Drawing on Mineo Nakajima’s essay “‘Normalization of Diplomatic Relations Between Japan and China’ Was a Mistake,” this article examines China’s sovereignty claims over the Senkaku Islands, its 1985 offshore defense strategy, the 1992 Territorial Sea Law, and Japan’s continued reliance on “Japan-China friendship” diplomacy.

August 13, 2020
The following is taken from an essay by Mineo Nakajima, President of Akita International University, entitled “‘Normalization of Diplomatic Relations Between Japan and China’ Was a Mistake,” published in the Hanada Selection currently on sale. [WiLL, October 2012 issue, edited under the responsibility of Kazuyoshi Hanada]
This is an essay that should be read not only by the Japanese people but by people throughout the world.
【The Senkaku Islands in Japan-China Relations】
On September 7, 2010, the collision involving a “Chinese fishing boat” and Japan Coast Guard patrol vessels in waters near the Senkaku Islands in Okinawa unexpectedly brought the essential nature of Japan-China relations into sharp relief. The series of actions subsequently taken by the Chinese authorities, together with the anti-Japanese demonstrations that followed inside China, also revealed China’s immediate maritime strategy and its view of territorial sovereignty.
China, which has used economic development as a lever to strengthen its military power, has expanded its naval reach beyond the minority regions of Tibet and Xinjiang, where it continues its repression, and Taiwan, and in recent years has also designated the South China Sea as a matter of “core interest,” extending its naval power from the western Pacific to the Indian Ocean, off Somalia, and the coast of Africa.
It also became clear that China, which regards the East China Sea as effectively its own inland sea, showed no sign whatsoever of making concessions over the Senkaku issue or of showing understanding toward Japan’s position.
This was also the result of the contrast between China, which had pursued the issue ever more persistently since establishing an offshore defense strategy in 1985 under naval commander Liu Huaqing, who later became an unusually prominent member of the Politburo Standing Committee despite his naval background, and Japan, which had placed an extraordinarily simple faith in “Japan-China friendship” diplomacy.
As is well known, a 1968 marine survey conducted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) revealed the existence of abundant seabed resources in the waters surrounding the Senkaku Islands, and it was after this that China began asserting sovereignty over them.
On December 30, 1971, the year before the establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and China, China issued a “Statement of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Concerning Diaoyu Dao (the Senkaku Islands),” strongly criticizing the Okinawa Reversion Agreement and explicitly declaring: “The Diaoyu Islands and other islands have been Chinese territory since ancient times”; “Diaoyu Dao … and the other islands are affiliated islands of Taiwan”; and “The Chinese people will certainly liberate Taiwan! The Chinese people will certainly recover Diaoyu Dao and the other islands affiliated with Taiwan.”
Despite such clear and official claims from the Chinese side, neither the Japanese government and Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the mass media at the time lodged a strong protest. Amid the atmosphere rushing headlong toward the establishment of diplomatic relations with China the following year, the Senkaku issue was shelved even in the diplomatic negotiations for normalization, and Japan devoted itself single-mindedly to “Japan-China friendship” diplomacy.
What remains particularly memorable to the Japanese public concerning this issue is the statement made by then Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping when he visited Japan in the autumn of 1978, as China was emerging from the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution: “The issue of the Senkaku Islands may be left to the next generation, or even the generation after that, to resolve.”
【A Hegemonistic View of Territory】
The Japanese government and mass media welcomed Deng Xiaoping’s words, taking them as evidence of his reasonableness. Yet in February 1992, as Deng, after removing Hua Guofeng and strengthening his authority through his southern tour speeches promoting “reform and opening,” China enacted the “Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone” at an inconspicuous internal meeting of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, the 24th meeting of the Seventh NPC, thereby declaring the Senkaku Islands, known in China as Diaoyu Dao, to be Chinese territory.
Article 2 of that law stipulates: “The land territory of the People’s Republic of China includes the mainland of the People’s Republic of China and its coastal islands, Taiwan and all islands appertaining thereto including Diaoyu Dao, the Penghu Islands, Dongsha Islands, Xisha Islands, Zhongsha Islands and Nansha Islands, as well as all other islands belonging to the People’s Republic of China.”
Thus, not only Taiwan and the Penghu Islands, including the Senkaku Islands, but also the Xisha and Nansha Islands in the South China Sea, which were and are subject to disputes with countries including Vietnam and the Philippines, were unilaterally declared Chinese territory. This extremely hegemonistic conception of territory thereby acquired a domestic legal basis within China.
At that point, the Japanese government and Ministry of Foreign Affairs should immediately have recognized the importance of the situation and lodged a strong protest with China.
Instead, Japan took no diplomatic action. On the contrary, while devoting itself to “Japan-China friendship” diplomacy through the visit to Japan two months later by Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin and the visit to China that autumn by Their Majesties the Emperor and Empress, it paid almost no attention to the Senkaku Islands, an issue directly involving Japan’s national interests.
The Prime Minister at the time was Kiichi Miyazawa, and the Japanese Ambassador to China was Hiroshi Hashimoto.
As a consequence of this “Japan-China friendship” diplomacy, we must now pay full attention to the fact that recent demonstrations by young people in China concerning the Senkaku Islands have displayed slogans calling not merely for the Senkaku Islands but for the recovery of Ryukyu, once a tributary state, and the “liberation” of Okinawa — “Recover Ryukyu, Liberate Okinawa.”
With China approaching the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party that autumn, and amid the fierce internal power struggle illustrated by the widely discussed downfall of Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai — between the Communist Youth League faction associated with Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao and the so-called princeling faction under the influence of Jiang Zemin — there can be little doubt that China will become extremely belligerent on issues involving the Senkaku Islands and the South China Sea.
To be continued.