Territorial disputes of Japan
Japan is currently engaged in several
Kuril Islands
The Kuril Islands are an archipelago stretching from the Japanese island of Hokkaido to the Russian Kamchatka Peninsula. The Kurils and the nearby island of Sakhalin have changed hands several times since the 1855 Treaty of Shimoda first defined the boundary between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan; under this treaty, the border in the Kurils was demarcated as the line between Etorofu and Urup.[1] The rest of the Kuril Islands came under Japanese rule after the 1875 Treaty of Saint Petersburg and the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. They would remain under the Japanese until the end of World War II, when the Soviet Union annexed the islands as the result of a military operation which took place during and after the Surrender of Japan.[1] This territory fell to Russia upon the Dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Despite the Soviet annexation, Japan continues to claim the southernmost islands as the Northern Territories, consisting of
The dispute over the Kuril Islands was one of the main reasons that the Soviets did not sign the
The offer of splitting the disputed territories has been repeated by the Russian government, and leaders of the two countries have met several times to discuss a solution to the dispute.Okinotorishima
Okinotorishima is an uninhabited atoll in the Philippine Sea. Discovered by European explorers[who?], Okinotorishima went unclaimed until the Japanese arrived in the territory in 1931, with the atoll becoming the southernmost point in Japan.[7] Japan claims that Okinotorishima is an islet, and accordingly claims a large exclusive economic zone (EEZ) around the island under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). However, this classification has been contested by China, Taiwan, and South Korea, who contend that Okinotorishima does not meet UNCLOS's criteria for an islet of being able to support human habitation, and thus that Japan cannot claim an EEZ around the strategically located atoll.[7][8] To maintain their claims, Japan has spent over US$600 million to build observation posts and shore up the atoll against erosion and typhoon damage, and has also cultivated coral in the area in an attempt to slowly grow reefs into islands.[9]
Senkaku Islands
The
Neither the PRC nor the ROC disputed the Japanese and American rule over the Senkaku Islands until the early 1970s, possibly due to the discovery of potential
Liancourt Rocks
The Liancourt Rocks, known as Takeshima in Japanese and Dokdo or Tokto in Korean, are a group of two small
Japan has protested the South Korean presence on the Liancourt Rocks, claiming that they were not included in the territory that Japan surrendered in the Treaty of San Francisco. Both the Japanese and Korean claims to the islands rely on historical documents which indicate activity by each side in the area; the Koreans claim that historical places such as Usan Guk (conquered by the Silla in 512), Usando, and other islands owned at various times by Korean kingdoms are the Liancourt Rocks, while the Japanese attribute these mentions to other islands such as Jukdo or Ulleungdo and instead point to records indicating Japanese fishing activity around the islands from, at the latest, 1667.[12]
See also
- Foreign relations of Japan
- Sea of Japan naming dispute
- East China Sea EEZ disputes
- List of territorial disputes
References
- ^ a b c d e Ito, Masami (18 January 2011). "Russian-held isles: So near, so far". The Japan Times. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ "The Yalta Conference". The Avalon Project. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ "Potsdam Declaration - Birth of the Constitution of Japan". ndl.go.jp. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- JSTOR 2761081.
- ^ "Japan's Northern Territories" (PDF). Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ JSTOR 3557753.
- ^ a b Yoshikawa, Yukie (2005). "Okinotorishima: Just the Tip of the Iceberg". Harvard Asian Quarterly. 9 (4): 51–61. Archived from the original on 4 November 2013. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ Jennings, Ralph (19 April 2016). "An islet the size of your bedroom has Japan and Taiwan fighting". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ McCurry, Justin (3 February 2016). "Japan to spend millions on tiny islands 1,000 miles south of Tokyo". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ISBN 0-8248-2493-8.
- ^ University of Durham. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ University of Durham. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ Szalontai, Balázs (2013). "Instrumental Nationalism? The Dokdo Problem Through the Lens of North Korean Propaganda and Diplomacy". Journal of Northeast Asian History. 10 (2).