A Chinese announcer shouted "Diaoyu Islands belong to China" during a live broadcast at Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK), sparking a controversy in both Japan and China.
On August 19, a Chinese announcer at an NHK-affiliated radio station went off-script during a live broadcast, shouting in English "Diaoyu Islands belong to China", "Remember the Nanjing Massacre" and "Remember the Comfort Women".
The announcer made the statements after he had read a news story about a Chinese man accused of defacing the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo.
This action immediately caused a stir within NHK and attracted significant attention on social media. The Japanese government called the incident "regrettable". Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi urged NHK “to be mindful of its social responsibility as a public broadcaster and prevent a recurrence.”
NHK promptly dismissed the announcer and stated that they were considering legal action and compensation claims. However, on August 26 the announcer published a post on Chinese social media platform Weibo, telling his followers that he had already fled Japan and had arrived by plane in China. On his account, he claims to have worked in Japan for 22 years.
NHK's public relations department issued a statement on their official website, emphasising that this behavior severely violated the mission of public broadcasting and that measures will be taken to prevent similar incidents in the future.
The announcer, who uses the name Shuyu treetalk (ę čÆtreetalk) on Weibo, garnered praise on Chinese social media, with some users calling him a “hero”.
In a video published on Chinese short video platform Douyin (known outside of China as TikTok), pro-Beijing political commentator Lai Yueqian (č³“å²³č¬) said that the “Chinese people welcome” the former NHK announcer. “The Japanese people don't dare to admit that the Diaoyu Islands belong to China, and he couldn't accept it,” Lai stated.
In the heavily censored Chinese internet, expressions of nationalistic sentiment are allowed to spread as long as they fit the government's ideology.
The Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute is a complex and long-standing territorial conflict between Japan, the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan).
The group of small uninhabited islands, called Diaoyu in the PRC and Senkaku in Japan, are located in the East China Sea. They are strategically significant due to their proximity to key shipping lanes, rich fishing grounds, and potential oil and gas reserves.
Japan claims that it surveyed the islands in the late 19th century and found them to be uninhabited. In 1895, Japan formally incorporated the islands following the First Sino-Japanese War. After World War II, the islands were under US administration until 1972, when they were returned to Japan. The Japanese government asserts that in the 1890s the islands were not claimed by any nation (terra nullius), and successive Chinese governments did not dispute Japan's claims until the 1970s.
The PRC’s position is that the islands have been part of its territory “since ancient times.” Beijing cites as proof maps and documents from China's imperial dynasties, such as the book “Voyage with a Tail Wind” from 1403, and the “Records of the Imperial Title-Conferring Envoys to Ryukyu”.
From the 1970s to 2010, both sides tried to avoid escalation and maintain the status quo. Beijing was more focused on economic development and sought to present to the world the image of a power committed to “peaceful rise”.
But on September 7, 2010, the Japanese Coast Guard (JCG) spotted the Chinese fishing vessel Minjinyu 5179 operating roughly 7.5 miles northeast of the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands. When the JCG ordered the vessel to halt for inspection, the Chinese crew refused and attempted to flee. In the ensuing chase, Minjinyu 5179 collided with two JCG ships, causing damage to the Japanese vessels. The captain and fourteen crew members were detained and taken to Ishigaki Prefecture.
The following day, Japan formally arrested the captain, charging him with obstructing the duties of public officials. His detention was extended multiple times, and while the crew was released on September 13, the captain remained in custody. On September 24, amid escalating tensions, Japan released the captain, though charges were not dropped.
China perceived Japan's actions as a direct challenge to its claims over the islands. Historically, crews or activists entering these waters were deported swiftly, often within 48 hours. This time, however, the prolonged detention of the captain signaled a shift in Japan's approach. The charge of obstructing public officials marked a departure from Japan's previous practice of not applying its domestic laws for such incidents.
Chinese officials condemned Japan's actions. On September 9, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman declared Japan's application of its domestic law to Chinese fishing boats "absurd, illegal, and invalid." On September 22, the Ministry reiterated that Japan's detention of Chinese fishermen was a severe violation of China's territorial sovereignty.
The incident also saw Japan publicly challenging China's stance on the dispute. On September 21, Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara stated before the House of Representatives Security Committee that Japan had never agreed with China to shelve the dispute, contradicting China's long-held position.
In retaliation, China arrested four Japanese nationals on September 20 for allegedly entering restricted military areas and videotaping facilities. Following the incident, China increased its maritime presence around the islands, further escalating tensions.
The situation intensified in April 2012 when Tokyo's nationalist governor, Shintaro Ishihara, announced plans to purchase the islands from their private owners. "Tokyo will protect the Senkaku Islands," he said in a speech at the right-wing Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. "Why would any country have a problem with that?”
His declaration put pressure on the Japanese central government. On July 7, 2012, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced his administration's decision to purchase the islands, believing that this move would stabilize the situation. From a domestic political perspective, it would prevent the islands from falling under the control of Ishihara's, who could have continued to exploit the issue to his advantage.
However, China opposed the purchase, viewing it as an attempt by the Japanese government to strengthen its sovereignty claims. The United States, too, tried to dissuade Japan from following through with the plan. Despite that, the Japanese government went ahead with the government’s acquisition of the ownership of three Senkaku islands in September 2012.
Japan's Foreign Ministry states on its website that “the … ownership transfer was aimed at maintaining and managing the Senkaku Islands peacefully and stably on a long-term basis and that the transfer is nothing more than returning the ownership from a private citizen to the Government, with which the ownership rested until 1932.”
In August 2012, a group of Hong Kong-based Chinese nationalists, including former Legislative Council member "Bull" Tsang Kin-shing, travelled to the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands to assert China's sovereignty.
The activists, affiliated with the Action Committee for Defending the Diaoyu Islands, planned to demolish a Japanese lighthouse, sing the national anthem, and set up a television and radio to receive Chinese broadcasts.
Japanese authorities apprehended the group for violating immigration laws and deported them back to China. The incident sparked widespread protests across China, with demonstrators attacking Japanese cars and businesses.
As the Guardian reported at the time: “Up to 2,000 people with Chinese flags and banners protested in the southern city of Shenzhen, overturning Japanese cars, attacking Japanese restaurants and burning images of Japanese flags. Qingdao, Taiyuan and Hangzhou also saw protests, while smaller ones took place in several more cities across China, from far northern Harbin to south-western Chengdu. In Guangzhou and Shenyang, protesters gathered at the Japanese consulates.”
The Diaoyu/Senkaku dispute is playing out against the backdrop of the wider geopolitical conflict between China and the United States. In a 2021 article, China's government media outlet Global Times declared that “Japan is an important pillar for US' campaign against China in Asia and globally. By discussing the Diaoyu Islands twice in a handful of days, the US is attempting to convince Japan that China is their common target.”
In the aftermath of World War II, the US and Japan signed the Mutual Security Treaty in 1951 alongside the Treaty of San Francisco. This ten-year, renewable agreement allowed US forces to remain on Japanese soil as the country regained its sovereignty.
The treaty underwent a significant revision in 1960, granting the United States the right to establish military bases across the Japanese archipelago in return for a commitment to defend Japan in case of an attack. Article V of the Mutual Defense Treaty includes the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands as territories under the administration of Japan.
The US has reaffirmed on multiple occasions its commitment to defend the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands. In April 2024, US President Biden emphasised this commitment during a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Kishida, reiterating both countries’ opposition to “any attempts by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to unilaterally change the status quo by force or coercion in the East China Sea, including through actions that seek to undermine Japan’s longstanding and peaceful administration of the Senkaku Islands.”
On August 26, 2024, Japan's Defense Ministry confirmed the first-ever intrusion by a PRC military aircraft into the country's airspace.
The Ministry stated that a Y-9 intelligence-gathering aircraft briefly entered the airspace off the Danjo Islands in Goto City in the southwestern prefecture of Nagasaki. Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force scrambled fighter jets to intercept the intruder. By the time the jets arrived, the PRC aircraft had already exited Japanese airspace.
______________
Support me with a donation at: https://ko-fi.com/aristeon89
Or take a look at some of my books:
Thanks for your support!
Sources:
https://www.nownews.com/news/6508266
https://www.thenewslens.com/article/207005
https://udn.com/news/story/6812/8179861
https://www.storm.mg/lifestyle/5226804
https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/15393075
https://m.douyin.com/share/video/7408032980528155940
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11341139
https://www.mofa.go.jp/a_o/c_m1/senkaku/page1we_000010.html
https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zy/jj/diaodao_665718/mn/202406/t20240606_11378071.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/apr/19/tokyo-governor-senkaku-islands-china
https://academic.oup.com/globalsummitry/article/2/1/24/2355365
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/promise-and-pitfalls-chinas-peaceful-rise
https://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/16/world/asia/china-japan-islands-arrests/index.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/aug/19/china-protest-japan-senkaku-diaoyo-island
https://www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/senkaku/qa_1010.html#q17
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202101/1213901.shtml?id=11
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-japan-alliance
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20240826_25/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryukyu_Islands#/media/File%3ALocation_of_the_Ryukyu_Islands.JPG
Comments
Post a Comment