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Tuesday, September 18, 2012

What is the origin of the conflict between Japan and China over Islands?


The wave of anti-Japanese protests that spread in China originated in history, although the most recent facts go back to April, when the Governor of Tokyo unveiled plans to buy a group of Islands claimed by China, Japan and Taiwan, without apparent approval from the Japanese Government. In order to assert the Japanese control over the Diaoyu or Senkaku Islands, as they are known in China, Governor Shintaro Ishihara launched a campaign to raise funds and so buy them from private owners in internet. Donations were swift, which provoked a strong rebuke by China and forced the Japanese Government to get into the dispute with its own offer for the land competing.

Shintaro Ishihara, who is it?

Ishihara has a long history of making comments against China. In 1999, when he was appointed Governor of Tokyo, the Japanese Cabinet, Hiromu Nonaka, Secretary tried to reassure China saying that relations would remain "friendly". Before taking office, Ishihara was a renowned author, whose name became famous when he was twenty years old, having written the Season of the Sun, a book that won the most prestigious literary award in Japan. He is a declared nationalist, who previously put in doubt the version of historians about the Nanking massacre of 1937, in which hundreds of thousands of Chinese were killed by Japanese troops. After launch the fundraising campaign, Ishihara compared the Chinese claim to the islands like "a thief in the House of Japan".

What was the reaction of China?

In June, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Chinese, Liu Weimin, dismissed the attempt of Ishihara buy Islands and called it "irresponsible", and repeated affirmation of that the Islands belong to China. "The Diaoyu Islands are Chinese territory since ancient times," he said. "Stubborn discourse and action of some Japanese politicians is irresponsible and stained and soiled the reputation of Japan", explained the official.

When was the Japanese Government?

Given the possibility of the Islands fell under the jurisdiction of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the Japanese Government intervened with its own range of the disputed islands.

Suicide attack in Afghanistan

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