Senkaku Island

Subject: IR/Geography

Context:

Ishigaki city assembly, a local council in Japan has approved change of name of an area containing Senkaku Islands from Tonoshiro to Tonoshiro Senkaku.

Concept:

• The Senkakus are administered by Japan, but claimed by China and Taiwan, which refer to them as Diaoyu Dao and Diaoyutai, respectively.

• Japan annexed the archipelago following China’s defeat in the first Sino-Japanese war from 1894 to 1895.
• Yet the islands were left out of the Treaty of San Francisco at the end of the second world war that returned to China most of the territories previously occupied by Japan.
• Under the terms of Japan’s surrender, the island chain was controlled by the US until 1971, when it was returned to Japan along with Okinawa and other surrounding islands
• A report highlighting the potential for oil reserves in the area prompted China to reassert its territorial claims over the islands. Japan does not recognise China’s claims nor the existence of a dispute over the islands’ sovereignty.