Disagreements over ownership of the Diaoyutai Islands have long hung like a dark cloud over the relationship between Taiwan, mainland China and Japan, each of which have made attempts over the years to demonstrate the legitimacy of their claims to sovereignty over the archipelago. In order to move closer toward a final and mutually amenable settlement of the long-running dispute, the Republic of China (ROC) government proposed an East China Sea Peace Initiative in August this year.
The dispute over the competing sovereignty claims began flaring up again a few months ago when a Tokyo official floated the idea of purchasing the deeds to four of the five islands that are, in Japan’s view, owned by a Japanese family. Later, the Japanese government joined the fray and announced its intention to proceed with the purchase. Those moves immediately drew fire from Taipei and Beijing, with both declaring absolute and unchallengeable sovereignty over the Diaoyutais.
Tensions heightened further on August 15 this year, when 14 activists aboard a Hong Kong vessel were arrested by Japanese authorities. Members of the group, who were reportedly citizens of Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China, were detained after landing on one of the disputed islands.
Prior to the recent outbreak of tensions, Japan and mainland China clashed in a fraught diplomatic standoff in September 2010 after a mainland Chinese fishing boat collided with two Japanese Coast Guard vessels in the East China Sea. After the collision, the Japanese detained the Chinese captain for questioning for several weeks. As relations between Japan and mainland China worsened, the ROC continued to assert its claim to sovereignty over the Diaoyutais while urging all parties involved not to take unilateral action that would further aggravate the situation.
Principled Position
Recognizing that these periodic flare-ups are counterproductive and cause security to deteriorate across East Asia, ROC President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) raised the idea of a peace initiative on August 5 this year in Taipei at the opening ceremony of an exhibition marking the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Peace between the ROC and Japan. “The ROC government has always believed in the principle that international disputes should be settled peacefully based on the provisions of the UN Charter,” Ma said, adding that the Diaoyutai disputes threaten the peace and stability of the entire region. A peace initiative is needed to address such threats, Ma said, calling upon all parties concerned to shelve disputes and work on promoting joint exploration and development in the East China Sea.
The Diaoyutai Islands lie 102 nautical miles off Keelung in northeastern Taiwan and are under the nominal jurisdiction of Yilan County. The ROC Ministry of Foreign Affairs has repeatedly stressed that the islands are an inherent part of the country’s territory, whether looked at from the perspective of geography, history, international law or practical use. The government is aware, however, that sovereignty disputes cannot be resolved overnight. The peace initiative was proposed precisely because a more practical approach is needed for the Diaoyutais. “We hope other countries will also adopt the same pragmatic attitude in shelving disputes,” says Timothy Chin-tien Yang (楊進添), minister of foreign affairs.
Yang’s remarks came partly in response to a statement by Koichiro Gemba, Japan’s foreign minister, that his country, while considering that some forms of cooperation are possible, does not accept Taiwan’s claim of sovereignty over the Diaoyutais, which are known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan.
Taiwan’s peace initiative, Yang says, is not aimed at cooperation with any one country, but at bringing all three claimants together to develop a way to handle the situation that will help ease regional tensions. Proposing the peace initiative will not jeopardize the ROC’s relations with neighboring countries, but rather strengthen them, he says.
Ma has exhorted all parties involved to refrain from taking any antagonistic actions over the small island group, maintain dialogue and seek to resolve disputes through peaceful means while observing international law. To do so, the president suggested that claimants to the Diaoyutais should seek consensus on a code of conduct in the East China Sea and establish a mechanism for cooperation on developing resources in the region. “Territorial sovereignty cannot be compromised,” he says, “but natural resources can be shared.”
The area surrounding the Diaoyutai Islands is believed to be oil-rich and has long been a fishing ground plied by Taiwanese vessels. In recent years, the Japanese government has upped its efforts to drive off Taiwanese fishermen working in the waters surrounding the islands, prompting the ROC government to take steps to protect the fishermen’s rights.
International relations experts have chimed in to support the peace overture. “Our government has shifted from a passive role to taking the initiative in dealing with the East China Sea issue,” says Song Yann-huei (宋燕輝), a research fellow in the Institute of European and American Studies at Academia Sinica, Taiwan’s foremost research institute. The peace proposal has helped Taiwan demonstrate to the international community that it is more than willing to contribute to multilateral negotiations on the formulation of a code of conduct for the region, he adds.
Song suggests that the government start with academic dialogues among experts from Taiwan, Japan, mainland China and the United States. If a consensus among the academics were reached, all parties could then sign a code of conduct that would eventually lead to cooperation on natural resource exploration, he says. “A fishery conservation and management organization could even be set up for the East China Sea region,” Song adds.
Along similar lines, Huang Kwei-bo (黃奎博), an associate professor in the Department of Diplomacy at National Chengchi University in Taipei, says the government should encourage opinion leaders and academic communities at home and abroad to start discussing the issue and “make those discussions international public goods to help reduce the differences among all parties involved.”
Practical but Challenging
Describing the initiative as theoretically feasible yet practically challenging, Huang stresses that Taiwan should persist in advancing its peace proposal while leading pertinent dialogue. By doing so, Taiwan could directly or indirectly help achieve real peace in the East China Sea, he says. Song agrees that proposing the peace initiative is a critical first step, but notes that the Ma administration must actively pursue the effort if it is to succeed.
The ROC government maintains that the Diaoyutais were returned to it along with Taiwan proper following the end of World War II—a position that is based on the 1943 Cairo Declaration, the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation, the 1945 Instrument of Surrender of Japan, the Treaty of San Francisco signed in 1951 and the 1952 Treaty of Peace between the ROC and Japan.
Taipei refutes Tokyo’s claims based on discovery-occupation or invocation of prescription as the basis for Japan’s sovereignty over the Diaoyutais. Discovery-occupation only applies to terra nullius, or no man’s land, the ROC government maintains. The islands cannot be seen as terra nullius, government officials say, as they were part of Taiwan more than 300 years before Japan’s occupation occurred in 1895, when the Qing court ceded Taiwan to Japan at the end of the first Sino-Japanese War.
Japan’s invocation of prescription, which involves acquisition of territory by continuous and undisputed sovereignty, also does not hold in the case of the Diaoyutais. As the ROC has publicly stated its claim to sovereignty since disputes over the archipelago first occurred in 1971, Japan’s theory of prescription is rendered invalid, government officials say.
Write to Myra Lu at mlu@mofa.gov.tw