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U.S. Recognition of Japanese Sovereignty Over the Senkaku Islands
Sep 15, 2022 PDF Download
Recent Chinese intimidation against Japan over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea presents an ideal opportunity for the United States to strengthen the alliance with Tokyo and enhance regional strategic security and stability. On June 22, 2020, the Ishigaki City Council of Okinawa voted to strengthen Japan’s administrative control of the Senkaku Islands by reasserting that the islands are Japanese territory and changing their administrative name from “Tonoshiro” to “Tonoshiro Senkaku.”1 The United States should acknowledge the name change and officially recognize the Senkakus as Japanese territory, as it once did before the reversion of Okinawa to Japan in 1972.
Sep 15, 2022 PDF Download
On January 20, 2020, the National Museum of Territory and Sovereignty was relocated from Hibiya to Toranomon with expanded area. As introduced in Volume 9, No. 21 of the Journal of Islands Studies, the establishment of this newly relocated and expanded Museum owes its basic ideas to the recommendations by the Advisory Panel on Communications Concerning Territorial Integrity (July 29, 2019).2 The recommendations, titled “For Practical Initiatives to Strengthen Communication Based on Changes in the Domestic and Overseas Environment,” has gone far beyond just assembling general rules, suggesting many concrete plans presumed to be put into practice. All of the members of this Advisory Panel had either participated continuously in the Panel since its creation back in 2013, shortly after the Office of Policy Planning and Coordination on Territory and Sovereignty was established under the Cabinet Secretariat, or had actually been involved in activities in the area of territory and sovereignty. They joined not merely as leading scholars in academic fields, but gathered under the framework aligned for considering ways and means that meet specific demands, and are practically feasible. They visualized valuable ideas and thoughts in the form of the recommendation.
Sep 15, 2022 PDF Download
Japan, after its defeat in World war II in August 1945, signed the Peace Treaty with the allied nations in 1952, and international law relations between these contracting partis changed from wartime to peacetime in international relations.1 Article 3 of the treaty stipulated that the Nansei wartime to peacetime in international relations.1 Article 3 of the treaty stipulated Island and Parece Vela (the Ogasawara Islands and Marcus Island (Minamitorishima Island) would be placed under the trusteeship of the United States as sole administering authority
Sep 27, 2021 PDF Download
Based on a study of the Chiang Kai-shek Diaries, this paper traces the changes made by the top leader of the ROC government in his policy toward the Senkaku Islands. The following describes how Chiang Kai-shek’s assertions regarding Senkaku originated in his assertion of a territorial claim to Okinawa, following which his main objective turned to ensuring oil titles.
Protest and Acquiescence in Territorial Acquisition: In relation to the Senkaku Islands
May 01, 2018
This article focuses on the acquisition of title to territories in general in terms of international law, and then to discuss its implication for the Senkaku Islands problem in particular. And in the process, the article examines a number of questions; specifically, what significance protest has in international law, what significance an absence of protest (i.e. silence) has, whether the fact of territorial possession has notoriety, to what extent must a fact be known to achieve notoriety, what the possessing state must do to achieve notoriety, and whether third states are responsible for not knowing the fact.
International Law and Japan's Territorial Disputes
Feb 06, 2018 PDF Download
Although Japan renounced its claims to these lands, the San Francisco Peace Treaty（SFPT）failed to declare a successor State. Thus, five of the highly contentious territorial disputes that plague Asia-Pacific today have their roots in the SFPT, three of which involve Japan—Kurile Islands/Northern Territories, Liancourt Rocks (Dokdo/Takeshima) and Pinnacle Islands (Diaoyu/Senkakus). Over the years, these disputes have intensified as a result of rising nationalism and a growing demand for living and non-living ocean resources. In particular, the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which were designed to accommodate the interests of the developing States in exercising exclusive resource rights out to two hundred nautical miles (nm), have had the unintended consequence of intensifying resource competition and rekindling these longstanding territorial disputes.
The Senkaku Islands as Viewed through Chinese Law
Sep 12, 2016 PDF Download
China claims sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands and is engaged in maritime territorial disputes with several of its neighbors. The country’s domestic laws are a valuable lens for understanding its approach to these issues. Sakamoto Shigeki, a professor of international law specializing in maritime policy and legal affairs, presents a detailed examination of Chinese legal claims with respect to the Senkakus, as well as to disputed waters in the South China Sea, concluding that Japan needs to review its own legislation and to communicate closely with China to avoid an escalation.
Notes on David Helliwell's "The Clashing Rocks"
Sep 12, 2016 PDF Download
On his blog Serica, Dr. David Helliwell—curator of Chinese collections at Oxford’s Bodleian Library—penned an entry on two Chinese documents in the library’s holdings. One of these, Shunfeng xiangsong (Voyage with a Tail Wind), was completed after 1573 and is the first text to refer to the Senkaku Islands. In this essay, the Chinese classical literature specialist Ishiwi Nozomu addresses Helliwell’s treatment of this text and critically analyzes Chinese claims that it dates to 1403 and represents proof of China’s ownership of the islands from antiquity.
Sep 12, 2016
For sure, Diaoyutai（Senkaku) is the earliest recorded name of the islands, and the reason the matter finds itself in this blog is because by an extraordinary coincidence, the first textual references to them appear in two documents of entirely different provenance in the Bodleian Library.
China's "Diaoyu Dao White Paper" and Territorial Claims
Sep 12, 2016 PDF Download
In September 2012, the People’s Republic of China published a white paper titled “Diaoyu Dao, an Inherent Territory of China,” along with a report going into greater detail on the country’s claim to the Senkaku Islands. In this essay, the defense specialist Takai Susumu spells out the historical facts that counter these documents’ claims. The Ming- and Qing-era maps and texts presented as evidence for China’s historical ownership of the islands are not convincing proof in accordance with international law, and the postwar disposition of the Senkakus shows them to be Japan’s alone.