Disputed islands: Japan ignoring historical facts, says China

China today questioned the Japanese Premier’s assertions claiming sovereignty over disputed islands in the East China Sea, saying Tokyo is ‘self-deceiving itself’ by ignoring historical facts and international laws.

Reacting to Yoshihiko Noda’s comments that the islands, called Senkakus by Japan and Diaoyu by China, are an inherent part of Japanese territory brushing aside China’s counterclaims, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Qin Gang said, asserting the ownership of the territory should be solved on historical and legal basis.

Noda who addressed the UN General Assembly at New York told the media that “as for the Senkakus, they are an inherent part of our territory in light of history and also under international law.”

“There are no territorial issues as such. Therefore, there cannot be any compromise that represents a retreat from this position,” he said without naming Japan.

Qin said that “some individual country” has ignored the historical facts and international laws, openly violated territorial sovereignty of other countries, and openly denied the result of the world anti-fascist war.

“The country seriously challenges the post-war international order, but tries to take the rules of international law as a cover. This is self-deceiving. The country concerned must face up to history and earnestly abide by international legal principles, and cease all actions that infringe the territorial integrity and sovereignty of other countries,” Qin was quoted as saying by the state-run Xinhua news agency.

The China-Japan spat over the islands has intensified in recent weeks after Japan bought the islands from a private party, which China said amounted to nationalisation of its property.

While thousands held marches in front of Japanese missions in China and in some cases damaged Japanese shops and factories, China has announced the islands as its baselines for its maritime boundary and submitted its claims to the UN.

Beijing also dispatched about a dozen maritime surveillance ships to the waters of the islands controlled by Japan and called on Tokyo to abide by the informal agreement reached three decades ago to not press ahead with the claims and leave it to posterity to settle the dispute.

Japan, in turn, argued that it bought the islands to prevent the right wing politicians’ plans to convert them into tourist spots.

The Foreign Ministers of the two countries held talks on the sidelines of UN General Assembly yesterday while their Vice-Foreign Ministers held talks here to restore normalcy.

But apparently no progress has been made in the talks amid concerns that the growing tensions would jeopardise the $345 billion trade between the two countries causing lot of hardship to people on both sides.