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(Redirected from Tiaoyutai Islands)
Kuba Jima (久場島) or Huangwei Yu (黃尾嶼 "Yellow Tail") is located at has an area of and a highest elevation of .[2]
Taishō Jima (大正島) or Chiwei Yu (赤尾嶼 "Red Tail") (also "Chi Yu", "Chi kan Yu", "Chi Wei Shan", "Chi Wei Dao", "Chi Wei Jiao") is located at has an area of and a highest elevation of .[3] Both the People's Republic of China and Republic of China claim it as their easternmost island.
:The US Navy used Kuba Jima/Huangwei Yu and Taisho Jima/Chiwei Yu as maneuver areas after World War II.
Kita Kojima or Beixiao Dao (北小島 "Northern Islet") is located at
and has an area of 0.31 km² (77 acres) and a highest elevation of 125 m (410 ft).[4]
Minami Kojima or Nanxiao Dao (南小島 "Southern Islet") is located at and has an area of 0.40 km² (100 acres) and a highest elevation of 139 m (456 ft).
Minami Kojima is one of the few breeding places of the rare Short-tailed Albatross.
There are also three larger rocks:
★ or Da bei xiao dao (大北小島 "Great northern small island") [5]
★ or Da nan xiao dao (大南小島 "Great southern small island")[6]
★ or Fei lai dao (飛瀬島 "Flying Shoal"), highest elevation 2m (6½ ft)[7]
The islands are currently administered by Japan as a part of Ishigaki City, Okinawa prefecture. According to both the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China on Taiwan (ROC), the islands are part of Taiwan Province (Daxi Village (大溪里), Toucheng Township, Yilan County, Taiwan Province).
When the US was to hand over the disputed islands to Japan,the PRC and ROC governments protested and reiterated their sovereignty over the islands. The ROC made the official anouncement on June 11, 1971, followed by the PRC on December 30th. Despite the Chinese protest, the United State handed over the disputed islands to Japan in 1972.
China claims that the islands were within the Ming Dynasty's sea-defense area and are a part of Taiwan.[7] According to the Chinese, China's sovereignty over the islands is dated to early 15th century, during the reign of the Ming Dynasty. The name ''Diaoyutai'' first appeared in 1403 in the Chinese book ''Voyage with the Tail Wind'', which recorded the names of the islands that voyagers had passed on a trip from Fujian to the Ryukyu Kingdom. By 1534, all the major islets of the island group had been identified and named in the book ''Record of the Imperial Envoy to Ryukyu''.7
From 1624 until 1662, Taiwan and its surrounding islands were controlled by the Dutch as a base for commerce. In 1662, the Dutch were driven out by ex-Ming Dynasty general Zheng Chenggong (more popularly known as Koxinga). Zheng Chenggong and his successors established the Kingdom of Tungning and controlled the area until 1683. That year, Zheng's grandson Zheng Ke-Shuang was defeated by Qing Dynasty forces led by Admiral Shi Lang. From then on, Qing Dynasty China gained effective control over Taiwan and its surrounding islands, including the islands in dispute today.[8]
After losing the First Sino-Japanese War, Qing China signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki on 17 April, 1895. This Unequal Treaty ceded Taiwan and its surrounding islands to Japan, although without explicitly mentioning the islands in dispute today. The formal position of China is that all the Unequal Treaties are null and void and thus the islands are still part of Taiwan Province of China.[9]
China also asserted that in 1944, the Tokyo court ruled that the islands were part of Taihoku Prefecture (Taipei Prefecture), following a dispute between Okinawa Prefecture and Taihoku Prefecture. However, the assertion was solely based on a "claim" by the president of the fishermen's association of Keelung city in 4 August, 1971. The primary source of this paragraph can be found in the journal "Modern China Studies", Issue 1, 1997 (in Simplified Chinese).[8].
Japan claims that after the Meiji Restoration, the Japanese government conducted surveys of the islands beginning in 1885 confirming no evidence that the uninhabited islands had been under Chinese control, though this conflicts with the earlier Chinese claim of the islands during the Qing Dynasty. At the time of this survey, Japan did not formally declare a claim to the islands. Instead, it waited until January 14, 1895, during the middle of the First Sino-Japanese War, to do this. Just three months prior to its military victory in the war and the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, Japan erected a marker on the islands to formally incorporate them as its territory. This decision was not made public until 1950, however.[9] Four of the islands were subsequently borrowed and developed by the Koga family with the permission of the Japanese government.
Japanese scholars claim that neither China nor Ryukyu had recognized sovereignty over the uninhabited islands. Therefore, they claim that Chinese documents only prove that Kumejima, the first inhabited island reached by the Chinese, belonged to Okinawa. Kentaro Serita (芹田健太郎) of Kobe University points out that the official history book of the Ming Dynasty compiled during the Qing Dynasty, called the ''History of Ming'' (明史), describes Taiwan in the "Stories of Foreign Countries" (外国列传). Thus, China did not control the Senkaku Islands or Taiwan during the Ming Dynasty.[10] However, supporters of China claim the Qing Dynasty gained control of Taiwan and its surrounding islands in 1683, which was 39 years after the fall of the Ming Dynasty.
In a testimonial in 1920, a diplomat from the Chinese Beiyang warlord government admitted that the islands belonged to the Yaeyama District of Okinawa prefecture since Taiwan and its surrounding islands(including the disputed islands) were ceded to Japan in 1895 in the Treaty of Shimonoseki. However, China argues that Taiwan (include its surrounding islands) is an inalienable part of China. The One-China Principle and the Taiwan Issue
Japan claims that after World War II, the islands came under the United States occupation of Okinawa. During this period, the United States and the Ryūkyū Government administered the islands and the US Navy even used Kuba-jima and Taisho-jima as maneuver areas. In 1972, sovereignty over Okinawa, and arguably the surrounding islands, was handed back to Japan as part of the Treaty of San Francisco.
Supporters of ROC reject Japan's claim, stating that the ROC government maintains sovereignty over the islands. They assert that when US forces were stationed on Taiwan during the Cold War, military maneuvers were periodically held which required the use of the islands as an aerial bombing target, and the US military applied each time to the ROC government, instead of to Japanese authorities, for authorization.
Supporters of ROC also argue that the 1954 ROC-US Mutual Defense Treaty contains wording implying that the ROC controlled the islands. The ROC government and the US later agreed to have US forces patrol the area several miles north of the island of Taiwan. Thus, the ROC had agreed to have US forces patrol the area around the islands.
★ 1978: The Japan Youth Association set up a lighthouse on the main island.
★ July 14, 1996: The Japan Youth Association builds a 5-m high, solar-powered, aluminum lighthouse on another island.
★ September 14, 1996: a US State Department spokesman referred to the US's neutral position on the Senkaku Islands issue.
★ September 26, 1996: David Chan (陳毓祥), a Hong Kong protester, drowns near the islets, after leaping off one of the protest vessels with several companions with the object of symbolizing Chinese claim of sovereignty.
★ October 7, 1996: Protesters plant the flags of the ROC and the PRC on the main island, but are later removed by Japanese authorities.
★ April 09, 1999: US Ambassador to Japan Thomas S. Foley said "we are not, as far as I understand, taking a specific position in the dispute.... we do not assume that there will be any reason to engage the security treaty in any immediate sense."
★ April 2002: The Japanese government leased Uotsuri and other islands from the purported private owners.
★ March 24, 2004: A group of Chinese activists from the PRC planned to stay on the Islands for three days. The seven people who landed on the islands were arrested by Japanese authorities for illegal entry. The Japanese Foreign Ministry forwarded a complaint to the PRC government, but the PRC in turn demanded the release of the activists. They were then sent to Japan and deported from there. Japan subsequently stated that it would prohibit anybody from landing on the islands without prior permission.
★ March 24, 2004: Adam Ereli, Deputy Spokesman at the US State Department said "The U.S. does not take a position on the question of the ultimate sovereignty of the Senkaku Diaoyu Islands."
★ February 2005: Japan planned to take ownership of a privately-owned lighthouse on Uotsuri, after it was offered to them by the owner, a fisherman living on Ishigaki, Okinawa. The lighthouse is expected to be managed by the Japanese Coast Guard.
★ February 10, 2005: On Voice of America, U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said that Japan's new assertiveness is in line with the desires of many Japanese politicians to take their country beyond its post-World War Two reliance on the United States. "It's a question of the evolution of Japanese thinking on its own. Japan has made it clear they want to resolve all of the territorial disputes by diplomatic means and that's certainly something that we agree with. Our kind of getting in the middle of it is probably not the most productive way to proceed."
★ June 2005: The ROC dispatched a ROCN frigate into disputed waters (but did not go as far as the islands) after Taiwanese fishing vessels were harassed by Japanese patrol boats. The frigate, which was carrying Legislative Yuan President Wang Jin-pyng and ROC Defense Minister Lee Jye, was not challenged and returned to Taiwan without incident. Fisheries talks between Taipei and Tokyo were held in July, but did not cover sovereignty issues.
★ March 17, 2006: Kyodo News reported the U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Thomas Schieffer, presented that he considered "the Islands as territory of Japan" in his talk in Tokyo.[10]
★ October 27, 2006: A group of activists from Hong Kong, the Action Committee for Defending the Diaoyu Islands, including Tsang Kin Shing and several members of the April Fifth Action, approched the islands in order to show the support for Chinese claims to the Senkakus. They were stopped from landing on the islands by the Japan Coast Guard.[11] Later on, the PLAN conducted a military exercise in the area.[12]
★ Sino-Japanese relations
★ China Federation for Defending the Diaoyu Islands
★ Action Committee for Defending the Diaoyu Islands
★ History of China
★ History of Taiwan
★ Okinotorishima
1.
A Directory for the Navigation of the Indian Archipelago and the Coast of China, Findlay, A.G., , , Richard Holes Laurie, ,
2.
The China Sea Directory, Vol IV., Navigating Lieutenant Frederick W. Jarrad, R.N., , , J.D.Potter for the Hydrographic Office, Admiralty, London, 1873,
3.
Sovereign Rights and Territorial Space in Sino-Japanese Relations, Unryu Suganuma, , , University of Hawaii Press, 2000,
4.
Japan's China Policy: A Relational Power Analysis, Hagström, L., , , Routledge, ,
5.
Boundary and Territory Briefing, Vol 3 No. 7., Seokwoo Lee, , , International Boundaries Research Unit, 2002,
6.
Sovereign Rights and Territorial Space in Sino-Japanese Relations, Unryu Suganuma, , , University of Hawaii Press, 2000,
7. "China's Diaoyu Islands Sovereignty is Undeniable", People's Daily, 25-05-2003. Retrieved 24-02-2007.
8. 中國領土釣魚台, DiaoyuIslands.org. Retrieved on 2007-02-26.
9. China and International Law: The Boundary Disputes, , Byron N., Tzou, Praeger/Greenwood, 1990,
10. (ja) Kyodo News, March 17, 2006[11]
11. International Herald Tribune/Associated Press, October 26, 2006 "Activist ship from Hong Kong briefly enters Japan's waters in protest over islands"
12. (ja) Nihon Keizai Shimbun, November 5, 2006, "中国、東シナ海で軍事演習中に爆発事故"
★ Suganuma, Unryu. ''Sovereign rights and territorial space in Sino-Japanese relations: Irredentism and the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands.'' Honolulu: Association for Asian Studies and University of Hawai’i Press, 2000.
★ Diaoyu Islands-China's Indisputable Territory.Foreign Affairs University
★ Basic View on Senkaku (by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
★ Article by Kiyoshi Inoue Professor of History department Kyoto University
★ Senkaku @BBC
★ Article by globalsecurity.org (with some maps)
★ Law School Article by William Heflin
★ "China's Diaoyu Islands Sovereignty is Undeniable" at People's Daily Online
★ Diaoyutai History (in Chinese)
★ Satellite image of Senkaku Islands - Google Maps
Kuba Jima/Huangwei Yu
Kuba Jima (久場島) or Huangwei Yu (黃尾嶼 "Yellow Tail") is located at has an area of and a highest elevation of .[2]
Taishō Jima/Chiwei Yu
Taishō Jima (大正島) or Chiwei Yu (赤尾嶼 "Red Tail") (also "Chi Yu", "Chi kan Yu", "Chi Wei Shan", "Chi Wei Dao", "Chi Wei Jiao") is located at has an area of and a highest elevation of .[3] Both the People's Republic of China and Republic of China claim it as their easternmost island.
:The US Navy used Kuba Jima/Huangwei Yu and Taisho Jima/Chiwei Yu as maneuver areas after World War II.
Kita Kojima/Beixiao Dao
Kita Kojima or Beixiao Dao (北小島 "Northern Islet") is located at
and has an area of 0.31 km² (77 acres) and a highest elevation of 125 m (410 ft).[4]
Minami Kojima/Nanxiao Dao
Minami Kojima or Nanxiao Dao (南小島 "Southern Islet") is located at and has an area of 0.40 km² (100 acres) and a highest elevation of 139 m (456 ft).
Minami Kojima is one of the few breeding places of the rare Short-tailed Albatross.
Other islands
There are also three larger rocks:
★ or Da bei xiao dao (大北小島 "Great northern small island") [5]
★ or Da nan xiao dao (大南小島 "Great southern small island")[6]
★ or Fei lai dao (飛瀬島 "Flying Shoal"), highest elevation 2m (6½ ft)[7]
Territorial dispute
The islands are currently administered by Japan as a part of Ishigaki City, Okinawa prefecture. According to both the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China on Taiwan (ROC), the islands are part of Taiwan Province (Daxi Village (大溪里), Toucheng Township, Yilan County, Taiwan Province).
Beginning of the dispute
When the US was to hand over the disputed islands to Japan,the PRC and ROC governments protested and reiterated their sovereignty over the islands. The ROC made the official anouncement on June 11, 1971, followed by the PRC on December 30th. Despite the Chinese protest, the United State handed over the disputed islands to Japan in 1972.
Chinese claims
Ming Dynasty claim
China claims that the islands were within the Ming Dynasty's sea-defense area and are a part of Taiwan.[7] According to the Chinese, China's sovereignty over the islands is dated to early 15th century, during the reign of the Ming Dynasty. The name ''Diaoyutai'' first appeared in 1403 in the Chinese book ''Voyage with the Tail Wind'', which recorded the names of the islands that voyagers had passed on a trip from Fujian to the Ryukyu Kingdom. By 1534, all the major islets of the island group had been identified and named in the book ''Record of the Imperial Envoy to Ryukyu''.7
Qing Dynasty claim
From 1624 until 1662, Taiwan and its surrounding islands were controlled by the Dutch as a base for commerce. In 1662, the Dutch were driven out by ex-Ming Dynasty general Zheng Chenggong (more popularly known as Koxinga). Zheng Chenggong and his successors established the Kingdom of Tungning and controlled the area until 1683. That year, Zheng's grandson Zheng Ke-Shuang was defeated by Qing Dynasty forces led by Admiral Shi Lang. From then on, Qing Dynasty China gained effective control over Taiwan and its surrounding islands, including the islands in dispute today.[8]
Unequal Treaties
After losing the First Sino-Japanese War, Qing China signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki on 17 April, 1895. This Unequal Treaty ceded Taiwan and its surrounding islands to Japan, although without explicitly mentioning the islands in dispute today. The formal position of China is that all the Unequal Treaties are null and void and thus the islands are still part of Taiwan Province of China.[9]
Tokyo court ruling
China also asserted that in 1944, the Tokyo court ruled that the islands were part of Taihoku Prefecture (Taipei Prefecture), following a dispute between Okinawa Prefecture and Taihoku Prefecture. However, the assertion was solely based on a "claim" by the president of the fishermen's association of Keelung city in 4 August, 1971. The primary source of this paragraph can be found in the journal "Modern China Studies", Issue 1, 1997 (in Simplified Chinese).[8].
Japanese claims
Formal incorporation
Japan claims that after the Meiji Restoration, the Japanese government conducted surveys of the islands beginning in 1885 confirming no evidence that the uninhabited islands had been under Chinese control, though this conflicts with the earlier Chinese claim of the islands during the Qing Dynasty. At the time of this survey, Japan did not formally declare a claim to the islands. Instead, it waited until January 14, 1895, during the middle of the First Sino-Japanese War, to do this. Just three months prior to its military victory in the war and the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, Japan erected a marker on the islands to formally incorporate them as its territory. This decision was not made public until 1950, however.[9] Four of the islands were subsequently borrowed and developed by the Koga family with the permission of the Japanese government.
History of Ming
Japanese scholars claim that neither China nor Ryukyu had recognized sovereignty over the uninhabited islands. Therefore, they claim that Chinese documents only prove that Kumejima, the first inhabited island reached by the Chinese, belonged to Okinawa. Kentaro Serita (芹田健太郎) of Kobe University points out that the official history book of the Ming Dynasty compiled during the Qing Dynasty, called the ''History of Ming'' (明史), describes Taiwan in the "Stories of Foreign Countries" (外国列传). Thus, China did not control the Senkaku Islands or Taiwan during the Ming Dynasty.[10] However, supporters of China claim the Qing Dynasty gained control of Taiwan and its surrounding islands in 1683, which was 39 years after the fall of the Ming Dynasty.
Beiyang warlord admission
In a testimonial in 1920, a diplomat from the Chinese Beiyang warlord government admitted that the islands belonged to the Yaeyama District of Okinawa prefecture since Taiwan and its surrounding islands(including the disputed islands) were ceded to Japan in 1895 in the Treaty of Shimonoseki. However, China argues that Taiwan (include its surrounding islands) is an inalienable part of China. The One-China Principle and the Taiwan Issue
United States occupation
Japan claims that after World War II, the islands came under the United States occupation of Okinawa. During this period, the United States and the Ryūkyū Government administered the islands and the US Navy even used Kuba-jima and Taisho-jima as maneuver areas. In 1972, sovereignty over Okinawa, and arguably the surrounding islands, was handed back to Japan as part of the Treaty of San Francisco.
Supporters of ROC reject Japan's claim, stating that the ROC government maintains sovereignty over the islands. They assert that when US forces were stationed on Taiwan during the Cold War, military maneuvers were periodically held which required the use of the islands as an aerial bombing target, and the US military applied each time to the ROC government, instead of to Japanese authorities, for authorization.
Supporters of ROC also argue that the 1954 ROC-US Mutual Defense Treaty contains wording implying that the ROC controlled the islands. The ROC government and the US later agreed to have US forces patrol the area several miles north of the island of Taiwan. Thus, the ROC had agreed to have US forces patrol the area around the islands.
Recent developments
★ 1978: The Japan Youth Association set up a lighthouse on the main island.
★ July 14, 1996: The Japan Youth Association builds a 5-m high, solar-powered, aluminum lighthouse on another island.
★ September 14, 1996: a US State Department spokesman referred to the US's neutral position on the Senkaku Islands issue.
★ September 26, 1996: David Chan (陳毓祥), a Hong Kong protester, drowns near the islets, after leaping off one of the protest vessels with several companions with the object of symbolizing Chinese claim of sovereignty.
★ October 7, 1996: Protesters plant the flags of the ROC and the PRC on the main island, but are later removed by Japanese authorities.
★ April 09, 1999: US Ambassador to Japan Thomas S. Foley said "we are not, as far as I understand, taking a specific position in the dispute.... we do not assume that there will be any reason to engage the security treaty in any immediate sense."
★ April 2002: The Japanese government leased Uotsuri and other islands from the purported private owners.
★ March 24, 2004: A group of Chinese activists from the PRC planned to stay on the Islands for three days. The seven people who landed on the islands were arrested by Japanese authorities for illegal entry. The Japanese Foreign Ministry forwarded a complaint to the PRC government, but the PRC in turn demanded the release of the activists. They were then sent to Japan and deported from there. Japan subsequently stated that it would prohibit anybody from landing on the islands without prior permission.
★ March 24, 2004: Adam Ereli, Deputy Spokesman at the US State Department said "The U.S. does not take a position on the question of the ultimate sovereignty of the Senkaku Diaoyu Islands."
★ February 2005: Japan planned to take ownership of a privately-owned lighthouse on Uotsuri, after it was offered to them by the owner, a fisherman living on Ishigaki, Okinawa. The lighthouse is expected to be managed by the Japanese Coast Guard.
★ February 10, 2005: On Voice of America, U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said that Japan's new assertiveness is in line with the desires of many Japanese politicians to take their country beyond its post-World War Two reliance on the United States. "It's a question of the evolution of Japanese thinking on its own. Japan has made it clear they want to resolve all of the territorial disputes by diplomatic means and that's certainly something that we agree with. Our kind of getting in the middle of it is probably not the most productive way to proceed."
★ June 2005: The ROC dispatched a ROCN frigate into disputed waters (but did not go as far as the islands) after Taiwanese fishing vessels were harassed by Japanese patrol boats. The frigate, which was carrying Legislative Yuan President Wang Jin-pyng and ROC Defense Minister Lee Jye, was not challenged and returned to Taiwan without incident. Fisheries talks between Taipei and Tokyo were held in July, but did not cover sovereignty issues.
★ March 17, 2006: Kyodo News reported the U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Thomas Schieffer, presented that he considered "the Islands as territory of Japan" in his talk in Tokyo.[10]
★ October 27, 2006: A group of activists from Hong Kong, the Action Committee for Defending the Diaoyu Islands, including Tsang Kin Shing and several members of the April Fifth Action, approched the islands in order to show the support for Chinese claims to the Senkakus. They were stopped from landing on the islands by the Japan Coast Guard.[11] Later on, the PLAN conducted a military exercise in the area.[12]
See also
★ Sino-Japanese relations
★ China Federation for Defending the Diaoyu Islands
★ Action Committee for Defending the Diaoyu Islands
★ History of China
★ History of Taiwan
★ Okinotorishima
Footnotes
1.
A Directory for the Navigation of the Indian Archipelago and the Coast of China, Findlay, A.G., , , Richard Holes Laurie, ,
2.
The China Sea Directory, Vol IV., Navigating Lieutenant Frederick W. Jarrad, R.N., , , J.D.Potter for the Hydrographic Office, Admiralty, London, 1873,
3.
Sovereign Rights and Territorial Space in Sino-Japanese Relations, Unryu Suganuma, , , University of Hawaii Press, 2000,
4.
Japan's China Policy: A Relational Power Analysis, Hagström, L., , , Routledge, ,
5.
Boundary and Territory Briefing, Vol 3 No. 7., Seokwoo Lee, , , International Boundaries Research Unit, 2002,
6.
Sovereign Rights and Territorial Space in Sino-Japanese Relations, Unryu Suganuma, , , University of Hawaii Press, 2000,
7. "China's Diaoyu Islands Sovereignty is Undeniable", People's Daily, 25-05-2003. Retrieved 24-02-2007.
8. 中國領土釣魚台, DiaoyuIslands.org. Retrieved on 2007-02-26.
9. China and International Law: The Boundary Disputes, , Byron N., Tzou, Praeger/Greenwood, 1990,
10. (ja) Kyodo News, March 17, 2006[11]
11. International Herald Tribune/Associated Press, October 26, 2006 "Activist ship from Hong Kong briefly enters Japan's waters in protest over islands"
12. (ja) Nihon Keizai Shimbun, November 5, 2006, "中国、東シナ海で軍事演習中に爆発事故"
References
★ Suganuma, Unryu. ''Sovereign rights and territorial space in Sino-Japanese relations: Irredentism and the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands.'' Honolulu: Association for Asian Studies and University of Hawai’i Press, 2000.
External links
★ Diaoyu Islands-China's Indisputable Territory.Foreign Affairs University
★ Basic View on Senkaku (by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
★ Article by Kiyoshi Inoue Professor of History department Kyoto University
★ Senkaku @BBC
★ Article by globalsecurity.org (with some maps)
★ Law School Article by William Heflin
★ "China's Diaoyu Islands Sovereignty is Undeniable" at People's Daily Online
★ Diaoyutai History (in Chinese)
★ Satellite image of Senkaku Islands - Google Maps
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