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Arglebargle III posted:The Chinese position is that they were part of Taiwan Province since its establishment in the Ming 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. Minor quibble that turned out to be longer than I expected: Taiwan was formally incorporated as a Province of Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) in 1885, 10 years before being ceded to Japan. Taiwan was never actually formally part of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). The first Han Chinese settlements in Taiwan were established by the Dutch East India Company in southern Taiwan in 1624, who imported laborers from Mainland China. The Dutch were driven off Taiwan near the end of the Ming Dynasty by Koxinga (a pirate turned Ming loyalist) in 1662, who eventually declared the central and southern part of Taiwan to be the Ming remnant Kingdom of Tungning. The Kingdom was wiped out in 1683 by the Qing Dynasty, who stuck Taiwan (or the parts they exercised control over... namely, about a 10 meter radius around any Qing officials sent to Taiwan) under the administration of Fujian Province. For the most part, Taiwan was a mini version of the American Wild West with the Qing court more or less ignoring it till the late 19th century. By this time, there was nominal Qing control along the western coast of Taiwan around the major cities, though the west coast and the central mountains were still considered barbarian (aboriginal) territory. The exact extent of Qing control is still debated, which wasn't helped by the fact that the imperial court had a way of changing their claims depending on what the issue was. For example, when confronted by other maritime powers about their shipwrecked sailors getting their heads chopped off by Taiwanese aborigines, the Qing had a tendency of disowning all aboriginal land. The Japanese eventually got interested in Taiwan around this time, following their absorption of the Ryukyu Kingdom in 1879. The Qing imperial court finally got it into their heads that Taiwan might be worth something, and belatedly started to send more capable administrators to Taiwan, formally incorporating it as a province in 1885. This was probably the result of the Sino-French War in 1885, where several battles took place between French and Qing troops in Taiwan. Interestingly, if you visit some places in northern Taiwan during Ghost Month (the 7th lunar month), some temples still try to appease the spirits of deceased French troops with french bread, red wine, and pizza (apparently, they're all European). No hard feelings, right? Anyhow, the Japanese won the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, and Taiwan (along with whatever outlying islands it may or may not have included) turned into a Japanese colony. Since Taiwan and the Ryukyus were both part of Japan at that point, there really wasn't any dispute in terms of fishing rights around the entire island chain stretching from Taiwan to Japan. Eventually, WWII happened and Japan ended up relinquishing sovereignty over Taiwan (although to whom is not quite clear), and the Ryukyus went over to U.S. administration. skysedge fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Sep 24, 2012 |
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Sep 24, 2012 16:06
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Arglebargle III posted: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. You'll get no argument from me there about the whole thing being a mess. Practically speaking, the crowd in Taiwan interested in Diaoyutai can basically be broken down into fisherman mostly from Ilan County (northeast Taiwan), who traditionally consider the waters around the islands to be part of their fishing grounds, and various Chinese nationalist / pro-unification (with China) groups. The distinction between the two is that the former generally are more interested in the right to fish around the disputed islands than any sovereignty argument, whereas the latter are more into the whole "LITTLE JAPAN OFF SOVEREIGN CHINESE TERRITORY, UNITED FRONT WITH THE PRC"-thing. Neither group really attracts much interest in mainstream Taiwanese opinion, but the second group less so, since they have a tendency of parading around with PRC flags and declaring Taiwan as Chinese territory, which generally doesn't go over too well.
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Sep 24, 2012 18:39
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