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Japan blocks landing
on Diaoyutais
UNINHABITED ROCKS: The islands continue to spark
heated dispute between Taiwan, China and Japan, while another island chain is
causing more flare-ups with South Korea
Reuters, TOKYO
The Japanese government yesterday refused to let Tokyo metropolitan authorities
land on islands at the center of a territorial dispute with Taiwan and China, a
move aimed at defusing tensions that led to China¡¦s biggest anti-Japan protests
in years.
Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara has proposed buying some of the islands from
their private Japanese owners and has sought central government permission to
send a team of officials to survey the land.
The plan has prompted Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to suggest that the
central government could instead buy the islands it now leases. Both plans
sparked outrage in China.
¡§The government has reached a conclusion of not permitting landing based on the
purpose of its lease, which aims at peaceful and stable management and control
of the Senkaku islands,¡¨ a government official said.
The decision comes after anti-Japanese demonstrations in some Chinese cities
over the weekend, which followed much bigger protests a week earlier.
The uninhabited islands, known as the Diaoyutais (³¨³½¥x) in Taiwan and China and
Senkaku in Japan, have long been a source of friction between Tokyo and Beijing
and competing territorial claims to the islets and surrounding fishing areas and
potentially rich gas deposits.
Tensions over the islands flared in the middle of this month when the Japanese
coast guard detained Chinese activists who sailed from Hong Kong and landed on
the island. Tokyo sent the group back home without charging them to calm things
down, but a landing of Japanese nationalists just days later led to another
flare-up.
Thousands of people in several Chinese cities took to the streets in biggest
anti-Japanese protests in years after the tit-for-tat landings.
Tokyo also remains locked in a bitter feud with South Korea over another
disputed island chain.
In a symbolic, but rare, gesture, the Japanese parliament on Friday last week
passed two resolutions asserting Japan¡¦s sovereignty over both island chains,
calling Seoul¡¦s control over one of them a ¡§illegal occupation¡¨ that should end
soon.
The resolutions prompted angry rebukes from Seoul and Beijing in an escalating
war of words.
Despite close economic ties, bitter memories of Japanese militarism run deep in
China and South Korea. The territorial disputes show how the region has failed
to resolve differences nearly seven decades after the end of World War II.
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