Sovereign rights and territorial space in Sino-Japanese relations : irredentism and the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands

306 Pages·2000·93.233 MB·English

by  Unryu Suganuma

Asian Interactions and Comparisons
General EditorJ oshua. A. Fogel
Sovereign Rights and Territorial Space
in Sino-Japanese Relations
Irredentism and the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands
Unryu Suganuma
The I Ching in Tokugawa Thought and Culture
Wai-Ming Ng
ASIAN INTERACTIONS AND COM PARISONS
Sovereign Rights and
Territorial Space in
Sino-Japanese Relations
Irredentism and the
Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands
UNRYU SUGANUMA
Association for Asian Studies
and
University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu
/C2?S£Y
syeesy
Asian Interactions and Comparisons, published jointly by the
University of Hawai'i Press and the Association for Asian Studies, seeks
to encourage research across regions and cultures within Asia. The series
focuses on works (monographs, edited volumes, and translations) that con­
cern the interaction between or among Asian societies, cultures, or countries,
or that deal with a comparative analysis of such. Series volumes concentrate on
any time period and come from any academic discipline.
© 2000 Association for Asian Studies, Inc.
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
05 04 03 02 01 5 4 3 2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Suganuma, Unryu, 1964-
Sovereign rights and territorial space in Sinojapanese relations
: irredentism and the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands / Unryu Suganuma.
p. cm. — (Asian interactions and comparisons)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8248-2159-9 (cloth). —
ISBN 0-8248-2493-8 (paper)
1. Senkaku Islands—International status. 2. Irredentism—China.
3. Irredentism—Japan. 4. China—Foreign relations—Japan.
5. Japan—Foreign relations—China. I. Title. II. Series.
KZ3881.S46S84 2000
327.51052—dc21 • 99-41551
CIP
University of Hawai'i Press books are printed on acid-free
paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the
Council on Library Resources.
Book design by Kenneth Miyamoto
Printed by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group
To
Chi Shuzheng
and
Suganuma Toshimoto,
with love and gratitude

CONTENTS
List of Tables viii
Series Editor’s Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
Notes on Chinese and Japanese Names xiii
Introduction: Irredentism, the Diaoyu Islands, and
Sino-Japanese Relations 1
1. International Law and the Diaoyu Islands 19
2. Historical Documents of the Diaoyu Islands:
A Cross-Time Analysis 42
3. Critics of the Irredentism Debate over the Diaoyu
Islands 101
4. From Irredentism to Modern Geopolitics: The Diaoyu
Islands during the Twentieth Century 116
Conclusion: Historical Justification and Chinese Hegemony 152
Appendix: The Diaoyu Islands: Maps and Historical Evidence 163
Notes 189
Glossary 237
Bibliography 245
Index 285
vii
TABLES
1. Examples of Unsolved Irredentist Claims 9
2. Physical Geography of the Diaoyu Islands 12
3. The Chinese Cefeng [Investiture] Missions to the
Liuqiu Kingdom during the Ming Dynasty 46
4. The Chinese Cefeng [Investiture] Missions to the
Liuqiu Kingdom during the Qing Dynasty 70
5. The Identification of the Diaoyu Islands from Various
Historical Documents 95
6. No Name of the Diaoyu Islands Recorded in the
Japanese Textbooks - 128
viii
SERIES EDITOR'S PREFACE
This volume by Unryu Suganuma inaugurates a new series, “Asian
Interactions and Comparisons,” to be jointly published by the Asso­
ciation for Asian Studies and the University of Hawai‘i Press. Books
within the series will look at issues that cross national or cultural
borders within the context of Asia. Dr. Suganuma’s work therefore
marks an excellent point of departure.
While there has been peace between China and Japan for the past
half century, massive amounts of trade, numerous educational and
cultural exchanges, and memories of World War II and before still
cloud virtually every state-to-state interaction between the two coun­
tries today. One of the most contentious issues has been the disputed
sovereignty over a tiny chain of uninhabited islands known in Chinese
as the Diaoyu Islands and in Japanese as the Senkaku Islands. Dr.
Suganuma takes a deep historical approach in trying not so much to
resolve this issue as to understand how the two parties have come to
articulate their opposing legitimacy claims to sovereignty.
“Irredentism,” the claim to terrain based on a historical “right,” is
the model he applies. While the Chinese repeatedly contend that the
island chain was known and used by Chinese navigators from Ming
(1368-1644) and Qing (1644—1912) times on, the Japanese ground
their arguments in the “discovery theory” of international law, namely
that the land had long been ignored and unused until Japan “redis­
covered” it in 1884. In both instances, the irredentist claims of history
ground the arguments, and no one seems to be questioning the valid­
ity of history as a determinant. History as the ultimate deciding factor
in disputes of this sort can be found around the world, but in East Asia
IX
X Series Editor’s Preface
—with its long tradition of history writing as a means of claims to legit­
imacy—history is something much more.
Thus, we have in Dr. Suganuma’s work a study simultaneously of
geography, international relations, comparative history, and interna­
tional law, a mixture rarely found in East Asian studies. It is based on
a primary and secondary literature that almost never finds its way
into mainstream East Asian studies. With the publication of Dr. Suga­
numa’s book, a whole new literature opens up for interested readers.
He examines the wealth of texts from premodern and modern China
that mention the Diaoyu Islands in the context of navigation to and
from the Liuqiu (Ryukyu) Kingdom—connected with contested
claims over sovereignty there—and, to a lesser extent, to and from
Japan. In addition, he uses a vast array of recent Chinese, Japanese*
and English-language studies to situate the issues in the larger context
of the debate not just about the islands themselves but of irredentism
itself.
From the perspective of the present, international law has ulti­
mately been unsuccessful—or, at least, inconclusive—in mediating
the competing claims to the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands made by Chi­
nese and Japanese. Absent a clear resolution emerging from accepted
norms of international law, Dr. Suganuma sees continued irredentist
claims being made by the two sides well into the foreseeable future.
This volume is, without a doubt, the fullest scholarly treatment that
the contested issue of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands has received to
date—and in any language. It will be of interest to historians of
modern China and modem Japan as well as to political scientists in
international relations and Sino-Japanese interactions. And it will cer­
tainly be of interest to those in the field of historical geography, Dr.
Suganuma’s specialty. It would be «a valuable addition to any pub­
lisher’s list, and we are especially proud that it launches “Asian Inter­
actions and Comparisons.”
Joshua A. Fogel
Series Editor
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book originated with the doctoral dissertation I completed at
Syracuse University in July 1996. To readers of that dissertation com­
mittee—Daniel A. Griffith, Norman A. Kutcher, Donald W. Meinig,
Marwyn S. Samuels, Jeffrey D. Straussman, and John C. Western—I
am so grateful for the intellectual freedom they allowed me as I devel­
oped my ideas on this important topic, which has never been exam­
ined in the West. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my
two professors: Norman A. Kutcher and Donald W. Meining. In 1995
and 1996, they continually gave their advice and encouragement, not
only for my dissertation, but also for my personal life. Without their
help, my career would never have gone this far. I am glad to call them
my teachers as well as my “life-savers,” and I will never forget them as
long as I live.
In preparing this book, I am indebted to many outstanding intel­
lectuals, who either read the entire or part of the manuscript or my
articles, for their valuable comments and encouragement. I would like
to thank James P. Bennett, James E. Bradley, Timothy Brook, George
J. Demko, Norton S. Ginsburg, Akira Ishii, P. P. Karan, Jeffry C.
Kinkley, David Chuenyan Lai, John S. H. Lin, Yukimasa Nagayasu,
Motoharu Naito, Yasuaki Okuno,John C. Palumbo, Richard J. Smith,
V. F. S. Sit, Katsunori Suzuki, Iwao Taka, Suminori Tokunaga, Gungwu
Wang, Allen S. Whiting, and Jack F. Williams.
I would also like to thank my writing consultants: Jeanette Jeneault,
Helga Lindberg, and Ruta Regli. They provided useful advice con­
cerning the writing structure of this research. Jeanette, especially,
assisted me from the time I entered Syracuse University in 1992 in
teaching me not only about writing style, but also the American edu-
XI