As we all know, Sino-Japanese relations have been ups and downs in recent years, and the reason for this is mainly around the issue of sovereignty belonging to the Diaoyu Islands and the exploitation of resources in the East China Sea. Among them, since the Diaoyu Island issue was unilaterally thrown out by the Japanese side in 2012 and the "nationalization" of the Diaoyu Islands, the North Island and the South Islands, the dispute has intensified and has become an unstable factor that may cause friction between China and Japan at any time. This section, as the fourth chapter of the "Diaoyu Dao Islands Series", from the perspective of international law, it is an undeniable historical and legal fact that the Diaoyu Islands belong to China, clarifies the legal status and sovereignty status of the Diaoyu Dao Islands, and reveals the illegality of Japan's theft of the Diaoyu Islands. The next time we will talk about the conflict of interests hidden behind the Diaoyu Islands and possible solutions.
The Diaoyu Islands are China's inherent territory
China, which was the first to discover, name and utilize the Diaoyu Islands, should enjoy pre-occupation
In the practice of operating the sea and engaging in marine fisheries, the ancient Chinese ancestors were the first to discover and name the Diaoyu Islands. In ancient Chinese literature, Diaoyu Island is also known as Diaoyu Island and Diaoyutai. The earliest historical record of diaoyu islands and chiwei islands that have been seen is the "Sending with the Wind" written in 1403 (the first year of Ming Yongle). This suggests that the Diaoyu Islands were discovered and named in China as early as the 14th and 15th centuries.
"Sending with the Wind" was written in the early Ming Dynasty, and the manuscript is now in the Baudlin Library of the University of Oxford, England
In 1372 (the fifth year of Ming Hongwu), the king of Ryukyu paid tribute to the Ming Dynasty, and Ming Taizu sent envoys to Ryukyu. By 1866 (the fifth year of the reign of the Qing Dynasty), in the nearly 500 years, the imperial courts of the Ming and Qing dynasties had sent envoys to the Ryukyu Kingdom 24 times, and the Diaoyu Islands were the places where the envoys traveled to the Ryukyu Islands, and the records of the Diaoyu Islands appeared in a large number of reports written by Chinese envoys. For example, the Ming Dynasty envoy Chen Kan's "Records of the Ryukyu Islands" (1534) clearly recorded that "crossing the Diaoyu Island, passing through huangmao island, and crossing the chiyu island,...... See Mount Gumi, which belongs to the Ryukyus."
The Records of the Ryukyu Dynasty records that Mt. Furumi (i.e., Kume Island) only entered the territory of Ryukyu, and the Diaoyu Islands do not belong to Ryukyu.
The Ming Dynasty envoy Guo Rulin's "Records of the Ryukyu Dynasty" (1562) records that "the Red Islander, the boundary of the Ryukyu local mountain also". The Records of the Zhongshan Transmission (1719) written by Xu Baoguang, the deputy envoy of the Qing Dynasty, clearly records that from Fujian to Ryukyu, through The Vase Island, Pengjia Island, Diaoyu Island, Huangwei Island, and Chiwei Island, "Gumi Mountain (Shangzhen Mountain on the southwest boundary of Ryukyu), Horsetooth Island, and entering the port of Naha in Ryukyu."
The two sides jointly determined the territorial division: the Diaoyu Islands belonged to China
In 1650, the Ryukyu Kingdom's first shogunate, The Nakayama Chronicle, which was supervised by Xiang Xiangxian, recorded that Mount Kome (also known as Mount Gumi, present-day KumeShima) was the territory of Ryukyu, while Akayu Island (present-day Akao Island) and its west were not Ryukyu territory. In 1708, the "Guide to the Broad Sense" written by the Ryukyu scholar and Zijin Daifu Cheng Shunze recorded that Gumi Mountain was "the town mountain on the southwest boundary of Ryukyu".
In the Qing Dynasty, the dividing line between China and the Ryukyu Islands in the trenches south of the Diaoyu Islands became common knowledge.
The above historical records clearly record that the Diaoyu Islands and Akao Island belonged to China, Kume Island belonged to the Ryukyu Island, and the dividing line was the Black Water Ditch (present-day Okinawa Sea Trough) between Akao Island and Kume Island. The "Supplement to the Ryukyu Records" (1579) written by Xie Jie, the deputy envoy of the Ming Dynasty, records that "to go from the water to the black water, to the black water into the water." The Ming Dynasty canonized xia ziyang's "Record of Making Ryukyu" (1606) records that "when the water leaves the black and enters the vicissitudes, it must be the boundary of China." The Qing Dynasty's "Miscellaneous Records of the Ryukyu Dynasty" (1683) records that the "Black Water Ditch" outside Chiyu Island is the "boundary between China and foreign countries". The Qing Dynasty's zhou huang(1756) recorded that Ryukyu was "west of the sea from the Black Water Ditch and bordered by the Fujian Sea".
The waters of the Diaoyu Dao are traditional fishing grounds in China, where Chinese fishermen have been engaged in fishing production activities for generations. As a maritime symbol, Diaoyu Islands have been widely used by people along the southeast coast of China in history.
China has long exercised jurisdiction over the Diaoyu Islands
The Compilation of Sea Charts identifies the coastal islands under the jurisdiction of the Ming Dynasty coastal defense, including Diaoyu Islands, Huangwei Island, and Chiwei Island
As early as the early Ming Dynasty, in order to defend against the Wokou on the southeast coast, China included the Diaoyu Islands in the defensive zone. In 1561 (the forty years of Ming Jiajing), hu Zongxian, the supreme general of the Ming Dynasty stationed on the southeast coast, presided over the book "Compilation of Sea Charts" compiled by Zheng Ruo, which clearly included diaoyu dao and other islands into the "coastal mountain sand map" and included them in the coastal defense of the Ming Dynasty. In 1605 (the thirty-third year of the Ming Dynasty), Xu Bida and others drew the "Complete Map of Qiankun Unified Coastal Defense" and in 1621 (the first year of tomorrow's Qiyuan) Mao Yuanyi drew the "Wubeizhi Haiphong II, Fujian Coastal Mountain Sand Map", which also included Diaoyu Dao and other islands in China's maritime territory.
The "Wanli Coastal Defense Map" clearly indicates Diaoyu Island, Huangwei Island and Chiyu Island
The Qing Dynasty not only followed the ming dynasty's practice and continued to include islands such as diaoyu Dao in China's coastal defense, but also explicitly placed them under the administrative jurisdiction of the local government of Taiwan. Official documents such as the Qing Dynasty's Records of envoys from the Taiwan Strait and the Chronicle of the Government of Taiwan record in detail the jurisdiction over the Diaoyu Islands. In 1871 (the tenth year of the Reign of the Qing Dynasty), Chen Shouqi and others compiled the "Re-compilation of Fujian Tongzhi" volume 86 listed the Diaoyu Islands in the coastal defense of Chong, under the jurisdiction of the Karmalan Hall of Taiwan (present-day Yilan County, Taiwan Province).
Both Chinese and foreign maps depict the Diaoyu Islands belonging to China
The Ryukyu Records, compiled in 1579, show that the envoys passed through the Diaoyu Islands on their way to Ryukyu
In 1579 (the seventh year of the Ming Dynasty), the Ming Dynasty crowned xiao Chongye with the "Map of crossing the Sea in the Ryukyu River" in the "Record of Making the Ryukyu Ball", the "Record of the Emperor Ming Xiangxu" written by Mao Ruizheng in 1629 (the second year of Ming Chongzhen), the "Kunyu Quantu" drawn in 1767 (the thirty-second year of the Qing Dynasty), and the "Map of the Unified Public Opinion of the Imperial Dynasty Between China and Foreign Countries" published in 1863 (the second year of the Qing Tongzhi), etc., all of which included the Diaoyu Islands in the map of China.
The 1863 Edition of the Imperial Dynasty's Map of the Unification of China and Foreign Countries clearly marked that the Diaoyu Dao and its affiliated islands belonged to The Territory of China.
The earliest document in Japan to record the Diaoyu Islands is the 1785 Lin Ziping's "Map of the Three Provinces and thirty-six islands of the Ryukyu Islands" in lin zipping's "Atlas of the Three Kingdoms", which lists the Diaoyu Islands outside the thirty-six islands of Ryukyu and paints them in the same color as the Chinese mainland, meaning that the Diaoyu Islands are part of China's territory.
The Latest Map of China, officially established by the British in 1801, clearly indicates that the Diaoyu Islands belong to China
In 1809, the French geographer Pierre Rabbi and others drew the "Map of the Countries Along the East China Sea", which painted the Diaoyu Islands, Huangwei Island and Chiwei Island in the same color as Taiwan Island. Maps such as the "Latest Map of China" published by the British in 1811, the "China of Kirton" published by the United States in 1859, and the "Chart of the Coast of the East China Sea from Hong Kong to Liaodong Bay" compiled by the British Navy in 1877 all included the Diaoyu Islands in the map of China.
According to the above-mentioned literary and historical data, we will combine the general principles of international law to legally prove the ownership of the Diaoyu Dao Islands.
The humiliating Treaty of Maguan confirmed from the opposite side that the Diaoyu Islands belonged to China
The first is the principle of statute of limitations, and the historical facts we have cited so far can legally prove that before the defeat of the Sino-Japanese War in 1895 and the signing of the Treaty of Maguan, there was no doubt that the Diaoyu Islands belonged to China. Judging from the principle of time-based law, China had discovered and utilized the Diaoyu Dao Islands as early as the 15th century and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, and naturally acquired its sovereignty. Since the Koh Pas arbitration in 1928, the principle of limitation law has become a universally recognized rule of international law, so it is an effective legal basis for judging the ownership of sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands. According to the two principles of the principle of limitation derived by Humbel, the sovereignty of the Diaoyu Islands before 1895 belonged to China, which was completely tested in international law.
In 1895, Japan published the "Complete Map of Okinawa Prefecture", which shows that the Diaoyu Islands are not under the jurisdiction of Okinawa Prefecture
Second, the conclusion that Japan "occupied first without ownership" is untenable. In international law, the "first occupation without terra nullius" of the acquisition of territory must be "effective pre-occupation", and the following five elements need to be satisfied in order to be established, namely, the attempt to occupy, the confirmation of terra nullius, the declaration of occupation, the action of occupation, and effective jurisdiction. However, in terms of the five elements of "occupation without terra nullius" corresponding to the process of Japan's occupation of the Diaoyu Islands, there are major problems in every action of Japan, and Japan's so-called "occupation without terra nullius" theory cannot be established at all.
In 1972, Okinawa returned a commemorative silver coin with the senkaku islands (i.e. the Diaoyu Islands)
The third is that the treaty or agreement between the United States and Japan after the war cannot be used as a basis for Japan's sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands.
There are three reasons, one is that the issue of sovereignty over the Diaoyu Dao Islands is a question between China and Japan, and the agreement between the United States and Japan does not have China's participation and consent at all, and is a private grant. For example, it is equivalent to signing an agreement with Japan, saying that New York was sent to Japan, and the United States did not participate in the agreement at all. Similarly, in China, such private grants are not binding.
In 1945, the Emperor of Japan issued a letter of surrender
Second, according to international legal documents such as the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation, Japan's territory after World War II should be limited to Honshu, Hokkaido, Shikoku and Kyushu, and the above-mentioned legal documents also clearly show that the Diaoyu Dao Islands, as a subsidiary island of Taiwan, were returned to China after World War II, and sovereignty clearly belonged to China. No agreement between the United States and Japan can alter the legal status of the Diaoyu Islands.
Fishing activists ventured aboard the Diaoyu Islands to claim Chinese sovereignty
The fact that the United States also recognizes the agreement between the United States and Japan does not mean that the United States recognizes Japan's sovereignty over these islands. The United States has stated: "Returning to Japan the administrative power originally obtained from Japan over these islands will not harm the claims on sovereignty." The United States can neither increase the legal rights that Japan had before they transferred the administrative power of these islands to us, nor can it weaken the rights of other claimants by returning it to Japan." Therefore, after the rise of the fishing protection movement, the United States was forced by public opinion to officially announce that in 1970, the United States handed over the Diaoyu Islands to Japan together with the Ryukyu Islands, not sovereignty, but only administrative jurisdiction.
Diaoyu Dao and its affiliated islands have been Chinese territory since ancient times
Therefore, the Diaoyu Dao Islands belong to China in principle, both in terms of historical documents and international law.