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Japan's island issues with its neighbors

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  Quote heyamigos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Japan's island issues with its neighbors
    Posted: 15-Sep-2012 at 06:59
Currently, China and Japan are embroiled over a messy situation regarding territorial disputes.  Actually, they are fighting over uninhabited rocks, too small for human habitation to be considered islands.  it is more about nationalistic pride than anything else.  Chinese seeks some type of unsettled score with the Japanese because of WWII invasion and atrocities, while the Japanese remind the Chinese that they did not lose the WWII to Chinese or other Asians but only to America's atomic bombs.  They arrogantly resort they can easily defend themselves again if need be.  besides China, they have island dispute issues with South Korea (also an uninhabited one) and Russia (used to be inhabited by Japanese, but now occupied by Russians).
 
I see British, Germans, French today can easily forget the past and move on despite 2 bloody world wars.  The Asians will go after each others throats over uninhabited islands.  Neither side wants to budge.  I know the world is laughing reading about news like that.
 
Nationalism can be a dangerous weapon if left unchecked.  Good doses of it is healthy, esp. if it is the justified type.  The one where they intend to rally an entire nation to take up arms is what scares me
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  Quote Ollios Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Sep-2012 at 12:02
This isn't the first unhabitat island problem and wouldn't be the last.

Morrocco and Spain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perejil_Island_crisis

Greece and Turkey
Back two little islands
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardak

Even Canada, UK have similar problems also Japan has conflicts(island problems) with South Korea and Russia



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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Sep-2012 at 21:20
What does the UN say on the ownership of these islands?
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  Quote Toltec Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Sep-2012 at 03:14
These border disputes aren't just restricted to China and Japan, China has a similar dispute over islands with Vietnam and Thailand and Cambodia have that ridiculous border dispute over a tiny field. In fact I believe almost every south east Asian country has one or several border disputes with others.

Far eastern countries are indoctrinating their citizens in the media and at school with the kind of fervent nationalism that existed in pre-war Europe. Until this is addressed it's difficult to see any resolution to these issues. Though to be fair this isn't restricted to the East, pretty much the whole world is guilty to a degree, and that Europe's would adopt a strong anti-nationalism is not surprising with nationalism being responsible for WWII.


Edited by Toltec - 16-Sep-2012 at 03:17
Stupidity got us into this mess, why can't it get us out?

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  Quote heyamigos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Sep-2012 at 06:12
One major problem with the Chinese is they believe that territories and oceans that once belonged to their emperors of Ching Dynasty, Ming Dynasty, Tang Dynasty, Han Dynasty, etc. will always remain theirs.  The days of the empire are no more.  Not only that, but some groups who were forced to join the empire (ie Uygurs, Tibetans, etc.) still keep and maintained their separate language and culture that is clearly different from other Chinese.  In America, I have met 3 Uygurs and if you look at their appearance and language, you would think they fit better with Turkish than they do Chinese.  They can also speak perfect Chinese and understand our culture, but deep down, they know they are not.
 
I think Chinese will eventually resolve the territory issues with the neighbors and also dialogue with its own ethnic minorities from within.
 
But, the issue with Japan remains thorny.  It is a hate just like between Serbs and Bosnians.  If they were not separated by oceans, I am sure there would have been many reciprical killings on both sides until one is gone
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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Sep-2012 at 19:28
Big empires never learn. The Russians also tried to assimilate minorities, but this led to increased nationalism, especially after the collapse of the USSR. Should China suffer from internal turmoil, some of these groups might regain their independence (though it's still highly unlikely in the present situation)
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  Quote Centrix Vigilis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Sep-2012 at 11:19
Ya can stumble and fall with the rest...or read and heed from the best. Wink
 
 
Understanding the China-Japan Island Conflict
 
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  Quote Centrix Vigilis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Sep-2012 at 07:00
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

S. T. Friedman


Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true'

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  Quote lirelou Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Sep-2012 at 00:00
China's claim to the Daioyu islands arises from their claim to Taiwan, which they annexed in 1683, after the surrender of Coxinga, but did not develop until much later. 

Taiwan's aboriginal inhabitants were Malay-Polynesian peoples related to those of the Philippines. Considering their unchallenged oceanic seafaring record, there is little doubt that they knew the Diaoyu islands. Though no aboriginal communities remain on Diaoyu, several other small islands between themselves and Taiwan do have such communities. The Japanese began their interest in those islands in the 1500s, which should not surprise considering their maritime record.

In any event, China treated Taiwan as a far frontier and even restricted immigration there to men only at times. Following several Japanese punitive expeditions against the Aboriginals, and the Sino-French War of 1884-85 the Qing dynasty made Taiwan a province and began a modest development program. But ten years later, in the wake of the first Sino-Japanese War, China was forced to abandon claims to Korea, and cede Taiwan and the Daioyu islands to Japan.

When the Japanese moved in to Taiwan, there was resistance by the short-lived Republic of Formosa, and even a few Aboriginal uprisings, but it was the Japanese who developed Taiwan, and who would have been the most common visitors to the Diaoyu islands

What makes this really interesting is that the man responsible for drawing the Qing dynasty to annex Taiwan in the first place, Coxinga (Zeng Cheng-gong), was a half Japanese and half Chinese Ming loyalist from the Chinese mainland. But, he had to expel the Dutch, who were the ones who had brought in the Chinese laborers who the sparked the interest of mainland settlers in the first place. Later "men only" policies would ensure that many of these settlers ended up with Aboriginal blood in their veins.

So, given the Daioyu islands historic ties to Taiwan's Aboriginals, its location between Taiwan and Okinawa, and the historic coupling of both Taiwan and the Diaoyu islands in the Treaty of Shimonoseko, Taiwan has the stronger claim, even as the Republic of China.


Edited by lirelou - 27-Sep-2012 at 00:01
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  Quote Toltec Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Sep-2012 at 09:55
So the Chinese claim is we invaded and wiped out a native population, so their property is legally ours now, even though the people who live there now are our enemies? The Japanese claim is we invaded oppressed the said illegal occupiers for a while a long time ago, so they ours.

You have laugh don't you, comedians struggle to write better farce.


Edited by Toltec - 27-Sep-2012 at 09:56
Stupidity got us into this mess, why can't it get us out?

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  Quote lirelou Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28-Sep-2012 at 00:20
Toltec, the Taiwanese aborigines were happily hunting heads as late as the 1920s. The Chinese never set out to wipe them out. They confined them to the mountains, which is pretty much most of Taiwan. The Chinese on the narrow coastal plains inter-married with them. There are even several small islands off the east coast of Taiwan where fairly pure-blooded Aborigines live. The Japanese even got along fairly well with them, save for one nasty blip in 1937 where one tribe attacked a Japanese school. What made them a small minority was the arrival of millions of Chinese refugees from the mainland after the Nationalist government fell to the Communists in 1949.

As for the Daioyu islands, their early inhabitants could have easily moved on to Okinawa as to Taiwan.

You might find this of interest: http://www.dmtip.gov.tw/Eng/Tao.htm

Also, if you google (rosendo orchid island aboriginal) you should pull up a short film. And just for a bit of more irony, Taiwan even has the remains of a Spanish fort on it, dating back to the 1620s. (?Quien podia imaginarlo?)


Edited by lirelou - 28-Sep-2012 at 00:23
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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28-Sep-2012 at 20:15
Originally posted by Toltec

So the Chinese claim is we invaded and wiped out a native population, so their property is legally ours now, even though the people who live there now are our enemies? The Japanese claim is we invaded oppressed the said illegal occupiers for a while a long time ago, so they ours.

You have laugh don't you, comedians struggle to write better farce.

That's nationalism for you: two groups of stubborn bigots each convinced they are right and everyone else is wrong
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  Quote Centrix Vigilis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-Sep-2012 at 09:57
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

S. T. Friedman


Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true'

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  Quote heyamigos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Oct-2012 at 05:54
I think both China and Taiwan are making the same claims on this issue (ie that historically China owned these islands even prior to the Qing Dynasty).  China had very historic ties with Okinawa going back as far as even before the Sui-Tang Dynasties.  Many aspects of Okinawan culture have obvious Chinese influences (and, from hence, spread on to Japan as well).  The Chinese/Taiwanese claim is that these Diaoyu islands were the first port of entry whenever they traded with Okinawa and Japan in historic times.
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  Quote lirelou Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Oct-2012 at 16:37
heyamigos, Taiwan's claim (as the ROC), is based upon the same claim the mainland's is, i.e., the Qing dynasty decision to make Taiwan a province of China on the date I noted. If you have a contrary published source, it would be greatly appreciated.

To quote Macabe Keliher in his note to his translation of Yu Yonghe's " Tales of Formosa

"Before the seventeenth century, Chinese considered Taiwan to be, as Qing emperor Kangxi later called it, 'a mudball in the sea.' Fishermen might have visited its waters, or imperial excursions sailed by, but it remained as indistinct as any other remote island. Only seven or eight hundred Chinese had come to reside there by the early seventeenth century, and mostly migratory fishermen. It had not even its own name; being called 'Little Liuqiu' or the 'Eastern Savage Land', or something else of comparable nature.

"The arrival of the Dutch in the 1620s changed all that."   (Ibid, page xiii)
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  Quote Centrix Vigilis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Oct-2012 at 16:32
Update.
 
China ‘sharpens response’, starts military exercises near disputed islands
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

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Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true'

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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Oct-2012 at 11:16
Hopefully it won't lead to war. Even the most aggressive militarist could see it would lead to mutual destruction as the US would almost certainly get involved to help Japan
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  Quote longbaby Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Oct-2012 at 05:55
Originally posted by heyamigos



  Actually, they are fighting over uninhabited rocks, too small for human habitation to be considered islands.  it is more about nationalistic pride than anything else. 


Is it that simple? I heard a saying that the ownership of Diaoyu islands involves many potential economic interests, like the mining of oils. And considering from the military perspective, Diaoyu islands are the strategic passage to the Pacific for the Chinese Navy.
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  Quote BoPoMoFo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Oct-2012 at 02:04
The dispute isn't nearly as insignificantly about merely nationalistic pride as the op says.  If Japan claims sovereignty to these islands (which they have completely no legal basis, as US only gave them managing authority, and even that was done illegally against Potsdam Proclamation), then their territorial water extends significantly south, essentially cutting off any way China, Korea, Russia or some other countries entering the West Pacific.
 
Not to mention the rich oil reserves within the water around those islands.
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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Nov-2012 at 07:16
Originally posted by BoPoMoFo

The dispute isn't nearly as insignificantly about merely nationalistic pride as the op says.  If Japan claims sovereignty to these islands (which they have completely no legal basis, as US only gave them managing authority, and even that was done illegally against Potsdam Proclamation), then their territorial water extends significantly south, essentially cutting off any way China, Korea, Russia or some other countries entering the West Pacific.
 
Not to mention the rich oil reserves within the water around those islands.
Ah yes, the same motive for Bush's illegal war with Iraq. As always, one side has oil or mineral reserves and the other side wants to take it
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