Background: The Issue of the Diaoyu
Islands
On October 9, 2003, Chinese volunteers from the mainland, Taiwan
and Hong Kong jointly sailed to the Diaoyu Islands in the East
China Sea for the first time. They successfully reached the
vicinity of the island. Yin Minhong was among the ten volunteers.
On October 18, he told the story of his journey.
Yin, 25, was born in Qunfeng Township, Zhuzhou County, Hunan
Province. He joined the army upon his graduation from a three-year
course on traditional Chinese medicine and three years later, he
retired and attended university. He was once auditor at Peking
University. He has sailed twice as a volunteer to claim China's
sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands. His first cruise happened in
June 2003.?
"Early on the morning of September 21, I received a phone call,"
Yin recalled, "it was from Zhang Likun, a friend of mine from
Xiamen (a port city in southeastern Fujian Province). He was the
commander-in-chief of our last journey to the Diaoyu Islands. He
told me to arrive in Xiamen in five days time. I immediately knew
we'll soon have another journey to the Diaoyu Islands though he
didn't mention that on the phone."
"I set out on September 23 and arrived in Xiamen the next day.
Originally we planned to begin our action secretly on September 28;
however, the Japanese managed to learn about our tightly guarded
plan before d-day. Several Japanese newspapers published stories
about our planned action to defend the Diaoyu Islands. Consequently
the Japanese Maritime Safety Agency deployed 30-40 warships aiming
to intersect our possible cruise. Therefore we postponed our action
for several days to avoid the mass Japanese fleet," Yin Said.
"At 15:10, October 7, ten of us, five from Hong Kong, one from
Taiwan and four from the mainland, departed from Xiamen's Dongdu
Fishing Harbor. We were in an iron-hull fishing boat named
Minlongyu F861, which we rented from local fishermen. In
addition, the captain and five sailors of the boat volunteered to
be with us."
When asked if he felt a little bit afraid about what was going
to happen next, Yin said: "I felt calm. I feared nothing but
failure to land on the island."
On the evening of October 8 we heard of another four Taiwan and
Hong Kong volunteers having embarked to meet us at sea. In the
small hours of the 9th our boat passed Taiwan's Keelung Port and
met their boat. Due to strong gales, our two boats weren't able to
lie beside each other. Later four guys had to sail their boat back
to Taiwan because the hull of their boat was made of glass
fiber-reinforced plastic that was not strong enough to withstand
the stormy waves on the way to the Diaoyu Islands. We were sorry
about that. They were very eager to come aboard but that was just
too dangerous. And none of us expected to see human injuries on
that occasion.
Diaoyu Islands near at hand
"At noon on October 9 our boat was only 20 sea miles from the
Diaoyu Islands. Many of us stepped up to the row one after another.
Just at the moment, we found a Japanese warship and helicopter
appeared and chased us. Later the warship sailed parallel with our
boat and even displayed two scrolls with words of warnings on them.
Dismissing their presence, we sailed on steadily to the Diaoyu
Islands. We kept great restraint and sense to avoid head-on
conflict with the Japanese warship," Yin said.
 |
"But it's really burning humiliation to be warned and intervened by
the Japanese on our own territorial waters! We gradually speeded
forward and more Japanese warships and aircrafts gathered around
and above us. Eventually eight Japanese warships, three helicopters
and two warplanes besieged us. The Japanese warships sailed before
the row of our boat in turns to prevent us from approaching the
islands. The Japanese ships stirred billows and it would have been
really disastrous if our boat had collided with theirs. On the
other hand, the Japanese planes and helicopters performed hedgehop
above us. Despite this our boat got nearer and nearer to the Diaoyu
Islands and we even clearly saw the green trees on them. At last we
were just about 200 meters from the islands!
"Seeing that we charged all out toward the islands, crews of the
Japanese ships began to get so anxious that they dispatched two
high-speed patrol boats, namely, DS-03 and DS-06, to converge on
our boat. Meanwhile sirens screamed harshly from their planes and
helicopters. The two patrol boats squeezed and bumped on our boat
and we had to stop. We got very indignant and took eggs out of our
food cabin and threw them at the uniformed Japanese guards wearing
steel helmets. And we shouted to them: 'Japanese get out of the
Diaoyu Islands!' I recorded the whole scene with a video camera,"
Yin recalled, full of pity and indignation.
Defending the Diaoyu Islands to the end
"During the two-hour confrontation the Japanese warships also
discharged more than ten pneumatic boats to check our efforts to
swim to the islands. Although we made every effort to break through
the Japanese obstruction, we failed to land on the islands and even
our plan to revolve round the islands was sabotaged by the Japanese
fleet. At 17:20 we decided to go back," Yin said.
"To defend the Diaoyu Islands will be a long-term undertaking
and we'll mobilize more people and ships for our future actions,"
he added.
(Military Reading, translated for china.org.cn by Chen
Chao, November 13, 2003)
Background: The
Issue of the Diaoyu Islands
Diaoyu Island and its affiliated islands lie in the East China
Sea, around 92 nautical miles northeast of Chilung City, Taiwan
Province, China. They cover a total area of 6.3 square km. Of all
the islands, Diaoyu Island is the biggest with an area of about 4.3
square km.
In the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), the Diaoyu Islands appeared in
Chinese documents and were regarded as Chinese territory. The
Japanese claimed to "discover" the islets only in the late 19th
century, and named them Senkakus.
According to official Japanese maps published before 1895, the
Diaoyu Islands were not represented.
The government of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) signed the Treaty
of Shimonoseki (Maguan) with Japan in 1895 after it lost
the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 (launched by Japan to annex
Korea and invade China). This was in effect until the end of World
War II, when Japan surrendered to the Allies in 1945 and later
accepted the Potsdam Declaration.
According to the Shimonoseki Treaty, Taiwan and all its adjacent
islands, including the Diaoyu Islands, were ceded to Japan by the
Qing government. Since then, Japan added the Diaoyu Islands to its
maps published after 1895.
In 1945, the Japanese Government accepted the Potsdam
Declaration, which stipulated that Japan must return all
territories it seized from China. From then on, the Diaoyu Islands
were deleted from Japanese maps.
Such a change actually meant that Japan returned the Diaoyu
Islands to China. In 1971 the US government transferred the rights
of administration over the islets to the Japanese, without,
however, admitting that Japan had that sovereignty. In the same
year, the Japanese government announced that the Diaoyu Islands
belonged to Japan, which showed that Japan was in conflict of its
commitment to the Potsdam Declaration. Now it tightly controls
access to the island area.
Indignant at the US and Japanese moves on the Diaoyu Islands,
Chinese people all over the world, including Chinese students
studying in North America, have organized numerous campaigns to
claim China's sovereignty over the islands since the 1970s.
The importance of the Diaoyu Islands is not in the desolate
island itself but in the rumored rich oil reserves beneath, and the
fishing rights over the area too. And symbolically, to the Chinese,
the Diaoyu Islands are a clear barometer of Japanese expansionist
sentiment.
In July 1996, a group of Japanese right sailed to the Diaoyu
Islands, and set up a lighthouse and placed a Japanese flag over
the rocky hills. The action infringed Chinese sovereignty and
aroused public indignation and brought waves of furious protest
from Chinese communities worldwide.
The culmination of this anger was the dispatch of the ship,
Protecting Diaoyu Islands (Baodiao Hao), by Hong
Kong activists for the Islands, on September 22, 1996. Chen Yuxiang
(David Chan) and others sailed the ship into the area around the
island on September 26, 1996. The ship was stopped by a vessel of
the Japanese Maritime Safety Agency. Chen Yuxiang and several other
Hong Kong compatriots jumped into the sea to protest. Chen drowned
in the rough seas. A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry
expressed the government's sorrow at his death and expressed
sympathy to his family.
In June 2003, 15 activists, including Yin Minhong, from the
Chinese mainland and Hong Kong joined forces to sail to the Diaoyu
Islands to proclaim them as Chinese property. It was the first time
that activists from the mainland joined the patriotic cause.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry reaffirmed China's sovereignty over
the Diaoyu Islands and its unswerving determination to defend the
country's land in the wake of the two sailings by Chinese
volunteers. Meanwhile, it said that China's consistent position to
solve the dispute through consultation had not changed.
The ministry states:
"The Diaoyu Island and its affiliated islands have long been
inherent territory of China. Like Taiwan, the Diaoyu Islands are
inalienable part of the territory of the People's Republic. China
enjoys indisputable sovereignty over these islands and the natural
resources in its affiliated sea areas. China's sovereignty over
these islands is fully proven by history and is legally
well-founded.
In view of the different positions on the Diaoyu Islands from
the Japanese side, the Chinese government, proceeding from the
development of Sino-Japanese relations and on condition of adhering
to the consistent Chinese positions, reached an understanding with
the Japanese government: (1) The issue of the Diaoyu Islands shall
be shelved for future settlement, (2) neither side should take
unilateral action and (3) The two sides should try to prevent this
issue from becoming a disturbing factor in overall bilateral
relations.
In recent years, the Japanese right from time to time have
created incidents over the Diaoyu Islands. The Chinese side made
solemn representations to the Japanese side through diplomatic
channels. The Japanese government affirmed their basic position of
neither participating nor supporting the activities of the right
wing. The action of the right has been detrimental to the
development of Sino-Japanese relations and runs counter to the
stand of the Japanese government."
(China.org.cn November 13, 2003)
