, the USmilitary took effective control of Okinawa andthe Senkakus, and international attention onlyfocussed again on the islands from 1968, whena UN (ECAFE) survey mission reported likelyoil and gas reserves in their adjacentwaters,31 and 1969, when the US agreed toreturn sovereignty over Okinawa to Japan. Forthe nearby Senkaku island group, it was carefulto stress that what was being transferred toJapan were “administrative rights,” notsovereignty.32

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As Kimie Hara of Canada’s Waterloo Universitypoints out, the US played a significant role inthe creation and manipulation of the “Senkakuproblem”: first in 1951 and then again in 1972.Under the 1951 San Francisco Treaty post-warsettlement, it planted the seeds of multipleterritorial disputes between Japan and itsneighbours: Japan and 90 percent communistChina over Okinawa/Senkaku, Japan and 100percent communist USSR over the “Northernterritories,” Japan and 50 percent communistKorea over the island of Takeshima (Korean:Tokdo). These disputed territories served “as‘wedges' securing Japan in the Western bloc, or'walls' dividing it from the communist sphere ofinfluence.”3 3 Again in 1972 by leavingunresolved the question of ownership of theSenkaku islands when returning Okinawa toJapanese administration, US Cold War plannersanticipated that the Senkakus would functionas a “wedge of containment” of China. Theyunderstood that a “territorial dispute betweenJapan and China, especially over islands nearOkinawa, would render the US militarypresence in Okinawa more acceptable toJapan.”34 The events of 2010 proved them far-sighted.

On the eve of the reversion of Okinawa (theSenkakus included) to Japanese administration,both the People’s Republic of China and theRepublic of China laid counter-claims. Disputeflared, only cooling when, in 1978, Chineseleader Deng Xiaoping made his circuit-breakingoffer:35

“It does not matter if this questionis shelved for some time, say tenyears. Our generation is not wiseenough to find a common languageon th is quest ion . Our nextgeneration will certainly be wiser.They will surely find a solutionacceptable to all.”36

Despite occasional lapses, and a steady

increase in the number of Chinese fishing boatstaking from the waters around the islands (upto 400 per year), that “gentleman’s agreement”held until September 2010, when Japanapparently repudiated it by arresting theChinese captain, insisting there was no disputeand refusing to listen to China’s protests.

The Consequences

There is no question but that the Japanesegovernment lost face by “giving in” to Chinesepressure and releasing Captain Zhan. But theincident also helped boost important agendas,notably concerning Japan’s relationship withthe US, the Okinawa “base relocation”problem, and future military posture.

By attaching priority to extracting an Americanpromise to “protect” the Senkakus, PrimeMinister Kan Naoto’s government showed itsdetermination to continue Japan’s “ClientState” status.37 The initiatives of Kan’spredecessor, Hatoyama Yukio, for closer Japan-China cooperation in the formation of an EastAsian Community, became a thing of the past.Instead, Kan used the events to precipitatecloser integration of Japanese and US militaryplanning and operations in the Western Pacificand East Asia, and to cooperate in grandregional war games that were plainly intendedto intimidate China.

Adding “China threat” to the existing “NorthKorea threat” helped advance a securityagenda under Kan’s DPJ that had beenunthinkable under its Liberal-Democratic partypredecessors, though the latter were widelyassumed to have been far more hawkish. On 27August, just weeks before the clashes at sea,Prime Minister Kan accepted the report of hisspecial committee on security in the new era(Shin Ampo kon),38 and new National DefenceProgram Guidelines were adopted by theCabinet on 17 December 2010.39 Under theGuidelines, to cover the decade commencing in2011, Japan was to substitute a “dynamic

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defence force” for the existing “basic defenceforce” concept, enhance existing security linkswith the US, and substantially reinforce SelfDefence Force presence in the outlying islandsin the East China sea. Plans were reportedlyunderway to beef up the current level of SDFpresence in Okinawa from 2,100 to 20,000,with the first contingent, 200-strong, to be sentin the near future to Yonaguni and closeattention paid also to the islands of Miyako andIshigaki.40 Military critic Maeda Tetsuo read theplan as the agenda of a renascent military greatpower, freed of the restraints of theconstitution’s “peace” clause (Article 9), whichwould, in effect, be revised or cancelled,41 andas a contradiction of the Democratic Party’sown defence principles. He wrote:

“These hawkish new DefenceGuidelines appear to contradict theDPJ’s own basic stance. Thesubstitution of “dynamic defenceforce” for “basic defence force”means in effect abandonment ofe x c l u s i v e d e f e n c e a n dtransformation (of the defenceforces) to a “fighting SDF.”42

Yomiuri shimbun, 11 November 2010

For Okinawa, the Senkaku incident and the Kangovernment’s military build-up program (in thecontext of worsening confrontation with China)held especially serious implications. A glance atthe map is sufficient to show that access fromthe heartland of China to the Pacific Oceanrequires passage of channels through theNansei islands between Kyushu and Taiwan.The international waters of the Miyako Strait(between Okinawa Island and Miyako Island)are crucial to China’s Pacific Ocean access, andin March and April 2010, several large Chinesenaval flotillas passed through them.43

Even before the Senkaku clash, the Kangovernment had brushed aside evidence ofnear total opposition from within the prefectureand declared its determination to build inNorthern Okinawa a new base for the USMarine Corps whose major role would clearlybe to “deter” China (and North Korea). Afterthe September events, the Kan government

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only hardened its stance. By involving Okinawain the nation-wide mood of fear and hostility toChina post-September 2010, Tokyo might wellreasonably expect that opposition to the Marinebase project would weaken. The Kangovernment and defence and foreign affairsofficials in Tokyo must have taken heart whenthe Okinawan Prefectural Assembly and theCity Assemblies of Miyako and Ishigaki(geographically closest to Senkaku, whichadministratively forms part of Ishigaki City)adopted unanimous resolutions affirming thatthe islands did indeed “belong to Japan” andcalling for Japan to be resolute (kizentaru) indefending them,44 and when prominent “anti-base” figures either supported or elsedemanded Tokyo take a stronger stance indefence of the Japanese position. The victory inthe Okinawan prefectural gubernatorialelection (28 November) of incumbent NakaimaHirokazu might also be seen as favourable toKan’s base construction agenda. Even thoughNakaima had committed himself to demandingno new base be built in Okinawa, he had madethat shift only with palpable reluctance,without specifically renouncing his earlierreadiness to allow the base to be constructedprovided only it be moved a short distance, say100 metres or so, offshore.

Despite the evidence of a convergence ofOkinawan and mainland thinking in insistenceo n J a p a n e s e s o v e r e i g n t y o v e r t h eSenkaku/Diaoyu islands and blaming China forthe clash, there were nevertheless significantdifferences. First, Okinawans had learned fromtheir experience of 1945 that armies do notdefend people, and so tended to believe thatany defence of the Senkakus that rested onmilitarizing them and embedding them inhostile confrontation between Japan and Chinawould expose Okinawa to greater threat ratherthan improve its security.45 It is also the case,as defeated gubernatorial candidate Ihapointed out, that Okinawans have a longhistorical memory of friendly relations withChina, and in contrast to mainland fears and

anxieties, many Okinawans rather feel “close”to it.46 Second, for Okinawans, the Senkakuissue is not so much one of national security asof livelihood. It is the fishing grounds aroundthe islands that are precious, rather thannational security considerations or seabed oiland gas reserves.47 As Okinawa InternationalUniversity’s Sato Manabu put it, “It is obviousthat Okinawa has to find a future as an “open”border land. Okinawa has to make every effortto build stronger ties with neighbouringnations, otherwise we will be cornered.”48

The Prospect

Japanese scholar Wada Haruki insists it is“idiotic” for Japan and China both to insist onexclusive (koyu) territorial r ights touninhabited rocks.49 Though uninhabited,however, the islands hold considerablestrategic and probably also economicsignificance, the former because of theirlocation at the heart of the Northeast Asiaregion, and the latter because of theaccompanying exclusive economic rights to theresources of hundreds of square kilometres ofthe East China Sea . Confrontat ion ,progressively militarized and in a “zero-sum”approach to territorial and resource matters,would be a recipe for disaster for both and bothare surely well aware of the risks of allowingthat to happen.

It was too easy in Japan to dismiss anti-Japanese sentiment and demonstrations inChina as a device by an authoritarian regime todivert attention from itself, and thus to turn ablind eye to the grievances and suspicionswidely felt there. The way that anti-Chinapassions swept Japan following the Septemberclashes would only confirm the worst of thoseChinese fears and suspicions.

While the Japanese media united in projecting apicture of China as threatening and “other,” itpaid minimal attent ion ei ther to thecircumstances surrounding the Japanese claim

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to the islands or to the reasons for therecrudescence of suspicion of Japan in China. Ittook it for granted that Japan “owned” theislands, concentrating its attention only onwhether or not captain Zhan had deliberatelyrammed the Coastguard vessels and who mighthave leaked the apparent film footage of theevents that transpired. Few expressed anyhesitation over Japan’s trashing the Deng“freeze” agreement that was the basis forChina-Japan accommodation, or over thecontempt with which the government metChina’s claims by denying they existed. Norwas there sign of dissent when respectedopinion leaders accused China of truculence ordiplomatic “shock and awe.” Virtually nowherewere there to be found discussions of thepossible “blowback” aspect of the events, i.e.,that they might simply have brought to thesurface unassuaged Chinese suspicions overJapan’s long neglected or insufficientlyresolved war responsibility, the high-leveldenials of Nanjing, the periodic right-wingattempts to sanitize history texts, the refusal toaccept formal legal responsibility for thevictims of the Asia-wide “Comfort Women”slavery system and the wartime forced laborissue, and the periodic visits by PrimeMinisters (notably Koizumi, 2001-2006) toYasukuni. Zhou Enlai is said to have remarkedwhen deciding that China would not seek warreparations from Japan, “We will strive toforget, but you, please do not forget.” Japanshould not forget.

The most detailed study in English of theDiaoyu/Senkaku issue, published just a decadeago, concluded that here were only fourpossible ways in which it might be resolved: bySino-Japanese agreement, unilateral Japaneseaction, war, and referral to the InternationalCourt of Justice.50 Of these, he insisted, the firstwas the only “realistic” way forward. Blockingit for nearly three decades has been Japaneseintransigence and insistence on exclusive“effective control.” Under the Kan government,Japan has moved away from the Hatoyama

vision of cooperation in the construction of an“East Asian Community”, but the antagonisticapproach to questions of territory, resources,and environment can hardly offer any wayforward.

Peace and security in East Asia depend on thegovernments and peoples of the region takingthe initiative to remove the “wedges ofconta inment” that US p lanners le f tambiguously and threateningly embedded inthe state system they designed more than half acentury ago.

Bridge of Nations Bell (1458)

(Okinawa Prefectural Museum, Replica inShuri Castle)

For Okinawa the Senkaku/Diaoyu events serveas a message to think again about the history ofthe islands’ links with (mainland) Japan, Chinaand Korea. Once the flourishing independentkingdom of Ryukyu, whose aspiration was toserve as the bridge linking the neighbouringstates and peoples, Okinawa was subjectedtwice to forceful appropriation by mainlandJapan, first in 1609 and then, decisively, in1879 when its long and friendly links withChina were finally severed. Modern history did

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not deal kindly with Okinawa, and today, aswaves of chauvinism and militarism again washon its shores, only by returning to the vision ofthe islands as uniquely close to China, Koreaand mainland Japan (as written on the great“World Bridging” Bankoku shinryo bell, cast inthe year 1458 and now on display in theprefectural museum), can it hope to calm andsurvive the gathering storms.51

Gavan McCormack is emeritus professor ofAustralian National University, an Asia-PacificJournal coordinator, and author, most recently,of Client State: Japan in the American Embrace(New York, 2007, Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing2008). He has written extensively on this siteon matters to do with Okinawa and the US-Japan relationship. He delivered the Japaneseversion of this paper to the Okinawa Forum,jointly sponsored and convened by Japan Focusand Okinawa University at Okinawa Universityin December 2010.

R e c o m m e n d e d c i t a t i o n : G a v a nMcCormack, Small Islands – Big Problem:Senkaku/Diaoyu and the Weight of History andGeography in China-Japan Relations, The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 1 No 1, January 3,2011.

Articles on related subjects:

•Wada Haruki, From the Firing at YeonpyeongIsland to a Comprehensive Solution to theProblems of Division and War in Korea

•Tim Beal, Korean Brinkmanship, AmericanProvocation, and the Road to War: themanufacturing of a crisis

•Nan Kim and John McGlynn, West Sea Crisisin Korea

*Wada Haruki, Resolving the China-Japan

Conflict Over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands

*Peter Lee, High Stakes Gamble as Japan,China and the U.S. Spar in the East and SouthChina Sea

*Tanaka Sakai, Rekindling China-JapanConflict: The Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands Clash

Notes

1 References in the following text to “Senkaku”carry no implication as to sovereignty or“proper” name.

2 The question of Taiwan deserves fulltreatment but is passed over in this short essaysave to note that while the majority (andcurrent government) in Taiwan persist inclaiming sovereignty a minority concedes it toJapan, and that, when a collision between aTaiwanese ship, the “Lian-ho,” and a Japanesecoastguard vessel led to the sinking of theformer in June 2008, the then mayor of Taipei,as of 2010 president of Taiwan, Ma Ying-jeou,spoke of war as a last resort for defence ofnational sovereignty and Japan apologized andpaid compensation.

3 Kimie Hara, Cold War Frontiers in the Asia-Pacific, New York and London, Routledge,2007, especially chapter 7 “The Ryukyus:Okinawa and the Senkaku/Diaoyu disputes.”

4 See Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “The BasicView on the Sovereignty over the SenkakuIslands,” (accessed 17 December 2010); also“Senkaku islands Dispute, ” Wikipedia (17November 2010)

5 “Clinton: Senkakus subject to security pact,”Japan Times, 25 September 2010.

6 “US fudges Senkaku security pact status,”Japan Times, 17 August 2010.

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7 Ibid. For details, Peter Lee, "High StakesGamble as Japan, China and the U.S. Spar inthe East and South China Seas," The Asia-Pacific Journal, 43-1-10, 25 October, 2010.

8 “Joint Press availability,” Department of State,27 October 2010, Link.

9 It is even possible that Tokyo might haveorchestrated the incident at sea in order “toforce an unenthusiastic Obama administrationto side with Japan on the Senkakus.” (PeterLee, cit.)

10 Funabashi Yoichi, “Japan-China relationsstand at ground zero,” Asahi shimbun, 9October 2010, reproduced at East Asia Forum,20 October, 2010.

11 John Garnaut, “China detonates regionalgoodwill,” Sydney Morning Herald, 23-24October 2010.

12 “Taking harder stance toward China, Obamalines up allies,” New York Times, 25 October2010.

13 Visiting Vietnam, Indonesia, Australia,Thailand, and Singapore, (Mo Ban fu, “Nitchushototsu no yoha wo kakudai sasete wanaranai,” Sekai, December 2010, pp. 116-123.)

14 “Senkaku Islands dispute,” Wikipedia, cit.

15 Suggesting such a view: Nakano Seigo, “Datodatta chiken handan,” Okinawa Times, 4October 2010.

16 Sakurai in Shukan posuto, 8 October 2010,and Ishihara in Shukan bunshun, 7 October2010, quoted in Mark Schreiber, “Weeklies,tabloids hawkish over China,” Japan Times, 10October 2010.

17 Quoted in Yuka Hayashi, “China row fuelsJapan’s right,” Wall Street Journal, 29September 2010.

18 “Bei-O to kyocho shi Chugoku o sekinintaikoku ni michibiite,” Nihon keizai shimbun, 1October 2010.

19 “Senkaku mondai – Nihon no ryoyu warekishiteki, kokusaihoteki ni seito,” Akahata, 5October 2010, and on the congratulations,Akahata, 10 October 2010.

20 Sato Masaru, “Chugoku teikokushugi ni taikosuru ni wa,” Chuo Koron, November 2010, pp.70-81. In similar vein, Sato called (“Honnekoramu,” Tokyo shimbun, 26 November 2010)for Japan to respond to China force with force,making clear its intent to drop the CabinetLegal Bureau’s interpretat ion of theconstitution so as to be able to join the US incollective security missions, thereby deepeningthe alliance with the US.

21 For my general reflections on Sato Masaru:"Ideas, Identity and Ideology in ContemporaryJapan: The Sato Masaru Phenomenon," 1November 2010.

22 Ibid.

23 Neither Medoruma nor Iha appear to doubtthe historical legitimacy of Japan’s Senkakupossession. For Iha, Senkaku is “indisputably apart of Okinawa,” and Chinese authoritiesneeded to deal with Chinese fishermen andcontrol anti-Japanese demonstrations(interview with Iwakuni Yasumi, 25 September2010). For Medoruma too, China was to blamefor the September clash, and the Japanesegovernment to be criticized only for its “weak-kneed” response. (“Chugoku gyosen no senchoshakuho ni tsuite,” Uminari no shima kara, 25September 2010, link) For fuller discussion, seeMedia debugger, “Senkaku=Chogyoto omeguru shogensetsu hihan (4) Shinryakukokuno ‘kokumin no seishi’ o ninau ‘oru-Japan’gensho,” 4 November 2010.

24 Kim Sonho, “Chugoku kyoiron fusshoku o,”Okinawa Taimusu. 1 October 2010.

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25 For brief histories of the islands and analysesof their disputed status, see Inoue Kiyoshi,Senkaku retto – Chogyo shoto no shitekikaimei, Tokyo, Gendai hyoronsha, 1972; “Senkaku Islands dispute,” Wikipedia, cit;Wada Haruki, “Resolving the China-Japanconflict over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands,” TheAsia-Pacific Journal, 43-3-10, 25 October 2010;Taira Koji, “The China-Japan clash over theSenkaku islands,” Japan Focus, n.d. (2006 ?),and Tanaka Sakai, “Rekindling China-JapanConflict: The Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands Clash,”The Asia-Pacific Journal, 39-3-10, 27 September2010.

26 Reproduced in Wikipedia, “The Senkakuislands dispute”.

27 Unryu Suganuma, Sovereign rights andterritorial space in Sino-Japanese Relations:Irredentism and the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands,Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press, 2000,pp. 88-9. See also the home page of Ministry ofForeign Affairs, “Senkaku shoto no ryoyuken nitsuite no kihon kenkai,” link.

28 Inoue, pp. 103ff.

29 Inoue, p. 123.

3 0 The exception is Tokyo MetropolitanUniversity’s Murata Tadayoshi. See Murata,Senkaku retto/chogyoto mondai o do miru ka,Rinjin shinsho, 07, 2006. In the blogosphere,however, such anti-mainstream views areexpressed and what might be described as the“Inoue Kiyoshi line” is affirmed. See, forexample, Heito supichi ni hantai suru kai,“Daioyutai/Senkaku o meguru Nihon nokunigurumi no haigaishugi ni kogi shimasu,” 10October 2010 (link), and Media debugger,“Senkaku-Diaoyu to o meguru sho gensetsuhihan,” (link).

31 “…the shallow sea floor between Japan andTaiwan might contain one of the most prolificoil and gas reservoirs in the world, possiblycomparing favourably with the Persian Gulf

area.” United Nations Economic and SocialCouncil, Economic Commission for Asia and theFar East, Kabul, 1970, UN Doc.E/CN.11/L.239(cited Suganuma, p. 129).

32 For the documents covering this: Suganuma,pp. 135ff; Urano Tatsuo et al, Chogyotai gunto(Senkaku shoto) mondai –kenkyu shiryo kihen,Tosui shobo, 2001, pp. 250-2.

33 Kimie Hara, Cold War Frontiers in the Asia-Pacific, 2007, p. 188.

34 Kimie Hara, “The post-war Japanese peacetreaties and China’s ocean frontier problems,”American Journal of Chinese Studies, vol. 11,No. 1, April 2004, pp. 1-24, at p.23.

35 For this author’s reflections on the problemas of that time, see Jon Halliday and GavanMcCormack, Japanese Imperialism Today,London, Penguin, 1973, pp. 62-65.

36 Beijing Review, 3 November 1978 (cited inSuganuma, p. 138.)

37 For further discussion, see my Client State:Japan in the American Embrace, London andNew York, 2007, Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing,2008.

38 Arata na jidai no anzen hosho to boeiryoku nikansuru kondankai, “Árata na jidai ni okeruNihon no anzen hosho to boeiryoku no shoraikoso – ‘heiwa sozo kokka’ o mezashite,” (link)August 2010.

39 Ministry of Defence, “National DefenceProgram Guidelines, FY 2011” (accessed 17December 2010.

40 “China threat prompts plan for new GSDFunit,” The Yomiuri Shimbun, 11 November2010, link.

41 Maeda Tetsuo, “Minshuto wa senshin boei ohomuru na ka,” Sekai, November 2010, pp.113-120.

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42 Maeda Tetsuo, “Arasou jieitai ni henbo,”Ryukyu shimpo, 18 December 2010.

43 “Chinese navy’s new strategy in action,”International Institute of Strategic Studies,May 2010, link.

44 Takimoto Takumi, “Beigun kichi no kyoka toSenkaku wa kanren shinai,” Shukan kinyobi, 8October 2010, p. 19. See also Masami Ito,“Maehara again defends holding Chineseskipper,” Japan Times, 29 September 2010.

4 5 As argued by Okinawa University’sWakabayashi Chiyo, “’Kokka’ koeru hasso de,”Okinawa Taimusu, 2 October 2010.

46 Iha Yoichi, interview, Yomiuri shimbun, 23October 2010. Iha’s position nevertheless wasimplicitly contradictory since, as noted above,he insisted on Japanese sovereignty over

Senkaku.

47 Itoman Seiken, “Senkaku wa gyogyosha nomeiko,” Okinawa Taimusu, 19 October 2010.

48 Sato Manabu, personal communication, 10October 2010.

49 Wada, cit.

50 Suganuma, pp. 159-162.

51 Here I follow the sentiments of the Okinawataimusu editorialist (26 October) in “Nitchu toOkinawa – daiwa koso kankei kaizen no michi.”The inscription on the bell reads, inter alia,“The Ryukyus are paradisiacal islands perfectlypositioned in the South Seas which haveadapted Korea’s outstanding culture, areinseparably linked to China, and enjoy intimaterelationship with Japan…”

Click on the cover to order.

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