Chapter twelve

Perspectives on East Sea Maritime Disputes: Issues and Context

Suk-Kyoon Kim*

Introduction

The is bounded on the east by the Kyushu and Ryukyu Islands, on the south by Taiwan and on the west by mainland China. It is connected with the South China Sea by the Taiwan Strait and with the East Sea of by the Korea Strait. The countries bordering on the East China Sea include China, , Korea, and Taiwan. The maritime disputes in the East China Sea have increasingly proved to be a flashpoint between China and Japan, as it was a case in the recent conflict over a collision of a Chinese fishing boat with a Japan Coast Guard ship. On 8 Septem- ber 2010, the Japan Coast Guard arrested the captain of a Chinese fishing boat within 12 nautical miles of the Senkaku (Diaoyu)1 Islands for a charge of obstruct- ing officers on duty by ramming two Japanese Coast Guard ships. This episode sparked a diplomatic row between the two countries and threat- ened to impact on every aspect of the two countries’ relations, especially trade, in which the two countries have increasingly been interdependent over the past decades.2 The diplomatic conflict ultimately came to an end with the release of

* Commissioner General, Korean Coast Guard, Korea. The opinions expressed in this pre- sentation are solely the views of author and are not intended to reflect the positions of the Korea Coast Guard nor the Korean Government. 1 Hereinafter it is referred to as Senkaku only for simplicity, excluding any political or ter- ritorial implications. The Diaoyu dao is known in Taiwan as Tiaoyutai. There are some differences in English spellings of the Islands, depending on literatures and writers. It is believed that they are the differences as to how to translate Chinese sounds into English. Senkaku means “pinnacle house,” in Japanese, while Diaoyu means “fishing platform” in Chinese. 2 The article “China-Japan economic, trade ties have great potential to tap”, http:// news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-05/04/content_8104901.htm): “According to China’s Ministry of Commerce two-way trade between the two countries climbed by 13.8% 286 suk-kyoon kim the Chinese captain by Japan “in consideration of future relations of Japan and China.”3 This case arguably demonstrates how volatile maritime disputes are, and how they can adversely affect the two countries’ relations, which are compet- ing in many respects. The East China Sea maritime issues, such as maritime boundary delimitation, ownership of the disputed islands, exploitation of natural resources, and security of sea lanes of communication, do not exist separate but intrinsically are interre- lated to each other, to the extent which is described as ‘mixed disputes’ in charac- ter. Furthermore, maritime disputes over those issues remain a source of conflicts and increasingly have become a key determinant in international relationships in the post Cold War period in . This chapter, in the wake of a diplomatic row caused by the collision of a Chinese fishing vessel with Japan Coast Guard ships, attempts to examine the sources and unravel the different aspects of longstanding East China Sea mari- time disputes.

Ownership of the Islands and the Delimitation of Maritime Boundaries

The issues of ownership over the Senkaku Islands and the legal status of the Oki- nawa Trough lie at the core of maritime disputes between China and Japan in the East China Sea. Seemingly they are separate but they are nonetheless intrinsically interrelated, considering in particular the effects to be given to the islands and the role of troughs in the seafloor in the delimitation of maritime boundaries.

Competing Claims to the Senkaku Islands The Senkaku Islands, currently under the control of Japan, consist of eight islands—five uninhabited islets, of which the largest is about two miles in length and slightly less than a mile in width, and three rocky outcroppings.4 They are situated about 120 nautical miles northeast of Taiwan and 200 nautical miles west of Okinawa. The history of the Senkaku Islands dates back to the Ming (1368–1644) and Ching (1644–1911) dynasties of China and the Ryukyu kingdom, later annexed to the Prefecture of Okinawa, Japan in 1879. Throughout this period, a naviga-

­year-on-year to 236 billion U.S. dollars I 2007. Japan became China’s biggest exporter and its fourth biggest export market.” 3 The Chosun Ilbo (Korean Daily Newspaper), on 24 September 2004, http://news.chosun .com/site/data/html_dir/2010/09/24/2010092401000.html. 4 Choon-ho Park, East Asia and the Law of the Sea, The Institute of Social Science Interna- tional Studies Series No. 5 (Seoul: Seoul National University Press, 1983), 31.