They are tiny, uninhabited islands in the East China Sea. But disagreement over their ownership has the potential to trigger conflict between China and Japan with repercussions for other countries in the region, including Taiwan.
The five islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, are located in contested waters that China and Japan claim, along with Taiwan and several other nations in the East China Sea.
The contested islands were very much in the news in November when Beijing established a controversial new air-defence zone there and demanded China be advised of all flights into the area.
In response, the United States, Japan and South Korea flew aircraft into the newly established Chinese zone, raising fears this latest confrontation could escalate with unpredictable consequences.
Concerned that the tense situation ran the risk of getting out of hand, President Barack Obama dispatched Vice-President Joe Biden to the region in recent days to calm things down.
However, following a meeting Dec. 4 between Biden and Chinese president Xi Jinping, the usually upbeat Biden reportedly appeared “somber and subdued,” according to the Associated Press, and neither of the two mentioned the controversial issue of China’s air-defence zone.
However, both leaders made it clear they considered it important to maintain a dialogue.
What this will mean in the specific case of China’s new air-defence zone remains to be seen, though all the interested parties presumably do not want the tension to escalate.
Although China and Japan, along with Taiwan and other countries, have claimed the islands rightly belong to them, such claims worsened when the Japanese government in 2012 purchased three of the islands outright from their Japanese owner, ostensibly formalizing Tokyo’s claim.
That action was quickly denounced by Beijing, resulting in widespread anti-Japanese demonstrations and a boycott of Japanese products throughout China.
Watching all this with increasing concern was the government of President Ma Ying-jeou in Taiwan, because Taipei also claims ownership of the islands, which they call Diaoyutai.
Taiwan maintains that under the terms of the July 1945 Potsdam Proclamation and Japan’s signing of the 1945 Instrument of Surrender, “all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa [Taiwan], and the Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China.”
On Aug. 5 last year, Ma called upon all parties to demonstrate restraint and avoid escalating confrontational acts, to continue dialogue and to deal with disputes through peaceful means by establishing a mechanism for co-operation on exploring and developing resources in the East China Sea. (Many countries, including South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Brunei, the Philippines and others, also have competing claims over various islands in the region.)
While Ma’s proposal clearly has merit, tension between China and Japan has continued to fester, causing concern within the region, as well as in the United States, which is committed to the defence of Japan under a post-Second World War bilateral commitment.
Tension between Beijing and Tokyo is regarded by some as arising to a great extent from the bitter memories still very much alive in China over Japan’s occupation in the 1930s and ’40s, coupled with the fact China and Japan both have new leaders, with compelling reasons to demonstrate their firm leadership on important issues.
For its part, the new government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe clearly sees China as a growing threat to its own traditional political and economic power and influence in East Asia.
As for Taiwan’s suggestion for countries with territorial claims to reach some kind of understanding regarding how to resolve their differences, both China and Japan reportedly have set conditions that make such an approach difficult.
For China and Japan to resolve their historical and present-day differences will require the kind of dialogue proposed by Biden. But are they willing to embark upon such a journey?
Harry Sterling, a former diplomat, is an Ottawa-based commentator. He served in South Korea.
