The East China Sea Peace Initiative, Two Years On:Negotiation the Only Solution to the Diaoyutai Dispute
the editors / tr. by Jonathan Barnard
August 2014
In August 2012, President Ma Ying-jeou proposed his East China Sea Peace Initiative as a means to resolve disputes over the Diaoyutai Islets. Two years on, the ROC Ministry of Foreign Affairs has reaffirmed that those islands belong to Taiwan and unquestionably fall under the sovereignty of the ROC.
The MOFA has stated that the ROC remains committed to resolving this matter peacefully, and advocates setting aside the dispute for the time being and engaging in peaceful relations with Japan, so that the two nations may jointly develop the resources of the East China Sea. By signing the Taiwan–Japan Fisheries Agreement, the ROC took a further step toward attaining the goals of President Ma’s East China Sea Peace Initiative.
The Diaoyutai Islets (what the Japanese call the Senkaku Islets) are located northeast of Taiwan. They comprise five uninhabited islands (Diaoyutai, Huangwei, Chiwei, Nan and Bei), as well as three reefs, with a total land area of 6.16 square kilometers. Territorially, they belong to the Daxi Ward of Toucheng Township, Yilan County.
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The Diaoyutai Islets, located northeast of Taiwan, comprise five small uninhabited islands, the largest of which is called Diaoyutai, plus three reefs.
The Diaoyutais are located in the East China Sea, at the edge of the continental shelf. Geologically speaking, they are part of a series of volcanic landmasses rising from the seafloor that include Mt. Datun and Mt. Guanyin in northern Taiwan, as well as the Huaping, Mianhua and Pengjia islets off northeastern Taiwan. Climatically, they fall into the same monsoon zone as Taiwan.
After World War II, the United States in 1972 returned “powers of administration” over Okinawa and the Diaoyutai Islets to Japan. But that action did not affect the Republic of China’s claim of sovereignty.
In accordance with the Republic of China’s Declaration of War Against Japan of 1941, the Cairo Declaration of 1943, the Potsdam Declaration of 1945, the Japanese Instrument of Surrender of 1945, the Treaty of San Francisco of 1951, and the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty (Treaty of Taipei) of 1952, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs holds the position that the Diaoyutai Islets ought to have been returned to the Republic of China along with Taiwan at the end of the war.
Japanese documents show islands as Qing territoryHistorically speaking, there were several references to the Diaoyutais belonging to Taiwan in Ming-Dynasty government documents. For instance, A Mirror of Japan (1556) by Zheng Shungong, an envoy sent to Japan by the Ming court, includes a map showing the Diaoyutais with an explanatory note: “Diaodaoyu [Diaoyutai] are small islands that are part of Xiaodong [Taiwan].” This is evidence that from a geographical standpoint the Diaoyutai Islets belong to Taiwan.
“A Map of Coastal Islands and Sandbars” in the Illustrated Compendium on Maritime Security, which was compiled in 1561 by Hu Zongxian, China’s military commander responsible for defense against Japanese pirates, incorporated the Diaoyutais into the area covered by the Ming coastal defenses.
Consequently, John Lim, an associate research fellow at the Academia Sinica’s Institute of Modern History, explains that the Diaoyutais were “discovered, named and used” by Chinese in ancient times. Although the islands may have been uninhabited for a long time, that does not suggest a lack of sovereignty.
In 1683 a Qing-Dynasty map showed the Diaoyutais as belonging to Taiwan. In 1871 The Recompiled General Gazetteer of Fujian clearly described the Diaoyutais as being part of the Kavalan Office (today’s Yilan County). Once again, an historical Chinese document demonstrates that the islands belonged to Taiwan.
In 1895, before Taiwan was ceded to Japan at the close of the Sino-Japanese War, the Diaoyutai Islets all belonged to Qing-Dynasty China. Even Japan’s own historical documents confirm this conclusion.
For instance, the entrepreneur Koga Tatsushiro, to whom Japan leased the islands at the end of the Sino-Japanese War, wrote in his autobiography: “With the victorious close of the Sino-Japanese War, Taiwan, and along with it the Senkaku Islands, came to belong to Japan.”
Shaw Han-yi, a research fellow at the Center for International Legal Studies at National Chengchi University, points out that the above phrasing clearly shows that the Japanese themselves believed that Japan attained sovereignty over the Diaoyutais only with the Treaty of Shimonoseki at the end of the war, which is to say that the islands weren’t unclaimed territory. Rather, they had not previously belonged to Japan and therefore ought to have been restored to the ROC along with Taiwan under the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty.
Lim explains that those islands and Taiwan had separate fates after the war because international society did not fully understand the historical situation. In 1953 the US government was granted control over the Diaoyutais along with the Ryukyu Islands. In 1972 the US transferred control of both groups of islands to Japan but expressly stated that it was neutral with regard to the question of sovereignty over the Diaoyutais. That way of handling the matter ignored the historical reality of the ROC’s sovereignty over these islands, and it is the ultimate source of the international controversy that has followed.
Dialogue the path to resolving disputesIn September 2012 Japan announced the “nationalization” of the Diaoyutais, a move that brought military confrontations between Japan and mainland China in the seas around the islands to a peak. Earlier, on August 5, 2012, ROC president Ma Ying-jeou launched the East China Sea Peace Initiative, which calls for a negotiated solution.
President Ma’s proposal quickly received a favorable response from Japan. After negotiations, the two sides signed the Taiwan–Japan Fisheries Agreement, which provides ample protections for Taiwan’s fishing rights in the area around the Diaoyutais.
Over the past two years China and Japan have not had any further major confrontations. But just when things seemed to be settling down, the US “pivot to Asia” created ripples that affected this matter.
In April US president Obama visited Japan and together with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe stated that the United States was obligated under Article 5 of the US–Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security to defend the Senkakus against attack. President Obama also emphasized that no side to the dispute should upset the status quo.
John Lim of the Academia Sinica told Taiwan Panorama in an exclusive interview that Obama’s statement represented the first time that a US president had publicly taken sides on the controversy.
“You could say that the US is taking sides with regard to the recent Diaoyutai conflict,” says Lim. “But there is no need to conflate that position with the US taking sides with regard to sovereignty over the Diaoyutais.”
Lim believes that the US position is connected to the uncertainty created by mainland China’s strategy to expand its maritime capability. The US believes it must maintain vigilance. America’s main goal is to prevent a small incident from escalating to war and thereby affecting the US’s role as the chief guarantor of peace and stability in the region.
The civilized way of resolving disputes is through dialogue. Premised on a claim of ROC sovereignty over the Diaoyutais, the East China Sea Peace Initiative aims to build on discussion and communication. Taiwan shares with the United States the goal of regional peace and stability, and the appropriate handling of the Diaoyutai issue falls under that objective.
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