Week 2 China-Japan Islands Row

Week 2 China-Japan Islands Row

Please check the vocabulary and write the Japanese in the right column. Then read the passage and answer the comprehension questions

Comprehension

1. By what name are the islands known in Japan, and in China?

2. How big are they in total?

3. Are they inhabited?

4. Where are they located?

5. Why are they important?

6. Who controls them?

7. When did Japan claim the islands?

8. Before claiming them, what did japan do?

9. Which group of islands did they become part of?

10. In 1951, to what territory did Japan renounce claims?

11. What happened to the NanseiShoto islands at that time?

12. When did they revert to being Japanese territory?

13. According to Japan, what was China’s reaction at that time?

14. When did China express a new interest in the islands? Why?

15. What does China say about its claim to the islands?

16. Why did Taiwan not claim the islands at the Treaty of San Francisco?

17. What happened in 1996?

18. And in 2004?

19. What occurred in 2005?

20. What did Japan do in 2010?

21. What happened in China as a result?

22. What did Ishihara say he would do in 2012?

23. What then happened in August 2012?

24. What did the Japanese government decide to do?

25. What other dispute is made more difficult because of the dispute over the islands?

Q&A: China-Japan islands row

Ties between China and Japan have been repeatedly strained by a territorial row over a group of islands, known as the Senkaku islands in Japan and the Diaoyu islands in China. The BBC looks at the background to the row.

What is the row about?

The eight uninhabited islands and rocks in question lie in the East China Sea. They have a total area of about 7 sq km and lie northeast of Taiwan, east of the Chinese mainland and southwest of Japan's southern-most prefecture, Okinawa.

They matter because they are close to strategically important shipping lanes, offer rich fishing grounds and are thought to contain oil deposits. The islands are controlled by Japan.

What is Japan's claim?

Japan says it surveyed the islands for 10 years and determined that they were uninhabited. That being the case, on 14 January 1895 it erected a sovereignty marker that formally incorporated the islands into Japanese territory. The Senkaku islands became part of the NanseiShoto islands - also known as the Ryukyu islands and now as modern-day Okinawa prefecture.

After World War II Japan renounced claims to a number of territories and islands including Taiwan in the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco. But under the treaty the NanseiShoto islands came under US trusteeship and were then returned to Japan in 1971, under the Okinawa reversion deal.

Japan says that China raised no objections to the San Francisco deal. And it says that it is only since the 1970s, when the issue of oil resources in the area emerged, that Chinese and Taiwanese authorities began pressing their claims.

What is China's claim?

China says that the Diaoyu islands have been part of its territory since ancient times, serving as important fishing grounds administered by the province of Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs says that this is "fully proven by history and is legally well-founded".

Taiwan was ceded to Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895, after the Sino-Japanese war. When Taiwan was returned in the Treaty of San Francisco, China says the islands - as part of it - should also have been returned. But Beijing says Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek did not raise the issue, even when the Diaoyu islands were named in the later Okinawa reversion deal, because he depended on the US for support.

Separately, Taiwan also claims the islands.

Have there been incidents before?

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs says that the issue should be shelved for future settlement and that the two sides should try to prevent it from becoming "a disturbing factor" in bilateral ties. However, there have been several incidents over the islands.

In 1996 a Japanese group established a lighthouse on one of the islands. Chinese activists then sailed repeatedly to the islands. In 2004, Japan arrested seven Chinese activists who landed on the main island.

There have also been face-offs between Japanese patrol boats and Chinese or Taiwanese fishing vessels. In 2005, 50 Taiwanese fishing boats staged a protest in the area, complaining of harassment by Japanese patrols.

In September 2010, Japan seized a Chinese trawler that collided with two coast guard vessels near to the islands, sparking a serious diplomatic row. Small anti-Japanese protests were held in several cities in China. A visit by 1,000 Japanese students to the Shanghai Expo and a concert by a top Japanese band were also cancelled.

In the end, Japan released the entire crew of the trawler.

In April 2012, a fresh row followed after Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara said he would use public money to buy the islands from the current private owner.

In August of the same year, a group of activists sailed to the islands from Hong Kong, with seven landing on one island. All were detained and later sent back. Several days later, at least 10 Japanese nationalist activists also landed on the islands with flags.

Tensions continued to rise and in early September, two men were detained in Beijing for ripping the flag off the Japanese ambassador's car in late August, in an apparent protest over the islands.

Following that, the Japanese government reached a deal to buy the disputed islands from private owners. On 11 September, China sent two patrol ships to waters near the island as Japan signed the purchase contract.

So what next?

The Senkaku/Diaoyu issue complicates efforts by Japan and China to resolve a dispute over oil and gas fields in the East China Sea that both claim.

It also highlights the more robust attitude China has been taking to its territorial claims in both the East China Sea and the South China Sea in recent months.