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Explainer | Japan’s territorial disputes: China, South Korea, Russia and more
- Tokyo has competing claims with all its immediate neighbours over territory, including the governments of North Korea and Taiwan
- The Diaoyu Islands dispute is seen as the most volatile, while analysts see little likelihood of progress with Moscow over the Kuril Islands
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Julian Ryallin Tokyo
Japan is in disputes with all its immediate neighbours over territory, with those competing claims largely dating back to its imperial past of a century ago.
Tokyo insists that it has no ambitions to obtain new territory and is merely claiming sovereignty over islands and their surrounding waters that have long been recognised as Japanese.
But that position is disputed by the governments of China, Russia, Taiwan and both North and South Korea.
WHAT DO THESE DISPUTES INVOLVE?
China: Beijing claims the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea that are currently controlled by Japan, which calls them the Senkakus. China claims it discovered the islands in the 14th century, while Japan insists they were uninhabited, used only as maritime navigational markers and therefore terra nullius before being settled by Japanese fishermen from the late 1890s.
Tokyo says Beijing only began to claim the islands after surveys in the 1960s indicated the possibility of oil and gas deposits beneath the seabed nearby. With tensions growing over the competing claims, the Japanese government in September 2012 purchased three of the five islands from their owners, the Kurihara family, for 2.05 billion yen (US$19.5 million).
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