Over the weekend, China's senior military official said China won't compromise in territorial disputes at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

In fact China always seeks solutions through dialogue and coordination.

However, Japan even denies that it has a dispute with China over the Diaoyu Islands even though its claims over the islands are groundless. In fact, The Basic View on the Sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands, a statement previously released by Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is in blatant disregard of the historical facts.

Japan supports its position with several arguments. Above all, that from 1885 on, the Japanese government conducted field surveys of the Diaoyu Islands, which found the islands uninhabited and showing no trace of having been under control of China's Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). The Japanese government made a cabinet decision in early 1895 to erect a marker on the islands and formally incorporate it into Japan's territory, and henceforth the Diaoyu Islands have been declared an integral part of the Nansei Islands, namely the Ryukyu Islands.

Japan also claims that the islands are not part of Taiwan and the Penghu Islands, which were ceded to Japan from China based on the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895, and so the Diaoyu Islands were not included in the territory that Japan renounced under the San Francisco Peace Treaty that took effect in 1952. Instead, they were placed under the administration of the United States as part of the Nansei Islands, and the administrative rights over the islands reverted to Japan in 1972 based on the Okinawa Reversion Agreement.

Moreover, the statement emphasizes that China did not raise any objection to the islands being placed within the trusteeship area, which indicates that China did not consider the islands as part of Taiwan. It says China only began claiming sovereign rights in the 1970s, after a United Nations agency's survey suggested the possible existence of petroleum in the waters off the islands.

None of these arguments stands up to scrutiny.

Japan claims that the Diaoyu Islands were uninhabited and therefore their status was terra nullius, or land not belonging to any nation, which made the islands eligible for occupation. It is true that the islands were uninhabited, and without adequate economic resources to support human habitation the islands remain uninhabited nowadays. But uninhabited islands do not equate to terra nullius, and in some cases, land where there are inhabitants is still deemed to be terra nullius as it is not recognized internationally as being claimed by a nation. So the question is whether the Diaoyu Islands were terra nullius before the 1890s.

The answer is definitely no. China holds an inchoate title over the Diaoyu Islands in accordance with international law. Voluminous historical materials show that China was the first country to discover, name and exercise administrative control over the Diaoyu Islands. For instance, the book Shun Feng Xiang Song (Voyage with a Tail Wind), published in 1403 during the reign of the Ming Emperor Yongle, already referred to the islands that Chinese voyagers had passed en route from Fujian to Ryukyu as the "Diaoyu Islet" and "Chikan Islet", which today are known as Diaoyu Island and Chiwei Islet. Chou Hai Tu Bian, or An Illustrated Compendium on Maritime Security, compiled by Hu Zongxian, the supreme commander of the southeast coastal defense of the Ming court, and geographer Zheng Ruozeng, marked the Diaoyu Islands as under the Ming court's coastal defense jurisdiction.

Even historical documents published by other countries recognize China's sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands. The book Illustrated Outline of the Three Countries written by Japanese geologist Hayashi Shihei, was the earliest Japanese literature to mention the Diaoyu Islands, and the attached Map of the Three Provinces and 36 Islands of Ryukyu marked the Diaoyu Islands in the same color as the Chinese mainland. The Chronicle of Ryukyu also furnishes proof that British naval vessels had to obtain permission from the Chinese government before conducting surveys in waters off Ryukyu and Diaoyu islands in the 1840s. All these contradict Japan's claim that Diaoyu Islands were terra nullius.

Japan meanwhile denies that the Diaoyu Islands are geographically and historically affiliated to Taiwan. It says that it renounced Taiwan and the Penghu Islands that China had ceded to it under the unequal Treaty of Shimonoseki, however, the treaty did not mention the Diaoyu Islands. That is how Japan comes to the fallacy that the Diaoyu Islands were not ceded to Japan as islands appertaining or belonging to Taiwan, and claims instead they are part of the Nansei Islands. These arguments are untenable in the light of the historical evidence, as well as international treaties such as the Cairo Declaration and Potsdam Proclamation.

The San Francisco Peace Treaty cannot help justify Japan's sovereignty claim, either. Article 3 of the treaty gave the US sole power of administration over the Ryukyu Islands. In 1953, the US Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands issued the Civil Administration Proclamation No 27, which defined the geographical boundaries of the Nansei Islands as between 24 to 28 degrees north latitude and 122 to 133 degrees east longitude. However, the proclamation did not specify which islands were included, and without knowing the US actually included Diaoyu Islands within the boundaries, China did not lodge an immediate protest, but this can hardly indicate that China acquiesced in the islands being part of Ryukyus and that China did not consider the Diaoyu Islands as appertaining to the island of Taiwan.

It is widely known that the San Francisco Peace Treaty was signed between Japan and the allied powers, and China was never involved in the treaty. The US unilaterally included the Diaoyu Islands within the boundaries and returned the islands as part of the Ryukyus to Japan in 1972, and such an underhanded deal can by no means support Japan's sovereignty claim over the Diaoyu Islands.

The author is a researcher at the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

(China Daily USA 06/03/2013 page12)