We Are Tomodachi Spring 2017

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20　Many of the recent media stories about the Senkaku Islands seem to be based on mistaken notions. Here we examine some of the most commonly held misconceptions.Misconception 1: “Japan ‘seized’ the Senkakus from China.”　Stories about the Senkaku Islands often state casually that Japan “seized them” from China as a result of the Sino-Japanese War. Is this true? Japanese fishermen and merchants had already grown active in and around the Senkakus for some years by 1893 when some of them drifted ashore in China (then under the rule of the Qing Dynasty) and were questioned by the authorities there. Despite such an increase in activities by Japanese citizens on the Senkaku Islands, there is no record whatsoever of China having asserted sovereignty over these islands during that time, including in the aforementioned case. Against this backdrop, Japan incorporated the Senkakus into Okinawa Prefecture with a Cabinet decision in January 1895. In no sense did Japan “seize” them, much less “steal” the islands from China. In this light, it is only natural that these islands did not come up for discussion in the April 1895 peace treaty negotiations at the end of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95. In the first place, a report on Japan submitted to the Qing government by one of its experts in 1889, titled You li Riben tu jing (Maps, Figures and Depiction of Japan based on field research), explicitly listed the Senkakus as Japanese territory. The preface to the report was written by none other than Premier Li Hongzhang, a powerful statesman who soon after represented China in the April 1895 peace talks. It is thus simply inconceivable that the Qing government considered the Senkakus to have been “seized” from it.Misconception 2: “Japan is overturning the post-World War II order.”　Stories about the Senkakus sometimes contain the assertion that Japan is seeking to overturn the post-World War II international order. This is also mistaken. One only needs to examine the way Japan’s territory was determined under the San Francisco Peace Treaty, which is the very basis for the “postwar order” in East Asia. Under this treaty, Japan relinquished part of its prewar territories including Taiwan and the Korean Peninsula. The areas that Japan did not relinquish were thus determined to be Japanese territory under this treaty. The Senkakus were in the latter category. The treaty also provided that Okinawa, a portion of Japan’s remaining territory under this treaty, was to be administered by the United States, and the scope of Okinawa, given in geographical coordinates of longitude and latitude, explicitly included the Senkakus. It is therefore only natural that, when the United States returned Okinawa to Japanese administration in 1972, the Senkakus were included in the reversion. Likewise, it is not surprising that two of the islands in the Senkakus continue to be designated as firing/bombing ranges for the U.S. forces in Japan by the United States and the Japanese governments. 　It was in 1971 that China started to challenge this “postwar order” with assertions of sovereignty over the Senkakus, after the possible existence of oil deposits in the area was pointed out. Japan, meanwhile, has observed the United Nations Charter and supported the “postwar order” as a peace-loving nation that has not fired even a single shot against another nation during the entire postwar period and as a democracy that embodies universal values like the rule of law and respect for human rights.　It is often asserted that the Senkakus were “returned” to China under the Cairo Declaration of 1943, but this is another error. Needless to say, by definition, mere political documents like the Cairo Declaration cannot determine countries’ territory. This can be done only by means of legal instruments on the basis of international agreements, such as the San Francisco Peace Treaty. To begin with, the The Senkaku Islands:3 Commonly Held Misconceptions