China-Japan over islands in the East China Sea

What to know?

• Japan maintains its hold over these small but strategically significant islands in the East China Sea by keeping a tight round- the-clock vigil on a group of islands. The Japanese call them Senkaku, and designate them as sovereign territory.
• According to the Japanese argument, in the late 19th century, about 200 nationals pioneered a settlement in these uninhabited islands.
• Over there, they established a business of gathering albatross feathers, which were used for making warm clothing.
• China contested Japanese sovereignty only after 1968, when a UN body cited the possibility of oil reserves in the area.
• On the contrary, China as well as Taiwan point to documentary evidence suggesting that China held the territory before the onset of the First Sino-Japanese War.
• Consequently, Japan has been accused of seizing this territory, which should be returned, in tune with practice after the Second World War, when imperial Japan gave back captured territories to their original owners.
• Analysts say that the intensity of claims by Tokyo and Beijing may also be driven by the significant strategic location of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands.

Military objective

• Though in international waters, the 250 km wide passageway between the Miyako and Okinawa islands is seen as a major choke-point through which China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy can channel into the West Pacific, dominated by the U.S. Navy.
• Troops of the Japan Self Defence Forces (JSDF) have been deployed on the Miyako island. Besides, defences of some other nearby islands such as Yonaguni, which is only 108 km from Taiwan, have been reinforced.
• Yaeyama Defence Association — an organisation that links the Army and civil society — points out that the JSDF needs to plug the military gap between the mainland Kyushu island and the Okinawa island chain.

(International)(the Hindu)

Pic courtesy:Wikipedia