[Question] How did China lost Diaoyu island to Japan?

[theniubt]

As the title states, can anyone provide me some insights on what exactly happened to Diaoyu island? I admit my history is pretty horrible and this topic is relatively popular recently in the politic world, hence I would like to seek some help from you guys here and hope to learn something about it. I tried googling it, but most of the stuffs I found is rather biased and at the same time, no details are really provided.

Any help is appreciated, as always! It would be a bonus if you guys can provide me some sources, if possible, in regards to some of the history about Diaoyu in English (my Chinese is horrible). Hope I'm not asking too much heh.

@Wholegrain would love to see your comments here!!

 

[Audio]

Once upon a time, peaceful Muslims lived on Diaoyu island. A bit later, the glorious and equally enlightened emperor of the middle kingdom visited the island and fell madly and deeply in love with the Muslim culture and girls on the island.

He decided he wants to bring all this goodness to mainland China. So he starts uprooting the people and resettling them in the barren Xinjiang, logic being, the good people of Diaoyu will bring good fortune to the least developed province of his mighty empire.

At the same time he started populating the islands with his own Han people in an effort to claim the territory and spread the good energy of the pristine landscape among his own populace. He allowed only spiritualist monks and banned all weapons on the islands as a testament to their value and out of fear weapons would corrupt the land's energy.
It worked great for a while, but then as it so often happens, luck was in finite commodity modus operandi and the vile king of the vilest, nastiest kingdom across the narrow sea heard of this joy and happines and wanted to destroy it, because, if he has to be vile, noone will be happy.

So, words lead into actions and a dreadful posse of heavily armored and armed men stormed the island one winter day. They killed everyone and chopped their heads off for good measure. Vile king didn't want the goodness of the island to bring the monks back to life with a vengeance.

But the vile king didn't stop there. Words of ships carrying happy people soon reached his ears and eager to destroy all that is good he set out on another march towards the mainland.


To be continued.....

 

[xunzi]

We lost the island because the Qing were weak and unable to stop the Japanese aggression in the 19th century. To give you a general understanding. Before 1895s, the island was a fishing ground for Chinese fisherman and considered belong to Qing's administer Taiwan archipelago. A line was draw between Taiwan and Ryukyu Kingdom (today Okinawa) in the middle that both Qing's China and Meiji Japanese Government recognized. Diaoyu was draw on the side of Qing's Taiwan because its proximity is closer to Taiwan. Japan later invaded and annexed an independent Ryukyu kingdom into Japanese territory in 1879. Japan sent envoys to survey the surrounding islands and water the following years. They secretly trying to hide the Qing. They incorporated Diaoyu into their newly acquired Okinawa territory. After the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894 in which the Qing lost and were force to sign an unequal treaty known as the Treaty of Shimonoseki. Japan demanded all islands near Okinawa and Taiwan Archipelago to be cede to Japan. Qing initially resisted during negotiation, then Japan invaded and defeated the Qing force in Taiwan and control it in 1895. Qing had no choice but to sign the unequal treaty, losing not just Taiwan and its surrounding islands, but also part of Northeast China.

Then flash forward to the defeat of Japan in World War II. On condition of the surrender to the Allied Force, in which we are part of the Allied Force, Japan was force to return all occupied territory from Allied (China) dating back to 1895. Diaoyu was not stipulate in the Treaty of San Francisco, but it explicitly stated by the treaty that Japan shall ONLY maintain the FOUR main islands. The stipulation implicitly meant to consider Diaoyu as part of Taiwan. However, as part of the US's occupation plan in Okinawa, it is being administered by the US. Then flash forward to 1971 when US return Okinawa back to Japan to administer, which included Diaoyu.

Now that we are strong, the Japanese are scare that we want our territory back by force. **** it!! Diaoyu is our and we shall get it back at all COST.

 

[xunzi]

By the way, don't listen to that Weeaboo Audio. He's hilarious man . LMAO

 

[cnleio]

Once upon a time, peaceful Muslims lived on Diaoyu island. A bit later, the glorious and equally enlightened emperor of the middle kingdom visited the island and fell madly and deeply in love with the Muslim culture and girls on the island.

He decided he wants to bring all this goodness to mainland China. So he starts uprooting the people and resettling them in the barren Xinjiang, logic being, the good people of Diaoyu will bring good fortune to the least developed province of his mighty empire.

At the same time he started populating the islands with his own Han people in an effort to claim the territory and spread the good energy of the pristine landscape among his own populace. He allowed only spiritualist monks and banned all weapons on the islands as a testament to their value and out of fear weapons would corrupt the land's energy.
It worked great for a while, but then as it so often happens, luck was in finite commodity modus operandi and the vile king of the vilest, nastiest kingdom across the narrow sea heard of this joy and happines and wanted to destroy it, because, if he has to be vile, noone will be happy.

So, words lead into actions and a dreadful posse of heavily armored and armed men stormed the island one winter day. They killed everyone and chopped their heads off for good measure. Vile king didn't want the goodness of the island to bring the monks back to life with a vengeance.

But the vile king didn't stop there. Words of ships carrying happy people soon reached his ears and eager to destroy all that is good he set out on another march towards the mainland.


To be continued.....

Dark Humor, but i like it !

 

[tranquilium]

Xunzi pretty much summed it up. I will add in a bit more detail on why things were happening as they were after WWII.

Essentially, US supported the original treaty because at time, the representative Chinese government in power is KMT (I used the term representative because KMT government at the time is more of a loose coalition of KMT and local warlords), which is aligned with US. However, after the civil war, CCP managed to unite mainland China and aligned with USSR.

The next major event is the Korean war, where NK attacked SK in order to unify Korean Peninsula which essentially escalated into a contest between China/USSR and US/Europe. This setup the main cold war fronts in East Asia theater.

After Korean war, US begin to fortify its position in East Asia. One of the main steps for this time is fortifying Japan's position. While US was not crazy enough to let Japan re-arm, it did use other methods such as economic aid (which is one of the reason Japan was able to develop quickly after WWII) and give Japan more leeway to WWII treaty. This includes give administrative control of Diaoyu islands to Japan.

One final thing is why US did not give the control to Taiwan (which is a US ally) instead. This can be a little bit complicated. Basically, US originally wanted Taiwan to be independent from China. If it succeeds, it will severely damage the strategic position of China by placing a foreign nation at China's door step and at 50s and 60s, it will be very difficult for PRC to contest this.

However, US run into an obstacle. Chiang Kai-shek, for all his faults, is unwilling to let China to become divided, thus US has to try to go around him to support other factions in Taiwan, but this was stopped, surprisingly, by a combined effort from Chiang and Mao. Basically, while Mao and Chiang are life-long adversaries, they are in full agreement that China must stay unified. Hence why Mao started shelling Kinmen (or Quemoy) islands. This is also known as second Taiwan strait crisis.

Now this event, when viewed by itself can be a bit strange----the initial shelling can be explained as PRC discouraging ROC to setup troops and artillery on Kinmen island, but it doesn't explain why the sporadic, but continuous shelling to the next two decades to come. However, when you view the secondary effect, its purpose become apparent-----Chiang is able to declare martial law in Taiwan for the next two decades and systemically eliminated every faction that supported Taiwan independence. In fact, the shelling stopped at the exact same time as PRC-US normalized their relationships. Basically, at this point, PRC was already a permanent member of UN security council and recognized nuclear state with both fission and fusion weapons and appropriate missiles, hence there is no need to continue the charade.

How is this event related to our main topic? Well, US is not stupid at all. After the second Taiwan strait crisis, it realized while Chiang (and his son) is their ally, he is still a Chinese at heart. It is much better for them to get the Japanese to oppose China. Hence why they gave administrative control to Japan instead of Taiwan.

 

[shuntmaster]

Aside from a 1945 to 1972 period of administration by the United States, the archipelago has been controlled by Japan since 1895.[ The People's Republic of China (PRC) disputed the proposed US handover of authority to Japan in 1971 and has asserted its claims to the islands since that time. Taiwan(Republic of China) also claims the islands. The territory is close to key shipping lanes and rich fishing grounds, and there may be oil reserves in the area.

Japan argues that it surveyed the islands in the late 19th century and found them to be Terra nullius (Latin: land belonging to no one); subsequently, China acquiesced to Japanese sovereignty until the 1970s. The PRC and the ROC argue that documentary evidence prior to the First Sino-Japanese War indicates Chinese possession and that the territory is accordingly a Japanese seizure that should be returned as the rest of Imperial Japan's conquests were returned in 1945.

Although the United States does not have an official position on the merits of the competing sovereignty claims, the islands are included within the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan, meaning that a defense of the islands by Japan would require the United States to come to Japan's aid.

In September 2012, the Japanese government purchased three of the disputed islands from their private owner, prompting large-scale protests in China. As of early February 2013, the situation has been regarded as "the most serious for Sino-Japanese relations in the post-war period in terms of the risk of militarised conflict."

 

[theniubt]

Thanks bros, you guys are awesome

 

[Destro]

This new forum style makes it extremely difficult to read long posts.

Mods, change the style back to the old style.

PLEASE!

 

[Hafizzz]

USA took the Islands illegally and gave them to Japan after WW2.

 

[xunzi]

This new forum style makes it extremely difficult to read long posts.

Mods, change the style back to the old style.

PLEASE!

It's because of the shadow and the stupid font. I give them suggestion but they never listen. LOL