2012-05-27 (China Military News cited from bangkokpost.com) — China is now engaged in bitter disputes with the Philippines over Scarborough Shoal and Japan over the Senkaku Islands, both located far beyond China’s 320km-wide territorial waters in the South China Sea. Indeed, so expansive are China’s claims nowadays that many Asians are wondering what will satisfy China’s desire to secure its ”core interests”. Are there no limits, or does today’s China conceive of itself as a restored Middle Kingdom, to whom the entire world must kowtow?
So far, China has formally referred to Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang province as ”core interests”, a phrase that connotes an assertion of national sovereignty and territorial integrity that will brook no compromise. Now China is attempting to apply the same term to the Senkaku Islands in its dispute with Japan, and is perilously close to making the same claim for the entire South China Sea; indeed, some Chinese military officers already have.
The Senkaku Islands, located to the west of Okinawa in the East China Sea and currently uninhabited, were incorporated into Japan by the Meiji government in 1895. At one time, there were regular residents working at a bonito-drying facility. In 1969, the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East completed a seabed survey of the East China Sea, and reported the possible presence of vast underground mineral resources, including abundant oil and natural gas reserves near the Senkakus. Two years passed before Taiwan and China claimed sovereignty over the islands, in 1971, but the Japanese government’s stance has always been that Japan’s sovereignty is not in question.
In April, Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, a famous and articulate patriot, announced that the metropolitan government that he leads plans to acquire four of the Senkaku Islands, which are currently privately owned by Japanese citizens. Donations for the purchase from the people of Japan now exceed 700 million yen (278.6 million baht).
China reacted to Mr Ishihara’s proposal with its usual sensitivity: it refused to receive the scheduled visit of his son, who is secretary-general of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, the country’s main opposition party.
Moreover, at a meeting in Beijing earlier this month between Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao during a trilateral summit with South Korea, Mr Wen mentioned the independence movement in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and the Senkaku Islands in the same breath. ”It is important to respect China’s core interests and issues of major concern,” he emphasised.
Japan’s occupation of the Diaoyu Islands during the Meiji period was illegal and an naked act of outright aggression. The fact that those islands and Huangyan Reef in the South China Sea belong to China has been well documented in history and that can never be denied. Do remember that Japan also invaded and occupied Korea during the Meiji period, so do you suggest that Korea belongs to Japan too? Japan has also occupied Wake Island, Guam, Saipan, Kiska and some other Aleutian Islands in Alaska during WWII. Is the US going to turn over these islands to Japan also? It doesn’t matter that the islands illegally claimed by Japan, Philippines and Vietnam are hundreds of kilometers from the coast of China, they are still located on China’s continental shelf. Britain can even claim the Malvinas that are located on a different continent and thousands of miles away.
China has not sent any “warships” to Huangyan Reef. Marine Surveillance ships and Fisheries Administration ships can hardly be classified as warships.
Economic sanctions agaisnt the Philippines are perfectly acceptable if they continue to terrorize, injure and kill Chinese fishermen with armed naval vessels.
In Response to your comnent Mr.Yan would spare a moment reading the article I posted below.thanks
http://www.eurasiareview.com/24052012-refuting-chinas-ninedash-claim-oped/
What a distorted report I am reading here. The zhongSha (Scaborough Shoal), NanSha(Spratley), and Diayutai(Shenkaku) have historically been Chinese territory and are well documented. These latest reports are all twisted. As an American, I feel ashamed that my administration is behind all these misguided manipulations. the world would be more peaceful if we stop encouraging Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines to challenge what do not Belong to them.
Kent
@Yan: Totally agree, especially about the “warship” bit. Do these experts even know the meaning of the word??? In fact I think I have read too many shoddy written western articles. I think Im going to start learning to read Chinese for a change.