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Yeah can we get a read on the Japanese reaction to the huge protests in China and the Chinese mission to drive some boats in circles around the island? Some people in China are talking loudly about war. I personally think this is all psychodrama for the Chinese people (I almost typed "electorate" lol) to get them to look the other way for the power transfer which is turning out messy. Is there a concomitant frothy lather of spittle in Japanese conversation on the topic, or do they think its as stupid as us expats living in China do?
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Sep 17, 2012 03:28
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| # ¿ May 8, 2024 02:52 |
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CronoGamer posted:What's confusing me is the insistence by the Chinese that they used to be part of China at all. The Chinese position is that they were part of Taiwan Province since its establishment in the Qing dynasty. From the Chinese point of view, the islands went with Taiwan when it was lost to Japan in the late 19th century, and should have been returned along with all the other land Japan had to give back at the end of WWII. The treaty does not specifically mention the Diaoyus but the wording strongly implies that non-enumerated islands historically belonging to China were also to be returned. The Japanese position as I understand it is that the Senkakus were never part of Taiwan in the first place, and instead are part of Okinawa so they don't have to give them back. Naturally the Chinese are not impressed with arguments about the internal administrative boundaries of the Japanese Empire. The problem is that the islands have never been inhabited, so this ownership has always been nominal. Because they're not mentioned specifically in treaty law, and since the Qing dynasty Chinese never established settlements on them, there's really nothing for modern law to go on other than defacto administration. If China could prove that the islands were historically Chinese then their argument would be quite sound, but they can't. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Sep 24, 2012 |
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Sep 24, 2012 06:32
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That is really disingenuous or, if you're arguing in good faith, extremely biased. First, the Japanese "investigated" the islands and miraculously found that there were no legitimate claims is ridiculous on the face of it. You said yourself that the Chinese mapped and claimed them long before the Japanese ever showed up. Put this properly in the context of Japan annexing Taiwan at the time, it's pretty clear that they didn't just find the islands and politely ask the Chinese about their legal status. Second, of course the Chinese recognized the Senkakus as Japanese territory. The Chinese perspective is that the Diaoyus are part of Taiwan, which was ceded to Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki, to which the Qing Emperor acceded. So yes, the Chinese recognized the Senkakus as Japanese territory annexed from China in 1895. Their argument is that it should have been returned to China along with Taiwan. Third, the idea that they waited around for 70 years without lodging a protest is simply wrong. The Chinese government protested immediately. The Treaty of San Francisco, which decided how Japan would handle the dissolution of its overseas empire and was basically dictated by the U.S., was signed September 8 1951. Neither the PRC nor RoC governments were invited. The PRC published denunciations of the treaty both during the negotiations in August, and on September 18th, ten days after it was signed. Neither the PRC nor RoC ratified the treaty. The PRC's position has been that the treaty is illegal since before it was even signed. The 1970s claim was prompted by the U.S. returning Okinawa to Japanese administration, but it was hardly the first. Fourth, the only thing I can find about Japanese habitation or improvement of the islands is a WWII era lighthouse that has been abandoned far longer than it was in use. What this really turns on is whether China can prove that the Diaoyus are part of Taiwan, instead of part of Okinawa as Japan claims. Because China was in chaos during the time when modern Western treaty law took hold in East Asia, the Chinese never had a chance to establish a claim in law even though they pretty clearly arrived first and own the nearest land mass. This is why you see the Chinese throwing out "bullshit" historical claims, because their government was a total mess from 1860-1960 and they missed the window to establish a claim in Western law. Meanwhile, Japan's claim is really shaky too. The Japanese de facto claim to the islands came about basically because the Japanese told the Americans that the islands were part of Okinawa and there were no Chinese in the room to disagree. The Japanese "terra nullis" claim is obviously weaker than the Chinese claim on the same basis so the de facto claim is pretty much the important one. You can disagree about who should be administering a few rocks in the ocean, but your characterization of the issue is deeply unfair.
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Sep 24, 2012 13:11
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ After I posted I realized I had the wrong dynasty for the conquest/pacification/settlement of Taiwan but I was too lazy to change it. Sorry! The heart of the problem is the dispute over how Japan got the islands in 1895. In Japan's view, they found them unclaimed while coincidentally annexing the large inhabited island nearby through war. In China's view, they were part of the annexed territory. Because of this fundamental difference in point of view, the Japanese can argue all they want about how they found and improved and administrated the islands and the Chinese won't care; and the Chinese can argue all they want about the Treaty of San Francisco and the occupied territories and the Japanese won't care. They can just go around and around with the arguments because they fundamentally don't accept each other's interpretation of what happened in 1895. When experts call the sovereignty issue on the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands "murky" or "confused" it's because it is. Personally I think Japan's original claim is sketchy as hell, but the intervening 100 years have really muddied things up. Especially the islands changing hands from Japan to America and back again. What a mess. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Sep 24, 2012 |
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Sep 24, 2012 16:38
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Aaand this is why the Chinese and Japanese just go around in circles about this. The Chinese don't accept the legitimacy of the terra nullius claim, and the Japanese don't accept a historical Chinese claim. Because Japan was kicking China's rear end at the time the modern Chinese understandably feel that Japan's claim is illegitimate because the Chinese couldn't contest the terra nullius claim at the time. Because Taiwan was only recently incorporated into China the Japanese don't accept that the islands were ugghaaaaaa They're such small islands. 
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Sep 25, 2012 03:18
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Samurai Sanders posted:Either way I read an article yesterday that argued that the Chinese protesters are dangerously close to going off-script and the government should start reining them in any day now. They've already started, definitely. Aside from any political perspective, the Chinese public has a low tolerance for disorder. If people were out burning things every day the public would perceive it as a failure of government.
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Sep 26, 2012 03:19
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| # ¿ May 8, 2024 02:52 |
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Trying to boost the high-tech export market right now is pretty insane. China's exports are dropping like a stone; if China can't get people to buy their exports then nobody can.
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Sep 28, 2012 16:58
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