I've been curious about the South China Sea disputes as it's been quite dominate in the media recently. After reading so many inconsistencies from corporate media I dug a little deeper and found that prominent Japanese scholars agree with the content of this movie as do US military planners and official documents in Japan's national library. At present, Japan has "administrative control" over these islands and the US explicitly did not transfer sovereignty. This is a typical strategy for imperialists......having two enemies fight each other. Let's hope our leaders do the right thing and return these islands to their rightful owners. Neither Japan or China are our true allies but coupled with Crimea, this dispute has the potential to evolve into WWIII.
This article was written if www.forbes.com by Stephen Harner on Feb. 20, 2013 and can be searched online.
The new book on the Senkaku/Diaoyu island crisis by Yabuki Susumu (矢吹晋), professor emeritus of Yokohama City University, one of Japan's most eminent China scholars. The book (written in Japanese) is entitled:「尖閣問題の核心 」(The Core of the Senkaku Issue), and bears a subtitle:「日中関係はどうなる」 (What is to Become of Japan-China Relations). I believe that the book is the fairest and most objective, as well as the most thorough, exposition of the positions of both Japan and China, and–critically–the U.S., on the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands dispute. At the risk of oversimplifying, I think I can summarize
Professor Yabuki's analysis and conclusions as follows:
1. The Japanese position on the Senkaku/Diaoyu issue is indefensible on several counts, including most fundamentally Japan's unconditional acceptance of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration (which required the return of all territories "stolen" from China).
2. The Meiji government's annexation of the Ryuku Islands (theretofore an autonomous kingdom) in January 1885, within which the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands were identified, followed three months later by the Qing Dynasty's surrender of Taiwan and the Pescadores to Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki (ending the Sino-Japanese War) are both mooted by the terms of Potsdam. The islands were and are clearly part of Taiwan, which in addition has the most legitimate claim to continuous use/occupation.
3. The Japanese position that Senkaku/Diaoyu is part of Japanese territory because it was awarded to Japan by the U.S. in the Okinawa Reversion agreement of 1971 is similarly contrary to fact. The U.S. awarded to Japan only administrative authority over the islands, not sovereignty. Sovereignty was specifically not transferred. The U.S. continued to maintain was undetermined between the three claimants and would only be determined through discussion and agreement. (As I noted in the last post, the Obama administration–in a monumental blunder–effectively changed this policy by failing to object to and stop Japanese "nationalization.")
4. Japanese policy–and particularly public misunderstanding–has been based on the false assertion, uttered by then foreign minister Fukuda Takeo in testimony to the Upper House of Diet on December 15, 1971 that Okinawa Reversion had accomplished the restoration of Japanese sovereignty over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Whether Fukuda misunderstood the issue, or intended to deliberately deceive the country through this testimony is unclear.
5. The Chinese position on handling the territorial issue was, before Japanese "nationalization," grounded on the 1972 agreement between Prime Minister Tanaka Kakue- Premier Zhou Enlai, when the terms of Japan-China diplomatic relations were determined, to "shelve" the issue–i.e., to avoid any acts that sought to enforce one side's claim to sovereignty.
6. Yabuki cites his own research and authoritative third party sources to charge that the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs removed from official transcripts of the Tanaka-Zhou discussions that agreement to "shelve" the issue, allowing future Japanese governments to fraudulently claim that the issue was not discussed and that China asserted a claim over the islands.
7. Under the circumstances above, the decision of the Noda government to "nationalize" the islands was a grave provocation, a fundamental change in the status quo, tantamount from the Chinese point of view to aggression and forceful annexation of Chinese territory. An equivalently forceful Chinese response to "balance" the level of its sovereign claim was inevitable.
This article was written if www.forbes.com by Stephen Harner on Feb. 20, 2013 and can be searched online.
The new book on the Senkaku/Diaoyu island crisis by Yabuki Susumu (矢吹晋), professor emeritus of Yokohama City University, one of Japan's most eminent China scholars. The book (written in Japanese) is entitled:「尖閣問題の核心 」(The Core of the Senkaku Issue), and bears a subtitle:「日中関係はどうなる」 (What is to Become of Japan-China Relations). I believe that the book is the fairest and most objective, as well as the most thorough, exposition of the positions of both Japan and China, and–critically–the U.S., on the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands dispute. At the risk of oversimplifying, I think I can summarize
Professor Yabuki's analysis and conclusions as follows:
1. The Japanese position on the Senkaku/Diaoyu issue is indefensible on several counts, including most fundamentally Japan's unconditional acceptance of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration (which required the return of all territories "stolen" from China).
2. The Meiji government's annexation of the Ryuku Islands (theretofore an autonomous kingdom) in January 1885, within which the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands were identified, followed three months later by the Qing Dynasty's surrender of Taiwan and the Pescadores to Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki (ending the Sino-Japanese War) are both mooted by the terms of Potsdam. The islands were and are clearly part of Taiwan, which in addition has the most legitimate claim to continuous use/occupation.
3. The Japanese position that Senkaku/Diaoyu is part of Japanese territory because it was awarded to Japan by the U.S. in the Okinawa Reversion agreement of 1971 is similarly contrary to fact. The U.S. awarded to Japan only administrative authority over the islands, not sovereignty. Sovereignty was specifically not transferred. The U.S. continued to maintain was undetermined between the three claimants and would only be determined through discussion and agreement. (As I noted in the last post, the Obama administration–in a monumental blunder–effectively changed this policy by failing to object to and stop Japanese "nationalization.")
4. Japanese policy–and particularly public misunderstanding–has been based on the false assertion, uttered by then foreign minister Fukuda Takeo in testimony to the Upper House of Diet on December 15, 1971 that Okinawa Reversion had accomplished the restoration of Japanese sovereignty over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Whether Fukuda misunderstood the issue, or intended to deliberately deceive the country through this testimony is unclear.
5. The Chinese position on handling the territorial issue was, before Japanese "nationalization," grounded on the 1972 agreement between Prime Minister Tanaka Kakue- Premier Zhou Enlai, when the terms of Japan-China diplomatic relations were determined, to "shelve" the issue–i.e., to avoid any acts that sought to enforce one side's claim to sovereignty.
6. Yabuki cites his own research and authoritative third party sources to charge that the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs removed from official transcripts of the Tanaka-Zhou discussions that agreement to "shelve" the issue, allowing future Japanese governments to fraudulently claim that the issue was not discussed and that China asserted a claim over the islands.
7. Under the circumstances above, the decision of the Noda government to "nationalize" the islands was a grave provocation, a fundamental change in the status quo, tantamount from the Chinese point of view to aggression and forceful annexation of Chinese territory. An equivalently forceful Chinese response to "balance" the level of its sovereign claim was inevitable.