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PacNet Newsletter
#45, November 8, 1996
Senkaku (Diaoyu)
Islands Dispute:

The U.S.
Legal Relationship and Obligations

by Larry A.
Niksch

Editor's Note:
The following article prepared by the Congressional Research Service provides useful background information on the Sen-Diao dispute.
It is not a statement of official U.S.policy.
We are aware of no comprehensive U.S.
policy statement on the issue, but repeat the following statements made by U.S.
State Department briefer Glyn Davies on September 23, 1996: "We expect that the claimants to the islands will resolve their differences and do so peacefully.
We urge all the claimants to exercise restraint as they move forward on this process....
We're not going to predict what's likely to happen.
We're simply going to confine ourselves to calling on both sides to resist the temptation to provoke each other or raise tensions over those two islands.
From a U.S. standpoint, though we understand it has a great emotional content, it's not the kind of issue that's worth elevating beyond a war of words, where we are not.
So that is our position on it.
"

Summary

New tensions among China, Japan, and Taiwan over disputed islands in the East China Sea are based on long-standing territorial claims they have maintained.
The United States has important relationships with all three disputants, and has had a legal relationship to the islands since the conclusion of the Peace Treaty with Japan in 1951.
The chief components of this legal relationship are:
(1) U.S. administration of the islands from 1953 to 1971;
(2) inclusion of the islands in the terms of the U.S.
-Japan Okinawa Reversion Treaty of 1971;
(3) a U.S. position on the claims themselves;
and (4)
the application of the U.S.
-Japan Security Treaty to the islands under the provisions of the Okinawa Reversion Treaty.

Introduction

In recent months, tensions have arisen among Japan, China, and Taiwan over a small group of islands located about 120 miles northeast of Taipei, Taiwan.
Japan, China, and Taiwan claim sovereignty over the islands, known as the Senkakus in Japan and the Diaoyus in China and Taiwan.
The islands are eight in number and are uninhabited.
The largest is about two miles in length and less than one mile in width.
However, geologists believe that the waters surrounding them may be rich in oil and natural gas deposits.

The disputed claims are long standing.
Current tensions began in late 1995 and into 1996 when China began sending ocean surveillance ships and oil drilling rigs into the waters close to the islands.
In July 1996, a Japanese student group erected a lighthouse on one of the islands flying the Japanese flag.
China responded with a series of denunciations of Japan.
In China and especially in Japan, questions have arisen concerning the U.S. legal relationship to the islands.
This report will focus on that issue, which has four elements:
(1) U.S. administration of the Senkakus (Diaoyus) from 1953 to 1971;
(2) the application to the Senkakus (Diaoyus) of the 1971 "Treaty Between Japan and the United States of America Concerning the Ryukyu Islands and the Daito Islands" -- commonly known as the Okinawa Reversion Treaty, ratified by the U.S.
Senate in 1971;
(3) the U.S. position on the claims of the disputants;
and (4) the relationship of the U.S. -Japan Security Treaty to the islands.