Territorial dispute over ownership of the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands. The problem of the Senkaku Islands

The Senkaku Islands (name from Japanese cartography), or Diaoyu Islands (from Chinese cartography) are located in the southern part of East China Sea and uninhabited. Uninhabited - despite the fact that last year several hundred Japanese were on some of these islands, with the aim of emphasizing their territorial affiliation with Japan, long disputed by China and Taiwan.

In the last third of the 19th century, the islands were not officially considered either Japanese or Chinese territory, although Japan at that time marked them on maps as its own. New cartographic objects were not legalized as Japanese possessions - because of the then difficulties in Japanese-Chinese relations.

The Senkaku Archipelago came under the control of Japan in 1895, and together with Taiwan, which fell under the jurisdiction of Tokyo after Japan's victory over China, under the Shimonoseki Treaty.

After World War II, Okinawa, Senkaku, and Taiwan were under American occupation and then transferred to Japan by the US. However, after the war, Japan renounced the rights to Taiwan, but the situation with the Senkaku Islands became more complicated.

In 1968, the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East published a report stating that a rich oil field was allegedly located near the Senkaku Islands - namely, on the continental shelf of the East China Sea. Studies of the seabed by scientists from Japan, China and Taiwan showed that the probable area of ​​the proposed deposit could be two hundred thousand square kilometers.

Taiwan first began seeking Japan's consent to the Taiwanese-American development of an oil field, and then, in 1970, voiced claims to sovereignty over Senkaku. Following Taiwan, the People's Republic of China also announced territorial claims to the Diaoyu Islands. Beijing decided that, restoring historical justice after the war, Tokyo should have renounced the rights to Senkaku (Diaoyu) - just as they had renounced Taiwan.

So, the cause of the international conflict is a banal economic one: a deposit.

In 1972, diplomatic relations were established between the PRC and Japan. In 1974, China proposed to postpone consideration of the dispute over the islands. The Japanese side agreed, and the conflict not only lost its sharpness, but, as it were, dissolved in time.

However, starting in 1992, the territorial dispute began to escalate again. Based on the Cairo Declaration of 1943, which deprived Japan of all the territories it had conquered, the PRC declared that the territory of the islands was originally Chinese.

The adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1996 led to the fact that the Senkaku archipelago was included in the maritime economic zones simultaneously by both Japan and China.

In the same year, the Japanese government decided to introduce a two hundred mile exclusive economic zone around the country; the disputed Senkaku archipelago also fell within these two hundred miles. In response, the Chinese authorities announced the creation of a group of troops intended for possible actions in the Diaoyu.

Then leapfrog began with a lighthouse and flags. On July 14, 1996, the Japanese Youth Association set up a lighthouse on Kitakojima Island, and on August 18, the Senkaku Islands Protection Society set up a lighthouse on. Watsuri Japanese flag.

On October 7, 1996, forty Chinese ships entered Japanese territorial waters near Senkaku. The protesters landed on the island of Wotsurijima and planted the flags of the People's Republic of China and Taiwan there. Later they were removed by the Japanese.

In 1999, the Japanese press reported that the Chinese, considering the islands their own, began geological exploration on the shelf of the Senkaku archipelago. In the same year, natural gas was discovered in the archipelago. There is information in the media that in 2003 the Chinese tried to drill wells near the sea border with Japan.

In 2004, Zhang Yesui, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of the PRC, stated China's unequivocal position on the Diaoyu issue: the islands are the original and sovereign territory of the PRC. China later refused to let Japan know about its gas production plans. In turn, the Japanese government next year decided to start issuing licenses to Japanese companies for offshore gas production. The PRC said that Japanese firms do not have the right to work in the territory of the PRC. The negotiations did not produce positive results. China has stated that the islands are not in dispute with Japan.

Negotiations were resumed at various intervals until 2010, when they were suspended by Beijing due to the arrest of the captain of a Chinese trawler, detained in the Senkaku archipelago. China responded harshly: some Japanese businessmen were arrested, student visits to China were canceled, and exports to Japan of rare earth minerals important for its industry were suspended.

Such a harsh reaction from Beijing caused Japan to talk about rearmament, which is generally not typical for a pacifist country. Tokyo decided to arm itself because China began to arm itself. Quote from a review of an article by Marco Del Corona ("Corriere della Sera", translation source -):

“We need to arm ourselves,” Tokyo says, because China is arming and causing fear. At the same time, "an alliance with the United States remains indispensable to the security and peace" of Japan. The "Main Directions" provide for the allocation of 280 billion dollars for the military needs over five years. Tokyo intends to change priorities. Fewer ground troops and strengthened air and naval forces: doubling the number of missile defense bases (from 3 to 6), increasing the number of submarines (from 16 to 22), fighters and so on. The epicenter of efforts is shifting from the island of Hokkaido, over which at the time cold war the Soviet threat loomed over the island of Okinawa to the south, where disputes with China are perceived more acutely.

A month earlier, Philip Pont of Le Monde wrote the following (translation source -):

“Sino-Japanese tensions could have been resolved were it not for the diplomatic impotence of the Kahn cabinet… This diplomatic failure, indicating the lack of foresight of the Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara, who preaches toughness towards China with the only long-term goal of strengthening the alliance with the United States, also due to the lack of channels of direct communication between the Japanese democrats and the Chinese leadership, as well as mistrust in relations between the administration and the government ... "

Le Monde's correspondent believes that Dmitry Medvedev's visit to the Kuril Islands following the incident with the Chinese trawler is not a coincidence: after all, in September the leaders of Russia and China signed a document on mutual support in protecting the interests of the two countries. The journalist throws up his hands: “Can Japan afford to be in conflict with both China and Russia at the same time?”

You don't have to be an expert international relations to draw a simple conclusion: the long island disputes, exacerbated by the activities of the expressive Tokyo governor, are leading Japan to protracted quarrels with its neighbors. It makes no sense to reopen the long-standing dispute with Russia: the Kuriles will remain Russian. To quarrel with our neighbor China, hoping for America's fraternal help and changing pacifism, which, by the way, appeared in Japan (as in post-war Germany) as one of the causes of the "economic miracle" - to ideas about weapons (by the way, even) - yes even in times of crisis, it is no longer just pointless, but also harmful. Where the best option a solution to the Japanese-Chinese dispute, rather than bilateral provocations, would be to share offshore gas with China: they would agree, work out quotas, even create joint ventures. And only then, having devastated the shelf, they would draw new borders on the maps. The small uninhabited islands themselves, which have no economic value, are not needed by either China or Japan - but gas is needed. You also need stability in relationships.

As for the Kuriles, here, for the most part, the Japanese are not interested in the islands themselves, but in the sea. In the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, the most fishy in the world, in addition to an abundance of saury, salmon and cod, there are also offshore oil and gas fields.

The same will always give a reason to choose a suitable territory. For example, the Americans, with whom the Japanese want to be friends against China, have no place in America. Any native Indian can rightfully claim this.

Six months after the speech of the Kuomintang administration of Taiwan with a protest against the return of the Ryukyu and Senkaku islands to Japan, on December 30, 1971, Beijing also published an official statement on this matter. Formally, this statement was “tied” to the moment the Japanese Parliament approved the Japanese-American agreement of June 17, 1970.

In principle, Beijing's position on this issue completely coincides with the position of Taipei. Peking diplomacy solves the issue of arguing its position in a much simpler way than it was done in the statement of the Kuomintang administration of Taiwan. The document of the PRC Foreign Ministry uses exclusively historical reasoning - a widely tested method in territorial disputes imposed by China on its neighbors in land border. The statement reads, in part: “The Diaoyu Island and other islands have always been Chinese territory. Even under the Ming Dynasty, these islands were already in the zone of China's maritime defense; they were islands belonging to the Chinese island of Taiwan, not belonging to the Ryukyu, which are now called Okinawa. The border of China with the Ryukyu in this area lies between the islands of Chiweyu and Kume; Chinese fishermen from Taiwan have long been engaged in economic activities on about. Diaoyu and other islands.

Note that the “question” of whether or not the Senkaku Islands are part of the Ryukyu archipelago, which Beijing focuses on, is an artificially far-fetched Chinese side. No one has ever - and the Japanese side agrees with this - included the Senkaku Islands in the Ryukyu archipelago.

In connection with the official announcement by the government of the People's Republic of China of its position regarding the ownership of the Senkaku Islands, one should obviously note an important moment in the development of the situation in this region. In 1970, preliminary sounding and probing of positions began, an active unofficial exchange of views between the PRC and the USA on the improvement and normalization of relations between the two countries. In July 1971, H. Kissinger, then National Security Assistant to the President of the United States, visited Beijing, who held talks with Zhou Enlai and through whom Chinese government officially invited President of the United States R. Nixon to visit China. In October 1971, H. Kissinger again visited Beijing. All this testified to a significant easing of Sino-American relations. After the signing of the Japanese-American agreement on June 17, 1971, on the return of all rights to the Ryukyu archipelago to Japan, American military personnel began to gradually evacuate from the area. In the process of evacuation and the emerging normalization of relations with the United States, as if as a test of the readiness of the American administration to continue to pursue a policy of softening relations with China, a statement by the PRC Foreign Ministry dated December 30, 1971 was published in Beijing, which contained the PRC's official claims to the Senkaku Islands.

In this episode, the United States showed its loyalty to China by refusing to get involved in the current conflict, despite the fact that some political circles in Japan persistently tried to enlist their support in the dispute that arose.

Beijing's official statement provoked an immediate reaction from Tokyo: on January 6, 1972, the Japanese Foreign Ministry issued a brief but very energetic statement warning that after the US withdrawal from the area, Japanese forces would be responsible for the defense of the Senkaku Islands. self defense.

On January 13, 1972, the Xinhua News Agency published a commentary in connection with this demarche of the Japanese government, in which it reaffirmed China's claim to sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands and protested "the greedy aspirations of the reactionary Sato government to annex Chinese territory."

Tensions in the East China Sea continued to escalate. In February, the Kuomintang administration of Taiwan took another step: the Taipei press published a report that a decision had been made to include the Senkaku Islands in Yilan County, Taiwan Province. In connection with this decision, the authorities of Yilan County stuck to their intention to send a special team to the islands in March to set up administrative institutions there.

With regard to this report, especially that part of it which deals with the establishment of "administrative institutions" on the Senkaku Islands, it is probably not out of place to recall once again that we are talking about islands on which there is no permanent population.

On February 17, the Japanese government protested against the decision of the Taiwanese authorities to include the islands in the administrative unit of Taiwan Province. Reports of this, which appeared in the pages of Japanese newspapers, gave impetus to an intensified public campaign in defense of Japan's rights to the Senkaku Islands. The Kyodo Tsushin Agency reported on March 3 from Naha, administrative center Okinawa that the local legislature approved a resolution calling for the Japanese government to try to persuade China to give up its claim to the islands.

In March 1972, the question of the islands was discussed at a session of the Japanese Parliament. Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs T. Fukuda made a statement on this issue at a meeting of one of the committees of the parliament. According to a correspondent for the Kyodo Tsushin agency on March 8, T. Fukuda gave a historical overview of the events connected with the development of the Senkaku Islands by Japan since 1885 in his statement. In conclusion, the minister stressed that the islands undoubtedly belong to Japan and the claims of other countries to them are "unfair and deplorable."

The answer to this statement by T. Fukuda was a new commentary by the Xinhua News Agency, published in the Chinese press on March 31. Xinhua again categorically asserted that "the Chinese people will certainly return the Diaoyu and other islands."

It is easy to see that before the beginning of 1972 the steps taken by Beijing and Taipei seemed to complement each other. In fact, Beijing immediately came out in support of any initiative by the Taiwanese Kuomintang administration aimed at asserting China's rights to the Senkaku Islands. However, the inclusion of the islands in Yilan County was one of the last steps taken by the Kuomintang administration in this regard. Its international position deteriorated sharply after the restoration of China's UN rights in late 1971, so it took a more cautious stance.

At the same time, some nuances appeared in Chinese propaganda around the issue of ownership of the Senkaku Islands. By this time, serious changes were taking shape on the domestic political scene in Japan (E. Sato was resigning), and the Chinese side obviously considered it untimely to take any steps that could in advance restore against it the future political leadership of Japan. This concerns not only the issue of China's territorial claims against Japan - Chinese propaganda has sharply muffled all anti-Japanese speeches, except for those that were directed personally against E. Sato. Therefore, the Chinese press did not react in any way to the entry into force of the Japanese-American agreement on the return of the Ryukyu Islands to Japan, under which the Senkaku Islands also fell.

At the same time, in connection with the entry into force of the Japan-US agreement, the Chinese side has taken certain steps through official channels. Thus, the Albanian newspaper Zeri i Popullit reported on May 24, 1972, that Huang Hua, Permanent Representative of the People's Republic of China to the UN, in a letter addressed to the Chairman of the Security Council protested against the inclusion of the Senkaku Islands in the Japanese-American agreement. The letter reiterated that the islands have long been ostensibly Chinese territory and that any US-Japan deal involving the islands is illegal and, in Beijing's opinion, has no effect. The Chinese press, however, kept silent about this demarche of the PRC representative to the UN.

On July 7, 1972, a cabinet headed by K. Tanaka came to power in Japan. The new government set as its goal, along with the strengthening of Japanese positions in relation to the United States, the normalization of relations with the PRC, which the Prime Minister announced in his very first speech.

At the end of September 1972, K. Tanaka visited China, culminating in an agreement on the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries on a basis that, in principle, corresponded to the requirements put forward in this matter by the Chinese side. However, in terms of the settlement of territorial problems, this visit did not give anything to Japan. As the correspondent of the Kyodo Tsushin agency reported on K. Tanaka's press conference on October 1, 1972, when the Japanese Prime Minister tried to discuss the issue of ownership of the Senkaku Islands during Japanese-Chinese negotiations, Zhou Enlai walked away from this discussion, stating: “ But we will argue about it here. After all, these are just tiny dots that are even difficult to notice on geographical maps. They only became a problem because oil was found around them.”

Indeed, the Senkaku Islands were difficult to find on Chinese maps published before 1970: these islands simply do not appear on them.

In general, the analysis of cartographic materials published in China gives very interesting results in connection with the Senkaku problem. It is well known that both Kuomintang and Maoist diplomacy, anticipating the official presentation of their territorial claims to neighboring countries, widely used the method of "cartographic aggression". This method consists in the fact that certain areas of neighboring countries, which were later officially claimed, were included on Chinese maps as part of its territory. So, from the very first years of existence in China people's republic maps published in the PRC depicted certain areas of the Soviet Far East and the entire Pamir, vast areas of Mongolia and India, the entire "Afghan corridor", the north of the Kachin region and the entire left bank of the Salween in the Shan region of Burma. In the same way, all the islands of the South China Sea were depicted on the maps as belonging to China. But not a single map even mentions the existence of the Senkaku Islands.

Of course, the islands are small. But Chinese cards they scrupulously depicted all the reefs and atolls, including the shallows of Macclesfield Bank covered with water during high tides, where, from the point of view of international law, there are no islands as such. The image of the Senkaku Islands on Chinese maps appeared only after the question of their ownership arose, and they began to be depicted even on maps with such a scale as 1: 50,000,000!

No less curious is the fact that the Chinese maps of the Taiwan province published before 1970-1971 limit it, and, consequently, the “Taiwan region” of Fr. Pengjia, located about 60 km northeast of Taiwan. On some maps, in the place where the Senkaku Islands are located, a sidebar with a legend is placed.

And only after the problem arose, the "Taiwan area" on the maps was significantly expanded. An example of this is the map of the province of Taiwan from the Atlas of China, published in 1973.

It is also interesting that even on the new maps, the Senkaku Islands are depicted differently from all other islands. If all other islands, say, the South China Sea, even the smallest ones, have a name next to their image, then the Senkaku Islands are only mapped. Two of them - Uotsuri and Sekibi - are marked with numbers, and their Chinese names - Diaoyuidao and Chiweiyu - are given, as a rule, not even in the legend, but outside the map frame.

Cartographic materials published in Taiwan depicted the area lying to the northeast of Taiwan, as well as similar publications in the PRC. A striking example to that - the five-volume "National Atlas of China", prepared by the Taiwanese military academy and published in 1962. Volume I of this edition is devoted entirely to Taiwan. General cards The provinces (for example, maps B1, B6, B8) include, to the northeast of the island, only the Nengjia and Mianhua Islands, which are 50-60 km away from Taiwan, in the tagake province. There is no name of the Senkaku Islands - neither Japanese, nor Chinese, nor English - and in the appendix to that consolidated index geographical names provinces.

In both Beijing and Taipei press, the area of ​​the Senkaku Islands was referred to as an area of ​​active fishing for fishermen from Taiwan. But here in volume V of the said edition there is a map A15 “Main fishing areas”. On this map, the Senkaku Islands do not appear as one of the "main fishing areas" of fishermen from Taiwan. At the same time, it is well known that Japanese fishermen are actively fishing in this area.

The analysis of documents, publications and cartographic materials of the Chinese side allows us to conclude that the question of ownership of the Senkaku Islands, raised at the initiative of the Kuomintang administration of Taiwan, arose unexpectedly for Beijing. Beijing was not ready for it. But he immediately supported the Kuomintang initiative, seeing in this an opportunity not only to try to take over the entire continental shelf of the East China Sea or most of it, but also to gain leverage over the Japanese government by toughening or softening its position on this issue. In addition, the Peking leadership, of course, could not allow the Kuomintang to turn out to be more "patriots" than they were, advocating the "restoration of rights" of China to the islands allegedly "lost" in the distant past.

As far as Japan is concerned, apart from prestige and other considerations, there is at least one extremely important factor influencing its position with respect to the Senkaku Islands. The Washington Post newspaper wrote about this as early as December 30, 1970: “The Senkaku Islands - the only islands the Ryukyu chains, located in the area of ​​the continental shelf, and therefore the only islands that will give Japan the right to claim some share in the development of the resources of the continental shelf.

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Territorial dispute between Japan and China

The subject of the dispute. The Senkaku Seto Islands (Diaoyutai Qundao in Chinese cartography) include five uninhabited islands and three reefs with a total area of ​​about 6.32 square meters. km, located in the southern part of the East China Sea, 175 km north of Ishigaki Island (Ryukyu archipelago, Japan). They are located in the area with coordinates 25°46 north latitude and 123°31 east longitude, i.e. 190 km northeast of Taiwan and 420 km east of mainland China. At the moment, the Senkaku / Diaoyu Islands are under the jurisdiction of Japan, but China also claims its rights to them.

Question history. As in the case of Dokdo/Takeshima, the history of ownership of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands is so complicated that, from a legal point of view, one can argue endlessly about it. The problem of ownership of the Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands became topical after the entry into force in 1994 of the Convention on the Law of the Sea. Its sharpness increased significantly after, in 1999, in the shelf disputed islands rich reserves of natural gas were discovered, estimated at about 200 billion cubic meters. In May 1999, reports appeared in the Japanese press that Chinese ships were conducting geological exploration offshore the Senkaku Islands in Japan's exclusive economic zone. Tokyo offered Beijing to hold joint consultations on the issue of maritime law in its application to the wealth of the disputed islands, but Beijing refused, declaring that the region of the islands was not recognized as an economic zone of Japan. In 2003, the Chinese set up an offshore platform near the sea border with Japanese waters and began drilling. In Japan, they suspected the Chinese side of trying to extract gas from deposits extending under Japanese territory . In October 2004, the parties held the first round of consultations on the Senkaku gas field, during which they agreed to resolve all issues exclusively through negotiations, without resorting to the use of force. At the same time, however, China rejected the demands of the Japanese side to acquaint it with the PRC's plans for drilling and gas production at Senkaku. In April 2005, the Japanese government decided to start considering applications from Japanese firms for issuing licenses for gas production on the shelf of the archipelago, which caused objections from the PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which characterized this decision as one-sided and provocative, and became one of the reasons for mass anti-Japanese demonstrations and pogroms in China. In June 2005, the second round of Sino-Japanese consultations began, but they did not bring results, since China refused to stop gas production from the shelf on the border between Chinese and Japanese waters and again rejected the request of the Japanese side to provide it with information about the work on the shelf. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that China has a "sovereign right" to extract gas in "waters close to the coast of the PRC" and not "the subject of a dispute with Japan." Indeed, while carrying out gas exploration work, China has never crossed the dividing line established by Japan, based on the de facto and legal ownership of the Senkaku / Diaoyu Islands. Later, Beijing came up with its proposals for the joint development of the field, and Tokyo agreed to consider them. Difficult negotiations began on the details of the project. However, in September 2010, they were interrupted by the Chinese side after the Japanese coast guard on September 7 detained a Chinese trawler that had rammed a Japanese patrol ship off the coast of Senkaku. Not wanting to show weakness, Japan, having released the crew of the trawler on September 13, 2010, extended the detention of its captain. China demanded the immediate release of the captain and payment of compensation for his detention, and then tightened customs procedures for Japanese companies trading with him and imposed an embargo on the export to Japan of rare earth metals, without which the Japanese electronics and automotive industries cannot work. On September 22, 2010, Premier Wen Jiabao warned Japan against further escalation of the conflict over the incident of the detention of the captain of the Chinese ship off the disputed islands, warning: “If Japan continues to make mistakes, the PRC will take further measures, and all responsibility (for the consequences) will lie on the Japanese side." Japan chose not to escalate the conflict and released the captain of the Chinese ship on September 24, which was seen as a serious victory for the PRC and within Japan itself, caused criticism of the government from the nationalists.

On November 13, 2010, on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Yokohama, a meeting was held between Chinese President Hu Jintao and Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan. Although both of them, according to members of the Japanese delegation, “spoke in favor of promoting strategically mutually beneficial relations, as well as developing exchanges at the private and government levels,” at the same time they confirmed the invariability of the positions of the PRC and Japan on the disputed islands, which each side considers its own. It is noteworthy that before meeting with Hu Jintao, Naoto Kan held talks with US President Barack Obama, which also touched upon the issue of relations between both countries and China. B. Obama said at the end of them that "the US obligations to defend Japan are unchanged", and N. Kan thanked the American president "for the consistent support of Japan's position during the period of deterioration of its relations with China and Russia" .

Thus, the personal meeting between the leaders of China and Japan did not contribute much to reducing the level of confrontation between the parties on the issue of the disputed islands, which became even clearer from subsequent events. On November 21, 2010, there were reports in the media that Japan intended to send troops to the neighboring islands of the Senkaku archipelago to monitor Chinese activity in the area. December 19 about the intention to send to Senkaku / Diaoyu warships to monitor the situation announced by the Chinese side .

In March 2011, the Chinese oil and gas company CNOOC began developing the Shirakaba (Chunxiao) gas field, which is located on the Chinese side of the line along which Japan separates the economic zones of the two countries. However, Tokyo believes that in this way CNOOC gains access to the common gas reservoir of the East China Sea.

Prospects for resolving the dispute. From the statements of the Japanese side quoted above, it follows that Japan does not intend to yield to China in the dispute over Senkaku. The threat of losing rare earth metals prompted Japan to look for new sources of this valuable raw material. Shortly after the incident with the detention of Chinese fishermen, there were reports that Japanese companies were establishing rare earth mining in Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Vietnam and India. And in 2011, Japanese geologists discovered the largest deposits of rare earth metals in pacific ocean. True, industrial production will require large investments, improved technologies and the conclusion of international agreements, since the areas of the ocean where deposits are found are located in international waters. Thus, in the foreseeable future, China will remain the monopoly supplier of rare earth materials to Japan. By the way, not wanting to spoil mutually beneficial economic relations, in 2011, after Japanese concessions, Beijing lifted an unspoken ban on the supply of rare earth materials to Japan.

At the same time, Beijing's position on the Diaoyu/Senkaku has not changed: “The Diaoyu archipelago and its adjacent islands have been Chinese territory since ancient times, and China has indisputable sovereignty over these islands. Any measures taken Japanese side in the waters near the Diaoyu are illegal and invalid.

The position of Japan does not change either. On August 10, 2011, Yu. Edano, Secretary General of the Cabinet of Ministers, during a discussion of the issue of Senkaku in one of the parliamentary committees, stressed that Japan is ready to defend the Senkaku Islands by military force. He stated: "If other countries invade these islands, we will use the right of self-defense and drive them out at any cost," adding that Japan "controls these islands legally."

At the end of the summer of 2011 in Japan, there was a change in the leadership of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and, accordingly, the head of the country's cabinet of ministers. On August 30, 2011, the Chinese state news agency Xinhua responded to this event with the headline "Japan's new prime minister must respect China's key interests and development needs." In order to improve relations with the PRC, it recommends that the Japanese leadership, in addition to refusing to visit the Yasukuni Shrine, "show sufficient respect for China's national sovereignty and territorial integrity, especially when it comes to issues related to the Diaoyu Islands, which are an integral part of China's territory..." . And further: “Beijing would also like to put aside these differences and jointly with Japan to develop resources in the waters surrounding the Diaoyu Islands, provided that Tokyo recognizes the full sovereignty of China over this archipelago. In addition, Japan should recognize China's legitimate need for military modernization to protect its growing national interests."

This passage allows us to draw at least three conclusions regarding the position of the PRC regarding the disputed territories of Diaoyu/Senkaku for the near future:

1) In order to please the mood of the country's public, the Chinese leadership will continue to make statements about belonging Diaoyu Islands China, but at the same time, not wanting to complicate relations, will not insist on holding specific negotiations on the fate of the islands - the dispute, in accordance with the call of Deng Xiaoping, will be postponed indefinitely.

2) China, which is interested in the economic development of the territories in the Diaoyu/Senkaku area, will insistently invite Japan to do this jointly. The chances of getting Japan's consent to this proposal are negligible.

3) China intends to further build up its military, primarily naval, potential in order to get more significant trump cards in future negotiations on territorial issues, and not only with Japan. However, China is unlikely to seriously intend to use military force, or at least the threat of its use in a dispute over territories, since they understand that in this case the United States will be on the side of Japan.

On the whole, according to Japanese journalists and experts, Y. Noda's coming to power in Tokyo was perceived with caution in Seoul and Beijing. The reason for this lies not only in his statement on August 15, 2011, which did not go unnoticed in Asia, that the Class A war criminals whose ashes rest in Yasukuni Shrine, which some Japanese politicians so love to visit, “are not military men.” criminals." The fact is that Y. Noda has a reputation as a politician who is ready to firmly defend Japan's national interests. Here is what the Asahi Shimbun wrote on September 1, 2011: “If there is one issue that can cause a surge of emotions in the usually calm Prime Minister Yo. Noda, it is Japan's territorial disputes. Japan's new leader says his stance on national security and sovereignty is shaped by being raised by a father who served in an elite airborne self-defense regiment and saw Japanese paratroopers train. “I saw up close the fighters of the elite units who were undergoing hard training,” Y. Noda wrote in his book. “This experience helped shape my view of security.” About the position of Y. Noda on the territorial dispute with China, the note says that they were clearly stated during the trip of the future prime minister to Beijing as part of a delegation of Japanese parliamentarians in December 2004. At that moment, relations between Japan and China were aggravated due to the incident with the entry of a Chinese nuclear submarine into Japanese territorial waters off the island of Ishigakijima in Okinawa Prefecture. At a dinner at the Beijing Diaoyutai Reception House, Yoh Noda raised the issue of the Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands, urging both sides to refrain from acts that incite nationalism. To this, the head of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, Tang Jiaxuan, replied that the dividing line between the two countries "was drawn by Japan at its discretion", and China "never recognized this line." To this, Y. Noda replied that "from a historical point of view, the Senkaku Islands are Japanese territory."

There is no reason to believe that this position of Noda has changed since then. S. Maehara, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the cabinets of Y. Hatoyama and N. Kan, also adhered to tough positions on territorial issues. And although he was forced to resign due to a scandal with illegal political donations, immediately after his coming to power, Y. Noda appointed S. Maehara as head of the DPJ Political Research Committee. This means that the nationalist S. Maehara gets the opportunity to play an important role in shaping Japanese politics, incl. and external. Thus, we can assume that the change of leadership of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and, accordingly, the Cabinet of Ministers of Japan at the end of the summer of 2010 did not create any prerequisites for facilitating the decision territorial disputes available to Japan with its neighbors.

Ending to be

William B. Hefin, Diayou/Senkaku islands dispute: Japan and China, Oceans apart. http://www.hawaii.edu/aplpj/articles/APLPJ_01.2_heflin.pdf

China's premier warns Japan against escalating conflict over disputed islands. http://www.ng.ru/world/2010-10-18/6_japan.html

Denisov I. “Japan will find justice for China at the bottom of the ocean”, Voice of Russia website, 07/5/2011, 16:42, http://rus.ruvnm/2011/07/05/52815657.html

Another press conference on July 5, 2022 with the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, Hong Lei. http://ua.china-embassy.org/rus/fyrth/t837653.htm

Japan is ready to defend the Senkaku Islands if necessary. http://news.mail.ru/politics/6544033/

Japan "s new PM needs to respect China"s core interests, development demands, Xinhua, August 30, 2011.http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90883/7583349.html

A familiar reaction: China, S. Korea wary of new PM, Asahi, 2011.08.31.

And the People's Republic of China.

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According to official Tokyo, since 1885, the Japanese government has repeatedly studied the Senkaku Islands and received accurate confirmation that the islands were not only uninhabited, but there were no signs that they were under Chinese control. Based on this, on January 14, 1895, the government of the country officially included the Senkaku Islands in the territory of Japan in accordance with the international law terra nullius - "no man's land".

The Senkaku Islands were neither part of the island of Taiwan nor part of the Pescadores Islands, which were ceded to Japan by Qing China in accordance with the Shimonoseki Treaty, which was concluded in April 1895 following the first Sino-Japanese War. In the period 1900-1940. On the islands of Kubajima and Uotsurishima, there were 2 settlements of Japanese fishermen, with a total of 248 inhabitants. A bonita processing plant also operated on the island of Wotsurijima. Due to the crisis in the Japanese fishing industry, the factory closed and the settlements were abandoned by the beginning of 1941.
In 1945, Japan lost the war and lost all the territories it had acquired since the end of the 19th century. Senkaku, along with Okinawa, came under US jurisdiction. But in the early 1970s, the United States returned Okinawa to Japan, giving it and Senkaku.

In October 2004, the first round of consultations on the Senkaku gas field took place, during which the parties agreed to resolve all issues exclusively through negotiations, without resorting to the use of force. At the same time, China rejected the demands of the Japanese side to acquaint it with the PRC's plans for drilling and gas production at Senkaku.

Also, Tencent QQ, a service popular in China, launched filtering messages related to the controversial issue of the Senkaku Islands. In August 2004, QQ Games began filtering words such as "钓鱼岛" (Senkaku Islands) and "保钓" (Senkaku Defense Movement). This act sparked a lot of debate, and Tencent has since removed the filter.

In April 2005, the Japanese government decided to start considering applications from Japanese companies for issuing licenses for gas production on the shelf of the archipelago. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China described this decision as "one-sided and provocative", pointing out that Japanese firms cannot carry out work in the territory that the PRC considers its own. Japan's decision was one of the reasons that led to massive anti-Japanese demonstrations and pogroms in China. [ ]

In June 2005, the second round of Sino-Japanese consultations took place. They didn't bring results. China refused to stop gas production from the shelf on the border between Chinese and Japanese waters and again rejected the request of the Japanese side to provide it with information about the work on the shelf. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that China has a "sovereign right" to extract gas in "waters close to the coast of the PRC" and not "the subject of a dispute with Japan."

The parties agreed to continue negotiations. Japan agreed to consider a Chinese proposal to jointly develop the field. Until 2010, Japan and China were negotiating the details of the project, but they were suspended at the initiative of the PRC after Japan detained a Chinese trawler in the area of ​​the disputed Senkaku Islands / and arrested its captain.

In March 2011, the Chinese oil and gas company CNOOC began developing the Shirakaba / Chunxiao / gas field. The Shirakaba / Chunxiao / field is located on the Chinese side of the line along which Japan separates the economic zones of the two countries, but Tokyo believes that it has access to a common gas reservoir in the East China Sea.

“The Diaoyu Archipelago and its adjacent islands have been Chinese territory since ancient times, and China has undeniable sovereignty over these islands. Any measures taken by the Japanese side in the waters near the Diaoyu Islands are illegal and invalid, ”this is the official point of view of the PRC on the situation around the Diaoyu Islands.

On April 15, 2012, Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara announced that the capital of Japan was going to buy these islands in the East China Sea, which are also claimed by China.

In the area of ​​the islands there are deposits of natural gas, which China intends to develop. Official Tokyo, on the other hand, claims that the sea border of the two states clearly delimits these territories, and the gas-rich areas belong to Japan. At the moment, the Tokyo authorities lease these islands from private owners, who are Japanese citizens.

On July 11, patrol ships of the Chinese Navy were maneuvering off the coast of Senkaku Island. In this regard, on July 15, 2012, the Japanese ambassador to the PRC was recalled for consultations.

On August 19, anti-Japanese demonstrations took place in China, in a number of places ending in pogroms of Japanese shops and Japanese-made cars. The reason for the speeches was the fact that a group of Japanese citizens landed on the disputed islands and hoisted the flag of Japan there.

On September 5, Japanese media reported that the Japanese government was able to negotiate with a private owner of 3 of the 5 Senkaku Islands to buy them for 2.05 billion yen, exceeding the offer of Tokyo Prefecture.

On September 11, China responded to Japan's decision by sending two warships to the disputed islands "to protect sovereignty." The Chinese Foreign Ministry explained that if Japan does not refuse to buy the Senkaku Islands, which the PRC considers historically belonging to it, then the incident could threaten with "serious consequences." Mass anti-Japanese pogroms began that same week, which led to the closure of factories owned by Japanese companies.

On September 16, relations between China and Japan escalated after mass protests began in China against Japan's "nationalization" of the islands, which the PRC considers its territory. Anti-Japanese demonstrations involving several thousand people took place in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Qingdao and Chengdu.

Later, 1,000 Chinese fishing boats make their way to the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands. On the same day, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC announced that the Chinese government was ready to submit part of the documents regarding the outer limit of the continental shelf beyond the 200-mile maritime zone in the East China Sea to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, established on the basis of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Two of the 11 Chinese military patrol ships cruising near the Senkaku Islands entered Japanese territorial waters.

The G7 countries have called for the demilitarization of disputed islands in the South China Sea. What are China, Vietnam and the Philippines arguing about?

The Chinese authorities, following the results of the G7 summit, which concerns disputed territories in East China and South China Seas. According to the representative of the country's Foreign Ministry, members of the G7, under the pretext of international law, interfere in territorial issues in these seas. In a joint communiqué following the meeting, Xinhua reports, the members of the association stated that they are committed to resolving maritime territorial disputes with the help of international law, and also expressed concern about the situation.

China's position on the East China and South China Seas remains clear and consistent, Lu Kang said.

What are China, Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines arguing about?

This is about disputed territories in the East China and South China Seas. For individual The group of islands is claimed by several states. So, the ownership of the Paracel Islands is disputed by China and Vietnam; the Spratly archipelago - Vietnam, China, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei; Scarborough Reef - Philippines and China.

As for the East China Sea, there has been a dispute since the 70s of the last century between China and Japan around Senkaku Island (the Chinese name is Diaoyu). The situation escalated after the Japanese government bought three of the five islands of the Senkaku archipelago from a private Japanese owner.

Why are disputed territories so important?

water area South China Sea has important strategic importance- through these sea routes, as well as through the Malacca Strait, approximately 40% of world trade traffic passes and up to 80% of Chinese oil and gas imports are transported. In addition, in the early 1970s, significant hydrocarbon reserves were discovered in the immediate vicinity of the islands - according to rough estimates, they amount to 11 billion barrels of oil and 5.9 trillion cubic meters of gas.

The Senkaku Islands are of interest to Beijing and Tokyo due to their strategic position. In addition, fishing is possible in the area. But here the main reason is energy resources. In 1968, experts discovered rich reserves of oil and natural gas on the shelf of the islands.

What are the historical arguments in their favor brought by the participants in the conflicts?

In Beijing, they assure that the islands in South China Sea were discovered by the Chinese about 2 thousand years ago. In 1939, individual islands were occupied by Japan, which used them for military purposes. In 1947, two years after the surrender of Japan, the Chinese authorities published a map showing state border in the South China Sea was designated as the so-called nine-dotted line. The area covered by this line includes up to 90% of this region, including the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Reef. The PRC leadership still uses the 1947 documents as the main argument in the dispute, declaring its "historical rights" to the territory.

Where are the islands

Spratly Islands(Chinese - Nansha, Vietnam. - Truongsa) stretch in a chain in the southern part of the sea between the Philippines, Vietnam, China and island of Borneo. Their length is about 595 kilometers.

Paracel Islands(Chinese - Xisha, Vietnam. - Hoangsa) and Zhongsha are located 200 kilometers southeast of the Chinese island of Hainan and 300 kilometers east of the coast of Vietnam. The archipelago consists of 15 islands, as well as reefs and shoals.

Scarborough Reef(Chinese Huangyan) - small areas of land rising above the water and forming a lagoon in the shape of a triangle with a perimeter of 46 kilometers. The area of ​​the reefs together with the lagoon is 150 square kilometers.

Senkaku or Diaoyu- an archipelago in the East China Sea, 170 kilometers northeast of Taiwan. Consists of eight islands. total area- 7 square kilometers.

How are disputes between countries proceeding?

The Philippines filed a lawsuit with the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in January 2013 after China took de facto control over Scarborough Reef in April 2012. The Philippine lawsuit had 15 counts. The plaintiff disputed the legitimacy of the so-called nine-dotted line denoting Chinese claims in the South China Sea. Manila demanded that China's construction in the disputed area of ​​artificial artificial islands. In addition, the Philippines accused China of obstructing the movement of ships and fisheries.

On July 12, 2016, the International Tribunal ruled that China has no "historical right" to disputed territories in the South China Sea. . The judges of the tribunal also recognized that the PRC has no right to fish, develop Natural resources and lead another economic activity in this territory. And the construction work organized by China caused irreparable damage coral reefs in the region.

Beijing called the arbitration decision on disputes in the South China Sea a filkin's letter. The Chinese Foreign Ministry refused to recognize the decision of the court and said that it would not affect China's sovereignty and interests in the region. According to the position of the Foreign Ministry, Beijing will not, under any circumstances, accept the resolution of territorial disputes and the delimitation of maritime borders third parties.