日中関係

Japan did not claim the islands until the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895.
On January 14, 1895, the Emperor approved an Imperial Ordinance annexing the Senkakus to Japan.
In May 1895, Japan and China signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki ending the war.
Under the Treaty, China ceded Taiwan (Formosa) to Japan "together with all the islands appertaining or belonging to the said islands of Formosa.
" The Treaty did not mention the Senkakus, and the islands were not discussed during the negotiating sessions.
Japan has claimed from this that its incorporation of the Senkakus (Diaoyus) was an act apart from the Sino-Japanese War.
China argues that Japan used its victory in the war to annex the islands.
China also argues that the intent of the allied declarations at Cairo and Potsdam during World War II was to restore to China territories taken from it by Japan through military aggression.
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The Okinawa Reversion Treaty, signed on June 17, 1971, and ratified by the U.S.
Senate on November 10, 1971, provided for the return to Japan of "all and any powers of administration, legislation and jurisdiction" over the Ryukyu and Daito islands, which the United States had held under the Japan Peace Treaty.
Article I of the Okinawa Reversion Treaty defines the term "the Ryukyu Islands and the Daito Islands" as "all territories with their territorial waters with respect to which the right to exercise all and any powers of administration, legislation and jurisdiction was accorded to the United States of America under Article 3 of the Treaty of Peace with Japan ....
" An agreed minute to the Okinawa Reversion Treaty defines the boundaries of the Ryukyu Islands and the Daito Islands "as Designated under" USCAR 27.
Moreover, the latitude and longitude boundaries set forth in the Agreed Minute appear to include the Senkakus (Diaoyus);
this was acknowledged by the Chinese government and by supporters of China's claims, who testified in the Okinawa Reversion Treaty hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
A letter of October 20, 1971, by Robert Starr, Acting Assistant Legal Adviser for East Asian and Pacific Affairs -- acting on the instructions of Secretary of State William Rogers -- states that the Okinawa Reversion Treaty contained "the terms and conditions for the reversion of the Ryukyu Islands, including the Senkakus. "
U.S. Position on the Competing Claims

In presenting the Okinawa Reversion Treaty to the U.S.
Senate for ratification, the State Department asserted that the United States took a neutral position with regard to the competing Japanese and Chinese claims to the islands, despite the return of the islands to Japanese administration.
Department officials asserted that reversion of administrative rights to Japan did not prejudice any claims to the islands.
When asked by the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee how the Okinawa Reversion Treaty would affect the determination of sovereignty over the Senkakus (Diaoyus), Secretary of State William Rogers answered that "this treaty does not affect the legal status of those islands at all.
In his letter of October 20, 1971, Acting Assistant Legal Adviser Robert Starr states:

The Governments of the Republic of China and Japan are in disagreement as to sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands.
You should know as well that the People's Republic of China has also claimed sovereignty over the islands.
The United States believes that a return of Administrative rights over those islands to Japan, from which the rights were received, can in no way prejudice any underlying claims.
The United States cannot add to the legal rights Japan possessed before it transferred administration of the islands to us, nor can the United States, by giving back what it received, diminish the rights of other claimants.
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by Larry A. Niksch