SEOUL — Japan’s central government has agreed to buy a group of uninhabited islands that are also claimed by China and Taiwan, according to Japanese media reports, potentially increasing regional tension over thesimmering territorial dispute.
In a long-discussed deal, the central government will pay the Japanese family that owns the islands 2.05 billion yen ($26.2 million) for three of the islands in the East China Sea, the reports said.
A government spokesman refused to confirm the deal, which was widely reported by major Japanese dailies and the Kyodo news agency in articles that cited unnamed government sources. Japan’s government often briefs domestic reporters on background in advance of major decisions.
The nationalization of the hotly disputed islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, comes at a time when Japan’s government is struggling both to maintain civil relations with its giant neighbor and placate increasingly influential nationalists who are wary of China’s rise.
Though this move figures to inflame already strained relations with China, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda intended it as a way to maintain relative calm, security experts say. That’s because the central government purchase trumps a competing bid from the Tokyo metropolitan government, whose ultra-nationalist governor, Shintaro Ishihara, was raising money to buy the islands.
Ishihara has spoken about stationing Japan’s Self-Defense Forces on the islands and building harbors for fishing boats; such moves would raise the risk of confrontation with Chinese vessels that often roam the waters. The central government, which has rented and administered the islands even before this purchase, prefers a hands-off approach: It keeps the land uninhabited and almost always denies requests for boats to land on the islands. Japan would maintain that no-development policy after the purchase, which should be finalized by the end of this month, the Japanese news reports said.
“Our basic approach is to continue to maintain and manage the islands peacefully and stably,” Noda said in a news conference last month.
The islands — a supposedly rich ground for fishing and natural resources — have turned into a flashpoint in recent months, part of a region-wide escalation of territorial disputes that drew the attention of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during her ongoing trip to Asia.
This summer, China sent three ships to the area. In response, Japan asked its ambassador to briefly return from Beijing. There were back-and-forth landings by activists. Anti-Japanese protests broke out in numerous Chinese cities, with thousands taking to the streets. And, just last weekend, a group of Tokyo city officials and experts surveyed the islands without landing on them, measuring water depth, scouting out locations for a dock, and declaring that Japan’s territorial claim is “undeniable.”
Japan formally incorporated the rocky island chain as part of its territory in 1895; the United States administered the land after World War II, but returned it to Japan in 1971.
Japan says that China offered no objections at that time and only raised its claim several years later, amid news that the islands could have rich fossil fuel reserves.
But a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said that the islands have been “China’s inherent territory since ancient times.”
In a Wednesday editorial in the China Daily, Jin Yongming, a law scholar with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and the Academy of Ocean of China, wrote that Japan’s actions have “infringed on China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime interests, and poisoned bilateral relations.”
“Japan is worried that China’s continued rise and the change in the regional power balance will end its illegal possession of the Diaoyu Islands,” Jin wrote, “and is thus eager to get an upper hand in the dispute.”
Washington Post
China slams move to nationalize Senkaku islets
BEIJING — China has denounced Japan's plan to nationalize the Senkaku Islands, saying Tokyo's move will not change Beijing's determination to exert its sovereignty over the disputed territory.
"The Japanese action will end in futility," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Gong Lei said Monday in a statement.
China has unofficially warned the Japanese government against building structures on the islets, known in China as Diaoyu, saying such action could have serious repercussions on bilateral relations, sources said. The uninhabited East China Sea islets are under Japanese control but claimed by China and Taiwan.
Beijing's repeated warnings, conveyed behind the scenes through August, apparently aim to keep in check efforts by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's government to nationalize the islets by the end of September.
While the Noda administration will put up a front that it will not bow down to China's demands, Japan has effectively been taking steps that take into account Chinese sensitivities to prevent the tension from worsening, the sources said.
Members of the Cabinet are expected to meet, possibly Sept. 11, to formally endorse the plan to put the Senkakus, part of which are privately owned, under national ownership, the sources said.
The government is now in the final stages of reaching a deal by the end of September to purchase three of the islets — Uotsuri, Kitakojima and Minamikojima — from their private owner to make the country's ownership clear, government officials said.
Noda unveiled in July a plan to buy the islets to maintain and manage them "in a peaceful and stable manner." The government has proposed to their owner a purchase price of about ¥2 billion.
The sources said China, via government and other channels, has presented a three-point action plan for the Japanese government — that it should not build new structures such as a lighthouse or port facilities, not conduct a survey of the natural resources around the islands and not allow any landing by a third party.
Apparently in light of China's pressure, the central government rejected the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's request for permission to land last month on the islets for a survey to check their asset value and determine a purchase price as part of the metropolitan government's own plan to buy Uotsuri, Kitakojima and Minamikojima.
A senior Foreign Ministry official has admitted the request was rejected after considering the impact on Japan-China ties.
The central government is also unlikely to build a jetty for fishing boats and other facilities, a step that Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara urged as a condition for him to cooperate on the matter.
The central government also has no plans to conduct a survey to check the natural resources of the islets, the sources said.
The issue of administering the islets has drawn public attention following Ishihara's surprise announcement in April that the metropolitan government wants to purchase the three islets by the end of the year to protect Japanese territory.
The Japan Times
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