If you’re wondering why Japanese business in your neighbourhood have broken windows, or why that mob just marched by shouting anti-Japan slogans and you’ve not got the foggiest idea what the hell the “Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands” dispute is all about, Kyle, aka The Manchurian Candidate, does a damn fine job of laying it all out here.
Kyle goes into a lot more detail, but the gist is:
- In 1894, during the first Sino-Japanese war, Japan surveyed and incorporated into Okinawa Prefecture an uninhabited and unclaimed set of islands between Okinawa and Taiwan.
- Japan got their ass handed to them in WWII and had to give back all war-gained lands from the previous 50 years of expansionism. They didn’t hand back the islands, as there was no one to hand them back to.
- For 30 years post-war, despite massive propaganda of Western Imperialists banging at the door, nothing was mentioned about the Japanese sovereignty of the islands.
- In fact, both the People’s Daily in ’58 and a PRC-produced map in ’69 both refer to the islands as “Senkaku Islands in Okinawa”.
- In 1969 oil is discovered under the islands and suddenly ears perk up.
