(Yokohama Today)The basic document related to Japan's Senkaku Islands and China's unacceptable strategies around the Islands and in other sea areas of the East China Sea is as follows, since it was prepared by the U.S. Government who, for two decades after WWII, occupied Japan's Okinawa Prefecture that includes the Senkaku Islands.
So, everybody concerned must first take a look at this document.
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U.S. Energy Information Administration
East China Sea
Last Updated: March 2008
Background
Areas of the East China Sea are abundant in oil and natural gas deposits, which has resulted in tension between China and Japan as both seek to claim the resources for themselves. Taiwan's claim parallels China’s, but Taiwan has not actively pursued the resources. According to EIA estimates, China’s oil consumption will increase 3.8 percent annually through 2030, to roughly 15 million barrels per day. Japan’s interest reflects the fact that Japan has virtually no domestic oil or gas reserves and is heavily dependent upon imports for its oil and gas needs. Japan is expected to consume 5 million barrels per day by 2030...
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) has not yet resolved ownership disputes in the East China Sea. The 1982 convention created a number of guidelines concerning the status of islands, continental shelves, exclusive economic zones (EEZ), enclosed seas, and territorial limits. UNCLOS states that countries with overlapping claims must resolve them by good faith negotiation (see South China Sea brief for another example).
The large number of conflicting claims resulted in the creation of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS). Established in 1997, the CLCS’ purpose is to, "...facilitate the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (the Convention) in respect of the establishment of the outer limits of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured.” It is unclear when the CLCS will rule on the East China Sea dispute.
Oil & Natural Gas
Oil
Entire East China Sea
Oil reserve estimates for the East China Sea vary within the same general range. Official Chinese unproven oil reserve estimates tend to vary and tend to be high, at 70 to 160 billion barrels of oil (Bbbl) for the entire East China Sea. Foreign estimates fall closer to the middle of that range at 100 Bbbl...
Natural Gas
Entire East China Sea
Unproven natural gas reserve estimates of the entire East China Sea have grown. An official Japanese survey in 1970 put unproven reserves at nearly 7 trillion cubic feet (Tcf). 2005 Chinese unproven estimates for the East China Sea tend to vary and be high, ranging from 175 to 210 Tcf...
Territorial Issues
The dispute between China and Japan over the resources in the East China Sea revolves around two issues: demarcating the sea boundary between each country and sovereignty over the Daioyu/Senkaku Islands. Taiwan's claim parallels China's, particularly with regard to the Daioyu/Senkaku Islands, but Taiwan has not actively pursued the resources. Bureau chief-level negotiations between China and Japan to resolve the territorial claims began in late 2004; five of the currently eleven rounds of talks were held in 2007.
Demarcating the sea boundary
The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) defines both an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and a continental shelf. Japan defines its boundary as the UNCLOS EEZ extending westward from its southern Kyusyu island and Ryuku islands. China defines its boundary using the UNCLOS continental shelf, but extends its territorial claims using the concept of a natural extension of its continental shelf. The overlapping claims amount to nearly 81,000 square miles, an area slightly less than the state of Kansas. Japan has proposed a median line (a line drawn equidistant between both countries EEZs) as a means to resolve the issue, but this has not proven acceptable to China.
Daioyu/Senkaku Islands
Japan occupies the Daioyu/Senkaku Islands (Chinese name/Japanese name; DSI), but both China and Taiwan claim them. The complexity of sovereignty over DSI begins in the closing decade of the 19th Century. Until the Sino-Japanese War, Taiwan, as part of China, was in charge of the management of the Daioyu islands. At the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, Japan assumed control of Taiwan and DSI. Upon Japan’s defeat in WWII, Taiwan was returned to China, but no specific mention was made of DSI in any subsequent document. The conclusion of the Chinese Civil War in 1949 saw Taiwan’s Kuomintang proclaim themselves the rightful rulers of Taiwan and China (Republic of China; ROC). Mainland China’s Communists proclaimed Taiwan part of China (People’s Republic of China; PRC).
Little attention was given towards DSI sovereignty until 1969 when a UN report indicated possible large hydrocarbon deposits in the waters around DSI. In June 1971, the United States and Japan signed the Okinawa Reversion Treaty which included DSI as part of the Okinawa islands to be returned to Japanese control; the treaty was quickly challenged by both the PRC and the ROC. In September 1970, a Taiwanese gunboat planted a flag on DSI, generating strong protests from both China and Japan. In 1978, Japanese civilians erected a lighthouse on the largest island in DSI. Due to typhoon activity in the area, repair and reconstruction of the lighthouse has since been permitted by the Japanese government. To date, the sovereignty of the islands remains contested.
Mediation Efforts
The first bilateral talks between China and Japan over East China Sea issues began in October of 2004 (timeline of talks); Taiwan has not participated in any discussions. Over the course of three years, China and Japan have exchanged ideas to resolve the East China Sea dispute, but to date, no accord has been reached. Japan has consistently requested seismic data from China on its X/O fields and requested that China desist production until an agreement can be reached. China has consistently rejected this claim, insisting that the X/O Trough is within its territorial sovereignty.
Both China and Japan have offered joint development of the resources as a means of moving forward with development, but the areas in which joint development has been offered have not been agreed to. China has offered joint development of the gas fields north of DSI, sidestepping the sovereignty issue. Japan has offered joint development of the Chunxiao/Shirakaba gas field, sidestepping the sea boundary dispute. To date, neither side has accepted the other’s offer.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/East_China_Sea/pdf.pdf
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Some of my comments below:
1) The U.S. Government virtually admits that there are 100 Bbbl crude oil reserves in the East China Sea, which are almost comparable to those in Iraq.
2) The following understanding is historically wrong:
"Until the Sino-Japanese War, Taiwan, as part of China, was in charge of the management of the Daioyu islands. At the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, Japan assumed control of Taiwan and DSI"
Okinawa Governor asked Tokyo to declare official occupancy of the Senkaku Islands 10 years before the end of the Sino-Japanese War. And, several months before the end of the War, the Empire of Japan declared its occupancy.
It is a little complicated, but through post-War negotiations to settle the matter, the Ching Dynasty made no objections against the declaration by the Empire. The Ching Dynasty never mentioned anything about the Senkaku Islands when it ceded Taiwan to the Empire of Japan.
It indicates that the Ching Dynasty, who had imperfectly governed Taiwan for centuries, had had no territorial interest in the Senkaku Islands if it had believed they were a kind of peripheral islands of Taiawan; the Senkaku Islands deserved no separate mentioning, even on the Ching side, through the post-War negotiations with the Empire.
In either case, the Ching Dynasty accepted (even if it had intended to neglect it as a minor matter for the great Chinese empire) the declaration of occupancy of the Senkaku Islands by the Empire of Japan before the end of the Sino-Japanese War in 1895.
Note that the Empire of Japan, as it were, separately claimed its occupancy of both Senkaku as an inherent territory and Taiwan as a ceded territory against which the Ching Dynasty did not make an objection in 1895, no matter how greedy it might look today.
3) One important episode is missing in this document. In September 1972, Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka talked with Chinese Premier Chou En-lai for normalization of relationship between Japan and China. In this meeting, Chou En-lai confessed that China started to claim its right on the Senkaku Islands because crude oil reserves had been discovered a few years before. Chou En-lai did not show any evidence that the the Ching Dynasty did not abandon its right on the Islands, if it had had ever. Chou En-lai proposed to avoid disputes on the Islands, but did not make an objection to the grounds on which Japan's occupancy of the Islands has been justified.
If the Chinese Communist Government was the legitimate successor of the Ching Dynasty after WWII, it did not make an objection to Japan's occupancy of the Islands in 1940's, 1950's, and 1960's, while its various official documents made public in those years clearly admitted that the Senkaku Islands belong to Japan.
(http://bbs.wforum.com/wmf/bbsviewer.php?trd_id=83547
http://nezu621.blog7.fc2.com/blog-entry-1038.html)
4) In addition, the major ground for China's claim of its right on the Senkaku Islands is that some documents of the Ming Dynasty suggested that Ming's officials who visited Okinawa described some islands, which might be the Senkaku Islands, as being so close to mainland China. This seems to be a theory first presented by a Japanese scholar. Chou En-lai also referred to this theory and the Japanese scholar in a meeting with a Japanese politician who helped Kakuei Tanaka and Chou En-lai hold the official meeting in Beijing in 1972. (Copies of older and classic Chinese documents are often more well preserved in Japan than in China that suffered too many wars and violent regime changes in these 2000 years.)
Yet, the concept of a border or a boundary a Chinese empire had is very different from what we have today or have had since the late 19th century. The special diplomatic relationship between Okinawa and the Ming and later the Ching dynasties must be also taken into consideration. The Okinawa Kingdom, who brought a tribute to Ming and later Ching, was also subject a samurai lord in Kyusyu of Japan proper who was also governed by the central samurai regime in Tokyo (then called Edo) even before the start of Japan's modernization in 1868 (accordingly the concept of a border or a boundary samurais had then was classic).
In coclusion, as legendary Former Chinese Premier Chou En-lai put, without natural gas and crude oil, the Chinese Communist Government should not have turned their eyes to the Senkaku Islands like the Ching Dynasty around 1895, since the Empire of Japan had already claimed its occupancy of the Islands through a due process before the end of the Sino-Japanese War.
And, remember that Japan has been always a more modernized and internationally law-abiding nation than China since 1868 (despite some grave tragedies in the Chinese Continent in late 1930's and early 1940's for which Chinese leaders, including Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai, were responsible as much as generals and politicians of the Empire of Japan were).
(...OK, now I will close a day.
In Yokohama, some commercial guys were prepared for Halloween, though there were mostly Russian middle-aged women around the Tower. Indeed, without treat, a trick might be inevitable. It looks so for either side of parties concerned, doesn't it? And, Russian might be not so bad as a language...)