Isles Become Focus For Old Antagonisms
By Anthony Faiola
Chinese activists on rafts zigzagged around Japanese coast guard vessels and landed on an uninhabited island in the East China Sea this week. Their mission: to symbolically reclaim Chinese sovereignty over the rocks, which are administered by Japan but claimed by China.
The Japanese were not amused. Eighteen police officers were brought in by helicopter to the disputed territory in the island chain, which is known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese, and the seven civilians who made up the ragtag Chinese force were arrested Wednesday. Piqued by the incursion, a band of 15 Japanese nationalists called for a counterstrike and attempted to mobilize their own mission in a self-proclaimed bid to "defend Japanese territory."
The altercation sparked a diplomatic quarrel that analysts say underscores the animosity that lingers between Japan and other Asian nations almost 60 years after the end of World War II.
As a result of the arrests, and the decision by Japan to hold the protesters for questioning, dozens of Chinese demonstrators burned Japanese flags outside the Japanese Embassy in Beijing on Friday for a second day in a row. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Kong Quan, said the arrests were "an illegal action which breaks international law, and . . . a serious provocation against China's sovereignty and territory and Chinese citizens' human rights."
For its part, Japan lodged an official complaint with the Chinese ambassador. And Friday night, Japanese police deported to China the seven members of the "Chinese Federation for Defending Diaoyu Islands."
The incident was only the latest in a flurry of disputes between Japan and its still-resentful neighbors. While old enemies such as Germany and France now form the core of a united Europe, the memories of World War II and earlier aggressions by the Japanese in China and the Korean Peninsula remain fresh.
"I don't think the Chinese government encouraged or endorsed the activists, but it tacitly approved them," said Mineo Nakajima, an author in Tokyo and a specialist on China policy. "Opinions are mixed, but there's a pervasive anti-Japan sentiment [in China] . . . and overall, it seems to be rising."
Neighbors of Japan are increasingly concerned by what they view as growing nationalism. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has been bitterly criticized by the Chinese, Koreans and Taiwanese for his regular visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japan's World War II dead, including war criminals. Koizumi has also vowed to alter Article 9 of Japan's constitution, drafted by the occupying U.S. forces after World War II, in which Japan renounced war. Earlier this year, members of Japan's Self-Defense Forces were dispatched in a noncombat capacity to Iraq in the largest deployment of Japanese troops since World War II.
Old frictions surface at the mere hint of Japanese impropriety -- and the Japanese have often provided ample ammunition. Last year, Takami Eto, a former legislator from Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, publicly insisted that Korea had agreed to Japanese annexation in 1910 and that the 1937 massacre of an estimated 300,000 Chinese in Nanking by imperial forces had been grossly exaggerated.
Last October, after three Japanese students staged a lewd prank interpreted as slur against the Chinese at an arts festival in Xian, China, a wave of anti-Japanese riots hit the city. One Japanese woman was injured and about 50 Japanese students were evacuated for their safety. The incident followed a wave of anti-Japan protests in China sparked by an orgy involving Japanese businessmen and Chinese prostitutes in the Chinese city of Zhuhai in September.
Perhaps most sensitive, however, are the unresolved territorial disputes. South Korea, for instance, was furious when Japan protested its decision in January to issue stamps that featured the flora and fauna of small islands in the Sea of Japan that are administered by South Korea but claimed by Japan. South Koreans took to the streets to condemn Japan's protest, and the public had purchased all 2.24 million stamps a few hours after they went on sale.
Even more contentious, however, are the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, located between southern Japan and Taiwan. The islands came under Japanese control in 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese retained administration of the islands in 1972 after the signing of an agreement with the United States, though both China and Taiwan also claim the islands.
Since then, the islands have been a recurring source of tensions. In 1996, after a group of Japanese nationalists erected a makeshift lighthouse on one of the islands, a flotilla of vessels from Hong Kong and Taiwan sailed to the area in protest, leading to the drowning of one protester in stormy seas.
The activists arrested Wednesday had sailed to the area -- considered rich in fishing and potential oil reserves -- on a 100-ton boat that departed from Zhejiang, China. They had left the boat on rafts and dodged Japanese coast guard vessels to land on one of the islands. After their arrest, they were taken to Japan's southern Okinawa prefecture for allegedly violating immigration laws.
Japan has sought to quell the quarrel by barring the departure Friday of a group of 15 Japanese activists preparing to sail to the islands. But Japanese authorities took their time in responding to Beijing's demand for the immediate release of the Chinese protesters. Meanwhile the protest organizers posted an advisory on their Web site Friday claiming another vessel would soon set sail, part of what they described as a mission to turn the area into a tourism cruise route, which they insisted was permissible under international law.
Koizumi on Friday urged the Chinese "to respond calmly." The islands, he reaffirmed, "are Japanese territory."
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