A group of prominent Japanese has issued a statement criticizing their government’s handling of territorial disputes and throwing support behind an East China Sea peace initiative broached by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
The group, led by Nobel Prize-winning author Oe Kenzaburo, urged the Japanese government to immediately stop the vicious cycle of territorial spats with neighboring countries, referring to Japan’s battle with Taiwan and China over the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in the East China Sea and with South Korea over Takeshima Island in the Sea of Japan (known as the East Sea in Korea).
The statement, issued on Friday, said that Japan annexed Takeshima, known as Dokdo Island in Korea, and the Diaoyutais, known as the Senkakus in Japan, when South Korea and China were not strong enough to assert diplomatic claims.
For Korean people, the statement said, the annexation of Takeshima symbolized the start of Japan’s aggression and colonization of their country.
In the case of the Senkakus, the latest flare-ups of tensions with China began with Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara’s announcement of his intention to purchase three islets in the uninhabited island group the statement said.
Ishihara’s move eventually led to the Japanese government’s nationalization of the islets, which China saw as a provocation that broke a previous tacit bilateral understanding to shelve their conflicting claims to the archipelago, the statement said.
The Diaoyutais are located about 120 nautical miles (220km) northeast of Taipei.
The “East China Sea Peace Initiative” proposed by Ma on Aug. 5 called for claimants to the Dia-oyutais to put aside differences, refrain from escalating tensions, pursue dialogue, seek consensus and cooperate in formulating a code of conduct.
Noting that Ma’s initiative is rational and feasible, the statement said it is worth promoting and that the Japanese government should support it by dropping its unrealistic perception that there is no dispute over the Diaoyutais.
The statement added that waters surrounding the Diaoyutai Islands have been traditional fishing grounds for people in Taiwan and Okinawa Prefecture.
Fishermen in those areas would not like to see the waters become the focus of international territorial rows, a hope that all contesting parties should respect, the statement said.
Atsushi Okamoto, editor-in-chief of Sekai Magazine, who hosted a news conference in unveiling the statement, said the civic group, composed of more than 500 elite figures from various sectors, has collected endorsements from many ordinary Japanese over the past week.
The signature campaign will last until Oct. 17, Okamoto said, adding that the group is scheduled to present the signatures to Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s office on Oct. 18.
The Japanese statement came on the same day the top US diplomat for East Asia, Kurt Campbell, said the US would not play a mediating role in the dispute over the Diaoyutais.
His comments came after China and Japan traded angry accusations over the islands in a late-night exchange at the UN General Assembly on Thursday.
Campbell reminded the two countries, which have the world’s second and third-largest economies, to recognize the importance of their relationship and resolve their grievances through dialogue.
He said each government should set aside the territorial dispute from its other bilateral issues, acknowledging that it would be “extraordinarily difficult” to solve.
Additional reporting by AP
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
RSS