‘China’s simply wrong’: the fisherman, 72, staking Japan’s claim to the Diaoyu Islands

Hitoshi Nakama, an Okinawan councillor-turned-fisherman, says he won’t be intimidated, however many times the Chinese coastguard chases him away

Visiting the disputed and uninhabited islands – which Japan calls the Senkakus – was the first thing he did when elected in 1995. He has been returning to them ever since

Reading Time:3 minutes

Okinawan councillor-turned-fisherman Hitoshi Nakama. Photo: Internet

Published: 1:30pm, 31 Jan 2022

Hitoshi Nakama’s small fishing boat has been approached or even chased by Chinese coastguard vessels off disputed islands in the East China Sea more times than he cares to recall, but he says that will not stop him returning to waters he insists are Japanese. If anything, he says, the threats make him more determined to reinforce Japan’s sovereignty.

A sprightly 72-year-old, Nakama only took up commercial fishing a little more than a decade ago, but he sees his presence off the Senkaku Islands – which Beijing claims and refers to as the Diaoyu Islands – as an extension of his other position. For the past 27 years, Nakama has also been an elected councillor for the Okinawan island of Ishigaki, 170km to the south, which exerts legal control over the five uninhabited territories and scattered reefs.

“I was first elected to serve on the city council in 1995 and the first thing I did after winning the election was to get on a boat and go straight to the islands,” Nakama told the South China Morning Post. “The Senkaku Islands come under the administrative jurisdiction of Ishigaki, so it was completely normal that I went there on a field trip.”

Nakama has landed on the five islands – he counts them off his fingers, Uotsuri, Kita Kojima, Minami Kojima, Kuba and Taisho islands – a total of 16 times since that first visit.

“I needed to go there to investigate the current situation on the islands but also to learn about the lives of the people who lived there before us, about the difficulties they faced,” said Nakama, who posts video clips of some of his adventures – including shots of intimidating Chinese coastguard vessels – on social media sites to highlight the pressure that Beijing is exercising around the islands.