11/16/2012

SENKAKU AFFAIR

WHAT EASTERN ASIAN OIL INTERESTS MEAN

FOR THE SINO-JAPANESE DISPUTE

Modern Japanese History 224 | Julian N. Weiss

Weiss 1
The Senkaku Islands1 are a small chain of almost entirely uninhabited rocks in the East
China Sea, one-hundred-twenty miles northeast of Taiwan. Their total area is about two and a
half square miles. To put that into perspective, the Hawaiian Islands cover almost 11,000 square
miles. They would be insignificant, if not for the discovery in 1968 of a large oil and natural gas
deposit in their immediate vicinity, and their location in disputed waters equidistant from Japan,
Taiwan, and China. Since the late sixties, China and Japan have fought through diplomatic and
political channels, at times with surprisingly militant shows of force, to prove their sovereignty
over the islands. Japan claims that the islands are part of the Ryukyu Archipelago in the
Okinawa Prefecture, acquiesced through years of peripheral interest. Chinese supporters
retaliate that the islands were stolen in the Sino-Japanese War. They argue that international
doctrine following World War II thrusts international law behind China. Both of these
arguments are correct, and therefore will have little effect on the outcome of sovereignty. The
Senkaku islands are not part of the Ryukyu Archipelago, much less the Okinawa Prefecture.
Japanese oil interests and diplomatic ties with the United States will have a much larger impact
on the outcome of the dispute. Japans use of the islands since 1884 in addition to their thirst for
a domestic oil source far outweighs Chinese investment in the islands.
Evidence of human usage of the islands before the late 19th century is scarce. The first
uses of the islands were as navigational guides and resting areas for sailors as early as the 14th
century.2 A Chinese navigational guidebook published in 1403 makes reference to the islands,
the Diaoyu [Islands] are good for refueling wood and drinking water, and lists them along a
1

They are also known as the Diaoyu or Diaoyutai Islands in Chinese. They were only named Senkaku in 1900 by a
Japanese author. The use of Senkaku in this article in no way is a slanted statement, it simply reflects the
Japanese focus of the paper. For a further history of the evolution of the naming of the islands, see Martin
Lohmeyer, The Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands Dispute: Questions of Sovereignty and Suggestions for Resolving the
Dispute, (Masters dissertation, University of Canterbury Law School, 2008), p. 15-17.
2
Gavan McCormack, Small Islands Big Problem: Senkaku/Diaoyu and the Weight of History and Geography in
China-Japan Relations, Asia-Pacific Journal : Japan Focus (2011). Martin Lohmeyer, The Diaoyu/Senkaku
Islands Dispute, p. 47-52.

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navigational route.3 As the islands were and are too small to support any port or enough plant life
for a prolonged stay, they would remain significant only to sailors who sought navigational
assistance or a place to weather storms.
The conflict over the islands has its origins in the late 19th century, amidst the
industrialization and transformation to empire of the Meiji regime. Seeing Chinese colonization
by Western powers, Japan began creating an Eastern empire with hope that the West would slow
its colonial march into the Far East.4 One of the Meiji Empires first missions was to dismantle
the Ryukyu Kingdom and place it under the Okinawa Prefecture.5 While this process was
underway, Tatsushiro Koga discovered the islands for Japan in 1884.6
It is clear that before the year 1884, the islands were both historically and legally
Chinese. It is only between the years 1884 and 1895 the islands become distinctly Japanese
through political attrition and the impossibility of Chinese resistance during the Sino-Japanese
War. As stated above, Chinese sailors were the first to discover the island chain, use it, and
name it.7 In 1785, a map of the Ryukyu Archipelago listed the islands under Chinese
sovereignty. During the 19th century, Chinese pharmacists in quest of herbs extended their range
to the islands. At that time, Chinese began to catch fish in the surroundings of the islands. 8 There is

no denying that before 1884 the islands were Chinese.

The sovereignty issue gets fuzzy after their Japanese discovery in 1884. Tatsushiro Koga
petitioned the government for a lease of the islands so that he could attempt to cultivate crops on

Martin Lohmeyer, The Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands Dispute, p. 51.

Robert E. Bedeski, The Fragile Entente: The 1978 Japan-China Peace Treaty in a Global Context, (Colorado:
Westview Press, 1983), p. 25.
5
Gavan McCormack, Small Islands Big Problem. Martin Lohmeyer, The Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands Dipsute, p.
57, 58.
6
Martin Lohmeyer, The Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands Dispute, p. 58.
7
Wu Liming, Commentary: U.S. Seems Unusually Ignorant About History of Diaoyu Islands, Xinhua,
english.news.cn, 2012.
8
Martin Lohmeyer, The Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands Dispute, p. 57.
4

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the larger island. He was denied the lease because the Japanese government could not make a
definite claim to the islands. The governments response may have indicated an interest in
procuring sovereignty over the islands, but there was no official policy on the Senkaku Islands
for Japan in 1894.9 The governor of the Okinawa Prefecture appealed Tokyo to procure the
Senkaku Islands for their domain in 1885, 1890, and 1893. The third request was granted, and in
1894 the Japanese government accepted the request and began a strategy to steal the islands.10
The timing of the Japanese acquisition of the Senkaku Islands falls between two
significant events in their history, a Chinese grant of the island in the year 1893 and the
beginning of the Sino-Japanese War in 1894. One year before Japan accepted the request from
the Okinawa governor, a Chinese Dowager Empress issued an imperial edict, by which she
awarded the Diaoyu Islands to a Chinese alchemist who had gathered rare medical herbs on the
islands.11 Considering that Japan had not made any legal claim to the island prior to 1893, it
would be a major coincidence if this land grant did not affect their decision to implement a more
forceful policy in 1894. If Japan had not acted immediately after the Chinese land grant, the
islands would have legally belonged to not just the country of China, but one of its citizens, and
hence be more strongly protected by the Chinese government. By the end of 1894, China was
losing badly in the Sino-Japanese War.12 The islands were ready to be seized without
consequence. On January 14, 1895, Japanese Cabinet ministers secretly claimed sovereignty

Kiyoshi Inoue was cited in Martin Lohmeyers thesis as having said that the Japanese were uncertain of their
sovereignty over the islands, but that quote is suspect. Martin Lohmeyer, The Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands Dipsute, p.
58, 59. A Japanese minister wrote that the islands had Chinese names, showing an understanding of Chinese
sovereignty, but not making any claims on the island himself. Barbara Demick, The Specks of Land at the Center
of the Japan-China Islands Dispute, Los Angeles Times, 9/24/2012. The government of the Okinawa Prefecture
wished to incorporate the islands as soon as 1885. Nishimura Sutezo described how there should not have been
any difficulties hindering their incorporation into this prefecture. Lohmeyer, p. 60.
10
Martin Lohmeyer, The Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands Dispute, p. 59, 60.
11
Zhongqi Pan, Sino-Japanese Dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands: The Pending Controversy from the
Chinese Perspective, (Journal of Chinese Political Science, 2007), p. 7.
12
Andrew Gordon, A Modern History of Japan, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 116, 117.

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over the islands.13 At the end of the war in April, the Treaty of Shimonoseki explicitly ceded
several islands from the Ryukyu chain to Japan. It says nothing about the Senkaku islands.14
Even without an admission in the treaty, the Chinese suffered a devastating loss in 1895. They
could not compete against the Japanese government in claims over their own territory in
Manchuria, much less over small islands in the East China Sea.
After 1895, the Senkaku Islands were under either the sovereignty or hegemony of Japan.
A Chinese map from 1925 in a book entitled China and the Nations from a Chinese author does
not show the Senkaku Islands at all.15 There are other maps from both Chinese and Japanese
authors which do not display the islands, or give ownership of them to Japan. Those maps are
inconsequential compared to China and the Nations, which deals entirely with foreign relations.
Since this book does not show the islands, clearly they were not important to Chinese foreign
relations in 1925, only three decades after their seizure by Japan. Additionally, China had no
ability to make a claim against Japan due to their subservient position in the Manchurian War
beginning in 1931.
The islands history after 1895 is mostly inconsequential to their ownership until 1968,
when oil was discovered in their vicinity, but the in-between period has ramifications for the
involvement of the United States in the issue. At the end of World War II, the islands should
have reverted to China or Taiwan as part of the 1943 Cairo Declaration. As part of the United

13

Junwu Pan, Toward a New Framework for Peaceful Settlement of Chinas Territorial and Boundary Disputes, (Ebook: Brill Academic Publisher, 2009), p. 147. The actual document has proven impossible to find translated into
English, and therefore I cannot verify it. A picture of the original document is available at http://www.at.embjapan.go.jp/Deutsch/Attachment_Senkakau.pdf (accessed 11/14/2012). Even if the Cabinet Decision is a fake, the
islands would still belong to Japan after 1895 due to their unchallenged imperial status in the East China Sea.
14
Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Treaty of Shimonoseki, 17 April 1895, Treaties between China and
Foreign States. Second Edition (Shanghai: by order of the Inspector General of Customs, 1917), vol. 2, p. 590-596.
15
Wong Ching-Wai, China and the Nations, (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1927), back cover. It
should be noted that later, in 1937, Wong accepted a Japanese request to run a colonial government in Nanking. He
died in Japan.

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States anti-communist agenda in Japan, the Cairo Declaration was widely ignored.16 Japan kept
their emperor and the Ryukyu Islands, which they had most certainly taken by violence and
greed.17 Secretary of State John Foster Dulles explained that the 1951 Treaty of Peace with
Japan allowed the retention of the Ryukyu Islands and minor adjacent islands where there
could be United Nations trusteeship and continuing United States administrative
responsibility.18 In 1960, the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security bound the United
States to act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional provisions and
processes to defend the territories under the administration of Japan.19 Officials in the United
States have had mixed reactions over whether military force would be used to defend the
Senkaku Islands if provoked by Chinese aggression. United States policy takes a neutral stance
on the ownership of the islands, even though in 1953 the islands were under hegemonic control
of the United States and were returned to Japanese control in 1971 under the Okinawa Reversion
Treaty. The key wording in the 1960 security treaty is the word administration, not
sovereignty.20 This means that the United States is bound by that treaty to aid Japan in retaining
the Senkaku Islands, which are undisputedly under Japanese hegemonic control, in the unlikely
case of an armed conflict, but not necessarily through militarily means.
In 1968, oil was discovered in the East China Sea, calling both the Peoples Republic of
China and the Republic of China to make claims to the Senkaku Islands. Reports from a

16

John Foster Dulles, Peace in the Pacific: Tentative Treaty Terms for Japan, 15 April 1951, (Los Angeles:
Speech at Whittier College).
17
The declaration states that all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and
The Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China... Japan will also be expelled from all other territories
which she has taken by violence and greed. Department of State, Cairo Communiqu, 1 December 1943,
(National Diet Library, 2004).
18
John Foster Dulles, Peace in the Pacific.
19
Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between Japan and the United
States, 19 January 1960, Wikisource.
20
Larry A. Niksch, Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands Dispute: The U.S. Legal Relationship and Obligations, 30
September 1996, Wikileaks.

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geological survey indicated that the oil field under the East China Sea may be one of the 10
largest in the world. 21 A search of Senkaku in the Proquest Historical Newspapers database
reveals that there were 0 articles before 1969 in the American press, and over one hundred
between 1970 and 1979. The spike in newspaper articles in part reflects the sudden international
tensions over the disputed islands with article titles such as Chinese Protest Japanese Oil
Claim, Peking Claims Disputed Oil-Rich Isles, and 8 Specks in Sea Spark Far Eastern Oil
Battle.22 During the 1970s such a large amount of articles is related to the Middle-Eastern oil
embargo which caused an oil shock throughout the world.23
Japan has historically had a noose tied around its neck by its need for oil. In 1969, Japan
imported 99% of its oil and was the largest oil importer in the world.24 During World War II,
Japan only attacked the United States when its access to oil in South Asia was threatened.
Japanese policy early in the war dictated moving to the south because Japanese control of
Southeast Asia would deliver strategic natural resources such as oil, rubber, and tin to the
military. In response to Japans aggressions, especially in Indochina, Roosevelt immediately
pulled together an international embargo that cut off all foreign oil supplies to Japan [and]
without oil the Japanese government could not sustain its military or economy. The embargo
was put into place in July, 1941, only a few short months away from the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Japan started a war with an enemy that they knew was unwinnable.25 In 1941, Japan weighed
total war with an undefeatable enemy against their need for oil. Oil won. When in 1973 Middle-

21

Philip Shabecoff, Japanese Oil Find Poses Title Problem, 28 August 1969, New York Times.
All articles and statistics available for reproduction in Historical Newspapers database via Gettysburg College
Library. In the 1980s the amount of articles on the Senkaku islands drops remarkably, likely due to the end of the
oil crisis. Philip A. McCombs, Chinese Protest Japanese Oil Claim, 31 January 1971, Washington Post, Times
Herald. Donald Bremner, 8 Specks in Sea Spark Far Eastern Oil Battle, 20 December 1970, Los Angeles Times.
Tillman Durdin, Peking Claims Disputed Oil-Rich Isles, 6 December 1970, New York Times.
23
Andrew Gordon, A Modern History of Japan, p. 285, 286.
24
Philip Shabecoff, Japanese Oil Find Poses Title Problem.
25
Andrew Gordon, A Modern History of Japan, p. 205-207.
22

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Eastern oil sources cut off trade with pro-Israeli governments, and the Japanese government
quicklysome said cravenlydistanced itself from Israel. It suddenly found reason to support
the rights of Palestinians to a homeland.26 Foreign policy has been radically affected in Japan
when oil supplies are thinned.
Control of the Senkaku Islands oil supply would mean a great deal of independence for
Japan both economically and diplomatically like they have not had since before World War II.
Japan currently imports only nineteen percent of its oil from domestically owned companies, and
has modest goals of doubling that percentage by 2030. Very little of that oil is crude oil for
energy production. Eighty-two percent of Japanese crude oil imports came from the Middle-East
in 2011. In that same year the Fukushima reactor incident prompted the government to expand
its use of oil burning in power plants. Since 2000, Japanese oil usage has decreased modestly
overall, but with more than ninety-five percent of their crude oil imported, their foreign policy
will continue to be significantly affected by the need for energy.27
Chinese oil consumption is rapidly outpacing their domestic supply, but they do not have
a history so blatantly linked to the need for oil as Japan. Coal still dominates Chinese energy
consumption, making up seventy percent of their energy supply in 2009 (with oil making up
nineteen percent). China imported sixty percent of its crude oil in 2010 for its growing need to
fuel its industry and new automobile culture. China also has very diverse sources of crude oil
imports, with only fifty five percent coming from the Middle-East.28 Untapped oil fields within
Chinas domestic borders may contain more oil than in Saudi Arabia.29 China has a more
26
27

Andrew Gordon, A Modern History of Japan, p. 285, 286.

Energy Information Administration, Department of Energy, Country Analysis Briefs: Japan, 4 June 2012, p. 3-

5.
28

Energy Information Administration, Department of Energy, Country Analysis Briefs: China, 4 September 2012,
p. 2, 9. Japanese charts from Country Analysis Briefs: Japan, and Chinese charts from Country Analysis Briefs:
China.
29
Kent E. Calder, Asias Empty Tank, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 75, No. 2 (Mar. - Apr., 1996), p. 57.

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evolved and diversified energy industry than Japan. The Senkaku Islands would certainly be a
huge bolster to their domestic energy supply, but they are not as necessary as in Japan for energy
independence. It would be bad policy for China to even consider going to war with Japan over
the Senkaku oil fields when their oil supplies, even domestically, are much stronger than those
around the Senkaku Islands.

Japanese thirst for oil along with the continued support of the United States will
determine the outcome of the islands ownership. Although Japan took control of the islands in

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1895, the discovery of oil in 1968 once again made the islands appealing to Chinese interests in
the East China Sea. True sovereignty was not established because the islands were insignificant
before it was discovered that literally an ocean of crude oil lay beneath them. Now Japan and
China will compete using historical and legal evidence to determine who the rightful owner of
the islands is. That debate will lead nowhere. Their competing claims are equal in their reliance
on vague wording and implicit meaning in broken treaties. Aside from collaboration, which
failed in 2009, one of the only options left is armed conflict.30 The worth of these small rocks in
the East China Sea will then be called into question. To China, they signify another oil reserve
out of dozens around the world and some even within their own borders. Japan has been seeking
to create a military alliance with the United States in order to protect the islands in case of an
attack by China.31 For China, the islands are not worth a potential war with a close economic ally
in Japan, much less a potential wider war with the United States, which has at times expressed its
disdain toward China.32 Japan has set a historical precedent with its foreign policy on the oil
issue. It has and will change its mission in order to secure its right to oil. It is unlikely that
Japan will ever declare war on China without provocation, relying on them as an economic ally.
But until Japan has an assurance of domestic crude oil production, a threat to its oil access will
be taken just as heavily as any military aggression.

30

Energy Information Administration, Department of Energy, Country Analysis Briefs: China, p. 6.

Martin Fackler, Japan Seeks to Revise Security Pact with U.S., New York Times, 9 November 2012.
32
Julian E. Barnes, The New Arms Race: China Takes Aim at U.S. Naval Might, 4 January 2012, Wall Street
Journal.
31

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