Development of Japan’s Territory

Abstract

This chapter provides a historical summary of the development of Japan’s territory. In the second half of the nineteenth century, when Western nations pressed Japan to open its doors to trade as a modern State, there was a need to clarify the sovereignty over the surrounding islands. Japan had to delineate the territories between itself and Russia; the United States and the United Kingdom; and China and the Korean Peninsula. In the first half of the twentieth century, Japan expanded its territory until its defeat in World War II. In accordance with Article 2 of the Treaty of Peace with Japan (1951), Japan renounced some territories it had acquired before WWII. Yet, some of Japan’s neighboring countries have different views from Japan on what territories it renounced as a result of the Treaty.

Delimitation and Expansion of Peripheral Territories

Delimitation of Peripheral Territories in the Late Edo and Meiji Periods

It is well known that Japan, as an independent country, has been in contact with China and the Korean Peninsula since ancient times, and it has deepened exchanges with these neighbors. However, when Western nations pressed Japan to open its doors to trade as a modern State, there was a need to clarify the sovereignty over the surrounding islands. Thus began the process of defining Japan’s peripheral territory, which spanned from the late-Edo to the Meiji periods. Japan had to delineate the territories between itself and Russia, which was expanding southward from Siberia; the United States and the United Kingdom, which were approaching across the Pacific from the east and west; and also nearby China and the Korean Peninsula.

The Northern Territories, the Kurile Islands, and Sakhalin

Looking first to the north, Russia occupied the Kamchatka Peninsula at the close of the seventeenth century, then began expanding southward toward the Kurile Islands. When the Russians had come to the Northern Territories by the mid-eighteenth century, the influence of Japan’s Matsumae Domain had only extended to Kunashiri Island. However, Russia’s administration did not reach Etorofu Island; although it had established a colony on Uruppu Island, Russia abandoned it and withdrew in 1805. Meanwhile, the Japanese shogunate conducted a survey of Sakhalin, Kunashiri Island, Etorofu Island and Uruppu Island beginning in 1785; hardened defenses in eastern Ezo to bring the area, including the Northern Territories, under its direct control in 1799; and established a settlement on Etorofu Island the following year. Japan thus had established its sovereignty over the Northern Territories by the beginning of the nineteenth century. The 1811 Golovnin Incident further demonstrated that Japanese rule had been cemented there.¹

The Matsumae Domain had also conducted surveys of Sakhalin in the seventeenth century. At the beginning of that century, the Qing dynasty initiated its administration of Sakhalin, already known in China in the earlier Tang and Yuan dynasties. Qing influence brushed up against Russia’s in the Heilongjiang (Amur) River area. The Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689 established the relationship between the Qing dynasty and Russia in this area, and the latter withdrew. The desolate land of Sakhalin was not of particular interest to the Qing, however, and neither Japan nor Russia was able to determine much about the region despite sending survey expeditions during this time.

As Russia sought to expand into the northern Pacific in search of trade, Adam Laxman and Nikolai Rezanov made voyages to Nemuro in 1792 and to Nagasaki in 1804. After the shogunate refused to trade with Russia, Rezanov burned down a guard station and committed other acts of violence on his return journey toward Sakhalin. In May 1805, Mamiya Rinzō, whom the shogunate had ordered to conduct a survey of Sakhalin, discovered what came to be known as the Mamiya Strait between Russia and Sakhalin, thus proving that the latter is an island. Mamiya’s findings appeared in a book of maps, Kita Ezo Zusetsu, and this evidence was presented in Europe in a book by Philipp Franz von Siebold entitled Nippon (1832). However, the ownership of Sakhalin was not determined until the late Edo period. In 1727, Russia signed the Treaty of Kyakhta with the Qing dynasty. This document delimited the border between Siberia and Outer Mongolia and, together with the Treaty of Nerchinsk, kept Russia’s southern expansion in check until the mid-nineteenth century.

Following the First Opium War of 1840, the Qing dynasty signed the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842. The Qing was forced to cede Hong Kong to the UK and to open the ports of Shanghai and Canton (Guangzhou). As a result, Russia’s overland trade through the town of Kyakhta was suddenly threatened and Russia was forced to reconsider a policy of expanding into Qing lands. In 1843, a naval expedition under the command of Yevfimy Putyatin was planned to survey the Sea of Okhotsk and the mouth of the Amur River, ensure access to Chinese seaports, and visit Japan. The expedition was postponed due to various circumstances, but a survey of the Amur’s mouth was conducted. The port of Nikolayevsk-on-Amur was built at the river’s mouth in 1850, thus sparking a border dispute with the Qing about sovereignty over the Amur coastline. According to the record of a British ambassador to Russia, Russia surveyed Sakhalin (Karafuto) for coal in 1852. When word reached Russia the following year of a mission to Japan undertaken by Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the US Navy, there was concern that the US would seize Sakhalin. Russia then issued a decree to occupy the island.

It was under these circumstances that Putyatin, Russia’s plenipotentiary, came to Nagasaki in July 1853, where he commenced negotiations with the shogunate on delineating national borders and opening Japanese ports for trade. This mission resulted in the signing of the Treaty of Commerce, Navigation and Delimitation between Japan and Russia on February 7, 1855. This treaty, which was based upon the Japan-US Treaty of Peace and Amity, dealt with national borders in Article 2. It defined the border as lying between Etorofu Island and Uruppu Island, and it stated that Etorofu Island in its entirety belongs to Japan, that all of Uruppu Island and the “Kurile” Islands to its north belong to Russia, and with regard to Sakhalin that “the division of the land shall be performed at a later date.”

In May 1858, as the Qing dynasty was in the midst of the Taiping Rebellion and fighting the Second Opium War against the British and French armies in a conflict that was sparked by the October 1856 Arrow Incident, Russia, pressing south from Siberia, signed the Treaty of Aigun with the Qing, by which Russia gained all land north of the Heilongjiang (Amur) River. Furthermore, under the Convention of Peking (Beijing) agreed between Russia and the Qing in November 1860, the Qing ceded to Russia the Primorsky Krai area east of the Ussuri River as compensation for mediating a peace with the UK and France. Due to the Qing signing the Convention of Tianjin with Russia, the US, the UK, and France in June 1858, as well as the Convention of Peking in October 1860, external powers began stationing ministers resident in Beijing, and in January 1861 the Qing established the Zongli Yamen, an institution to handle diplomatic affairs in the manner of Western States.

In the meantime, Russia was gradually pushing farther into Sakhalin and antagonizing Japan by asserting control over the entire island. After the Meiji Restoration of 1868 overthrew the Japanese shogunate, Harry Parkes, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the UK, displayed an interest in Russian activity in this region and advised Japan to abandon Sakhalin.

Sakhalin was shared by Japan and Russia, but there were clashes between the two countries’ officials and negotiations had come to a standstill. Japanese Foreign Minister Soejima Taneomi suggested purchasing Sakhalin from Russia, participated in the Seikanron debate over whether to immediately send a punitive expedition to Korea, and also suggested ceding Sakhalin to Russia providing that Russia agreed to a Japanese conquest of Korea. However, Japanese figures such as Kuroda Kiyotaka, then vice director-general of the Hokkaidō Development Commission, argued in favor of abandoning Sakhalin to instead focus on administering Hokkaidō and strengthening defenses against the Russians out of concern for Japan’s foreign relations and national strength at the time.

Eventually, Soejima met with the Qing dynasty in March 1873 to negotiate issues concerning the Ryūkyū Islands. He resigned that October due to the political upheaval that had resulted from the Seikanron debate. After the pro-invasion faction stepped down from their posts, those in favor of focusing on domestic affairs gained control of the Japanese government. The policies supported by figures like Kuroda gained widespread support. Vice Admiral Enomoto Takeaki became Minister to Russia in 1874, where he commenced negotiations that resulted in the conclusion of the Treaty for the Exchange of Sakhalin for the Kurile Islands on May 7, 1875. Under the terms of the treaty, Japan recognized that the entirety of Sakhalin was Russian territory, while Russia ceded to Japan the Kurile Islands, thus giving Japan dominion over the 18 islands stretching from Shumshu Island to Uruppu Island. Thus, in a peaceful manner, the Kurile Islands became Japanese territory and a border between Japan and Russia was finally delimited.²

The Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands and Okinawa

Next as we look to the south, no discussion of the Pacific Ocean during the nineteenth century can omit the role of the Chinese market. The US, the first country to pry open Japan’s doors to the outside world, had conducted its trade with the Far East primarily along a route running from the Atlantic Ocean around the Cape of Good Hope and onward to the Indian Ocean. After the Mexican-American War and the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on March 10, 1848, the US received land concessions that include present-day California and Texas. It enacted a plan to open sea routes accessing the Pacific Ocean when gold was discovered in California. Like many European countries, America’s capitalist mindset was one reason for seeking to open Japan’s markets. Furthermore, from the 1840s to the 1850s, whaling was a thriving industry and there was a concentration of whales in the North Pacific. Some whaling vessels ended up shipwrecked on the Japanese coast, thus providing further impetus to open up Japan.

It was in this setting that Commodore Perry, in command of the East India Squadron, turned his eyes on his first voyage toward the Port of Naha as well as Port Lloyd (Port of Futami) on Chichijima Island, the chief port of the Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands. Perry had been raised in Rhode Island, the heart of the American whaling industry, and he came from a military family, with both a father and elder brother who had served in the Navy. On May 26, 1853, he arrived in Naha from Shanghai, and after paying a visit to Ryūkyū King Shō Tai at Shuri Castle he entered the Port of Futami on June 14. British and Russian warships had also visited the Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands prior to Perry’s arrival, and already there were foreigners living there as immigrants. The shogunate had dispatched magistrates of foreign affairs to the islands in 1861, but the door to immigrants was mostly closed until the Meiji Restoration.

Even after the beginning of the Meiji period, the Japanese government was unable to work out a clear position on immigration, the Seikanron debate being a contributing factor. However, it did spell out a development and settlement policy in 1874, and in 1876 the government placed the Ogasawara Islands under the control of the Home Ministry and sent notifications to ministers resident of other nations. No other country lodged an objection to this incorporation.

Perry had also eyed the Ryūkyū Kingdom, but it had long-standing ties with the Qing dynasty and the archipelago was in a special position in the nineteenth century. That is to say, Shimazu Iehisa, the lord of the Satsuma Domain (also known then as the Kagoshima Domain), had received permission from Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, who had unified Japan under one ruler, to send troops to the main island of Okinawa in 1609 to apprehend King Shō Nei of the Ryūkyū Kingdom and subject his land to Japanese rule. However, Shō Nei’s clan continued to maintain control over the Ryūkyū Kingdom as its kings. Their reign was regulated by the Fifteen Laws stipulated by the Shimazu clan, and for over 200 years the Satsuma Domain collected tax from the Ryūkyū Kingdom and enforced the laws of the domain. The Ryūkyū Kingdom had maintained ties with the Qing, sending tribute and engaging in a tributary relationship. However, there was no objection from the Qing over the Shimazu clan’s rule, and Qing law was not enforced on the Ryūkyū Islands. In other words, the Qing dynasty did not have material control over Ryūkyū, and the islands were in practical terms a vassal State of the Satsuma Domain. However, the Satsuma Domain did permit the Ryūkyū Kingdom considerable political and religious freedom, and the kingdom maintained contact with the Qing as well as Western powers in the late Edo period.

It was in this situation that in 1854 the Ryūkyū Kingdom signed the Ryūkyū-US Treaty of Amity with Commodore Perry, along with largely similar treaties with France in 1855 and the Netherlands in 1859. Thus, despite being within the shogunate’s system of domains, the Ryūkyū Kingdom was granted a degree of autonomy. After the Meiji Restoration, however, this was a source of controversy concerning the Ryūkyū Disposition.³ In any case, Japanese control over the Ryūkyū Islands caused no problems for Japan’s relations with the Qing dynasty or any other powers from 1880 onward.⁴

The Senkaku Islands and Takeshima

The existence of the Senkaku Islands was known since ancient times to the people of the Ryūkyū and the Chinese, as they lay along a trade route between those two kingdoms. After the Meiji Restoration, the Japanese government, while giving consideration to the overall relationship with the Qing dynasty, from 1885 on conducted thorough surveys of the Senkaku Islands through the authorities of Okinawa Prefecture and by way of other methods. It was carefully confirmed through these surveys that the Senkaku Islands had been uninhabited and showed no trace of having been under Qing control. Based on this confirmation, the Japanese government took the step of formally incorporating the Senkaku Islands into the territory of Japan in January 1895. The Treaty of Shimonoseki, the peace treaty that ended the First Sino-Japanese War, was concluded in April of that year, by which Taiwan was ceded to Japan. However, the Senkaku Islands were not among the islands ceded to Japan as a part of the territory of Taiwan.⁵

Takeshima, the uninhabited islands that lie along the line running from the Oki Islands of Shimane Prefecture to Ulleungdo of Korea, are historically associated with the Japanese economic activities on Ulleungdo. The Kingdom of Joseon in Korea adopted an “empty-island” policy with Ulleungdo from the fifteenth century to the end of the nineteenth century. During this time, Japanese people did administer Ulleungdo for around 80 years from the beginning of the seventeenth century after receiving a license from the shogunate. Disagreements arose with the Joseon, however, and in 1696 the shogunate forbade Japanese from traveling to the island. After the shogunate renounced Ulleungdo (called Takeshima at the time), it no longer prohibited travel to present-day Takeshima (called Matsushima at the time), regardless of a policy of national seclusion that had been adopted by then. After the Meiji Restoration, the Japanese government decided to place Takeshima under the jurisdiction of Shimane Prefecture in 1905, and it gave public notice thereof. Even so, no protests were lodged.⁶

Territorial Expansion During the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War, and World War I

The Cession of Taiwan and the Liaodong Peninsula

Japan and the Qing dynasty settled the matter of Taiwan in October 1874: at the end of that year Japan withdrew its troops from the so-called Taiwan Expedition. The Treaty for the Exchange of Sakhalin for the Kurile Islands was signed in May of the following year. These events marked the clear delimitation of Japan’s peripheral territory and the beginning of Japanese expansion into the continent. Japan, seeking to open up the Korean Peninsula, dispatched a warship in September 1875 to support its negotiations with the Joseon. This sparked the Ganghwa Island Incident,⁷ which was followed by the February 1876 signing of the Japan-Korea Treaty of Amity. Japan thus won the race with the Western powers to open up the Korean Peninsula. It was through this treaty that Japanese political and economic influence rapidly penetrated into the area.

However, the Joseon Kingdom was a tributary of the Qing dynasty and also part of its market, so the Korean Peninsula became a flashpoint for conflict and disputes between Japan and the Qing. The Japanese and Qing militaries became involved in the political struggle within the Joseon Kingdom between the pro-Japanese Independence Party and the pro-Qing Conservative Party. This eventually resulted in the signing of the Convention of Tianjin between Japan and the Qing in April 1885, which stipulated that both sides remove their troops from the area. Yet in 1894, the internal political turmoil within the Joseon Kingdom led to the Donghak Rebellion that spread throughout the Korean Peninsula.⁸ The Joseon government requested the dispatch of Qing troops. Japan also sent in forces, and the confrontation between the two finally resulted in exchanges of fire between their armies in July. Then, on August 1, Japan declared war on the Qing.

Japan’s victory that resulted in the 1895 peace treaty to end the First Sino-Japanese War not only turned the Korean Peninsula into a neutral zone, but also forced the Qing dynasty to pay a huge sum in reparations and cede Taiwan, the Pescadores Islands, and the Liaodong Peninsula to Japan. The cession of the Liaodong Peninsula, however, was not overlooked by Russia, which adopted an increasingly aggressive stance in administering the Far East after deciding to construct the Trans-Siberian Railroad in 1891. Hence, Russia, Germany, and France intervened to have Japan sign a treaty in November 1895 to return the Liaodong Peninsula.

The great powers demanded numerous concessions from the Qing once the dynasty’s weakness was exposed. On the pretense of the Qing bestowing gratitude for the tripartite intervention, Russia and the Qing concluded the Sino-Russian Secret Treaty in May 1896, the treaty concerning the construction and management of the Chinese Eastern Railway in August, the so-called Cassini Treaty in September, as well as a treaty for the lease of Lüshun (Port Arthur) and Dalian Bay signed in March 1898, which yielded great benefits from Manchuria to Guandong (Kwantung). They also established so-called railway-affiliated land where Russia had police authority as well as the right to station troops. After the Russo-Japanese War, Japan acquired the “railway-affiliated land” along the South Manchuria Railway and the Anfeng Railway connecting Andong with Fengtian (Mukden) (present day Dandong to Shenyang). Germany used the killing of missionaries in Shandong as an excuse to occupy Jiaozhou Bay in 1897, then concluded a treaty in March the next year to lease the area. In June 1897, France obtained rights to the Yunnan extension of the Annan Railway as well as mining rights in Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guangdong. France then signed a treaty with the Qing the following November to lease Guangzhou Bay. Matching France’s accomplishments, the UK signed an agreement to lease the Kowloon Peninsula in June 1898, and then, in rivalry with Russia, concluded another lease agreement for the town of Weihai in July.⁹ The great powers also forced the Qing to make “non-concession declarations” so that they could monopolize the interests and lands they had acquired.

With the exchange of notes in April 1898, Japan forced the Qing dynasty to permit non-concession in Fujian, while the UK received non-concessions on the coast at the mouth of the Yangtze River and other locations, and France received them on Hainan Island and in Guangdong, Guangxi, and Yunnan. Taking advantage of this momentum, foreign powers gradually expanded and added to the number of settlements they administered, such as the Shanghai International Settlement. Japan established its first exclusive settlement in the Hangzhou concession in September 1896. Its largest was the Tianjin concession, established via a memorandum between Japan and the Qing in August 1898. Other Japanese settlements were in Suzhou, Hankou, Shashi, Fuzhou, Xiamen, and Chongqing.

The Cession of Sakhalin and the Annexation of the Korean Peninsula

Japan’s victory in the First Sino-Japanese War, and its incursions into the Korean Peninsula and Manchuria, posed a threat to Russian plans for expanding into its Far East. The hostility between Japan and Russia intensified on the Korean Peninsula where the Qing dynasty had withdrawn. In March 1898, Nishi Tokujirō, foreign minister in the third Itō Hirobumi Cabinet, notified Russian Foreign Minister Baron Roman Romanovich Rosen that if Russia would leave Korea to Japan, then Japan would consider Manchuria outside the scope of its interests. Rosen’s reply was that Russia would not accept the complete exclusion of its influence from Korea. The dispute ended in April with the conclusion of the Nishi-Rosen Agreement, which stipulated that Russia would allow Japanese dominance in terms of the size of commerce and industry, and the number of settlements, while Japan would give tacit approval to Russian occupation of Lüshun and Dalian.

In March 1899, however, the anti-foreigner Boxers (a faction of the ancient White Lotus religion) staged a rebellion in Shandong, China in response to Germany’s leasing of Jiaozhou Bay and their movement spread across northern China. In May 1900, the legations of 11 powers in Beijing demanded that the Qing dynasty immediately quell the Boxers’ revolt. Instead, in June the Qing emperor joined sides with the Boxers who had surrounded the national legations in Beijing. He then declared war on all foreign powers that had troops in Beijing. With the support of the UK and the US, Japan dispatched a large force that was joined in an alliance with other nations’ troops, and this army marched into Beijing in August. The Boxer Rebellion (also known as the Boxer Uprising or the Yihequan Movement) came to an end in September 1901 with the signing of the Boxer Protocol. This document forced the complete surrender of the Qing and granted the foreign powers the right to station police and military forces in the Legation Quarter. The majority of troops supplied in the joint deployment were from the Japanese and Russian armies. Russian forces were diverted to strengthen their grip on Manchuria. Russia’s indifference to objections from Japan, the UK, and the US led to greater hostility between Japan and Russia.

In January 1901, Russia proposed turning Korea into a neutral zone, to which Japan demanded that Russia first withdraw its troops from Manchuria. After concluding the Anglo-Japanese Alliance Treaty in 1902, Japan called for the recognition of the independence of the Qing dynasty and Korea and underscored the importance of preserving their territorial integrity. Japan further demanded that it be given dominant status in all areas, including politics, the economy, and military matters and be allowed to possess a foothold for entry into Manchuria. Russia only gave support to respecting the independence and territorial integrity of Korea and pushed for turning lands north of the 39th parallel into neutral territory and for Japan’s full exclusion from Manchuria. At the end of 1903, Japan formulated a policy towards the Qing dynasty and Korea to be taken if negotiations were to break down. Japan made its final proposal to Russia in January the following year. An Imperial Conference was convened on February 4, which concluded that “if we waste this opportunity, we fear that we, the Empire of Japan, will fall into a disadvantageous situation both diplomatically and militarily, from which we shall not recover.” The Japanese government decided to break off the talks with Russia and on February 10 issued a declaration of war against Russia. The Russians signed an agreement to surrender Lüshun to Japan on January 2, 1905. Japan emerged victorious in the Battle of Mukden on March 10, and on May 27 Japan secured a complete naval victory in the Sea of Japan. After the Battle of Mukden, however, Japan’s war-fighting capabilities had reached their limit. On June 1, Japan requested that US President Theodore Roosevelt amicably mediate a Russo-Japanese peace. With Roosevelt’s good offices, a conference was convened in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

The Portsmouth Peace Treaty, signed on September 5, 1905, forced Russia to recognize Japan’s special rights in Korea, stipulated that both countries would withdraw their forces from Manchuria, and guaranteed that Russia would respect Manchurian sovereignty. Furthermore, the lease on the Port of Lüshun and Dalian, as well as the railway running between Changchun and the Port of Lüshun along with its affiliated land, would be ceded to Japan. In addition, Russian territory on Sakhalin south of the 50th parallel was ceded to Japan. However, by taking over control of special interests in Manchuria from Russia, Japan continued its expansion into the Asian mainland while sowing discord over the issues of maintaining territorial integrity, the Open Door Policy, and equal opportunity as advocated by the US.

After the Russo-Japanese War, in October 1905, Japan finalized a policy of turning Korea into a protectorate. The Japan-Korea Treaty of 1905 (Japan–Korea Protectorate Treaty) was signed in November, thus establishing the Office of the Resident-General and making Korea a protectorate of Japan. Japan later annexed Korea on August 22, 1910, through the conclusion of the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty.

Leases, Settlements, and Special Interests in China, Acquisition of the South Pacific Mandate, and the Creation of Manchukuo

The Xinhai Revolution began on October 10, 1911, in Wuchang, China. The following January, Sun Yat-sen became provisional president and established the Provisional Government of the Republic of China (ROC) in Nanjing. Qing dynasty Emperor Puyi abdicated in February and Yuan Shikai was appointed provisional president in Beijing the next month, thus marking the end of Qing rule. The US recognized the ROC in May 1913, followed by 13 other powers including Japan, the UK, Russia, Germany, and France that October. On October 10, Yuan was officially inaugurated as president of China.

On August 1, 1914, just after the outbreak of World War I, Germany declared war on Russia. The UK wished for Japan to join the fight against the German-armed merchant fleet; Japan declared war on Germany on August 23. Japan occupied German-controlled territory in Jiaozhou Bay and on South Pacific islands. Since the great powers were too distracted to pay any attention to East Asia, Japan took advantage by issuing the Twenty-One Demands to the Yuan Shikai administration in January 1915, followed by an ultimatum. China was forced to accept the demands on May 9. Japan had insisted on special interests in Shandong Province as well as various interests in Manchuria and Mongolia. Also among the demands were that the Chinese government should engage Japanese as political, financial, and military advisers. Thus, on May 25, the two sides concluded a Sino-Japanese treaty and exchanged notes concerning Shandong Province, notes concerning Fujian Province, and notes concerning leased land in Jiaozhou Bay; they also signed a Sino-Japanese treaty concerning South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia and exchanged notes on the Han-Ye-Ping Company (a company formed to manage Hanyang’s iron manufacturing, Daye’s gold mining and Pingxiang’s coal mining). In addition to sparking anti-Japanese demonstrations in China, these moves to expand Japan’s influence there met with strong opposition from the US. The signing of the Lansing-Ishii Agreement in November 1917 was an American attempt to prevent the expansion of Japan’s special interests. That same month, the Soviet government was established in Russia following the October Revolution.

World War I came to an end when the Allied Powers signed an armistice with Germany on November 11, 1918. A peace conference was held in Paris in January 1919. At a meeting of five powers on January 27, Japanese plenipotentiary Makino Nobuaki demanded the unconditional cession of Jiaozhou Bay and all German territory on Pacific islands north of the equator. On May 4 in Paris he proclaimed that Shandong would be retroceded to Japan; the peace conference participants decided on May 7 to make Pacific islands north of the equator a Japanese mandate. The Treaty of Peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany (Treaty of Versailles) was signed on June 28. China did not sign the treaty in light of the dissatisfaction over the treatment of Shandong as well as the rise of the May Fourth Movement back home, which called for China’s refusal to sign the peace treaty (as it did not nullify the Twenty-One Demands), the nullification of said demands, and a boycott of Japanese goods.

In July 1921, the US unofficially proposed holding a conference in Washington, DC to Japan, the UK, France, and Italy to discuss arms limitations and issues concerning the Far East. This American initiative resulted in the convening of the Washington Naval Conference that November. In December Japan, the US, the UK, and France signed a document entitled the “Four-Power Treaty on Insular Possessions and Dominions in the Pacific.” The signatories pledged to respect rights pertaining to these islands and to cooperate in order to resolve any disputes among them. It was also stipulated that with the entry into force of the treaty, the third Anglo-Japanese Alliance, which was signed on July 13, 1911, would be terminated. In February 1922, these four countries at the Washington Naval Conference were joined by Belgium, China, Italy, the Netherlands, and Portugal in signing the Nine-Power Treaty concerning China, which stipulated respect for China’s sovereignty, maintaining its territorial integrity, support for the Open Door Policy, and equal opportunity. This treaty essentially limited the scope of the Twenty-One Demands. The return of the lease on Jiaozhou Bay was also promised at this conference. This Washington system was assembled through Japan’s cooperative diplomacy with the US. Under this regime, however, conflicts over Japan’s special status in East Asia with the UK and the US (the latter in particular) gradually rose to the surface. Disagreement over the issue of Manchuria became especially heated.

On the night of September 18, 1931, the Japanese army staged a bombing on the South Manchuria Railway at Liutiaohu. This led to the commencement of military operations in an event that came to be known as the Mukden Incident. It also destroyed the framework of cooperation with the US under the Washington system. On September 19, the Japanese government received reports about clashes between Japanese and Chinese forces and decided to prevent the situation from escalating as it did not have a clear understanding of what had really happened. However, the staff of the Kwangtung Army, the Japanese force stationed in the area and led by officers that included Lieutenant Colonel Ishiwara Kanji and Colonel Itagaki Seishirō, decided to resolve the Manchuria-Inner Mongolian question on their own. US Secretary of State Henry Stimson, citing the Kellogg-Briand Pact on the renunciation of war and the Nine-Power Treaty, issued a warning to Japan on September 22 that it should take responsibility for the events in Manchuria. The Japanese Cabinet of the time was being led by Foreign Minister Shidehara Kijūrō. The Japanese government released its first announcement concerning the Mukden Incident on September 24. The Council of the League of Nations passed a resolution on October 24 calling for the withdrawal of Japanese troops from Manchuria. In response, the Japanese government issued a second announcement on the matter on October 26, citing the preconditions for the return of Japanese troops to within the South Manchuria Railway zone, or in other words the withdrawal of Japanese troops. Nevertheless, the Kwangtung Army continued to carry out military operations for up to 5 months, occupying major cities in the three provinces of Fengtian (Liaoning), Jilin, and Heilongjiang. On March 1, 1932, the Kwangtung Army declared that it was creating the State of Manchukuo. Eventually, the Japanese Ministry of War and the Army General Staff Office granted approval of the Kwangtung Army’s actions. After the May 15 Incident, the Japanese government recognized the State of Manchukuo, which its military had created, on September 15 and signed the Japan-Manchukuo Protocol. In the meantime, the US Secretary of State had announced the Stimson Doctrine, a policy that withheld recognition of the new situation in Manchuria, on January 7, 1932. The League of Nations formed the Lytton Commission, a group with British, American, French, German, and Italian members who conducted an on-the-ground investigation in Japan, China, and Manchuria in February. The resulting Lytton Report was communicated to Japan, China, and other League member States on October 1, after Japan had accorded recognition to the State of Manchukuo. Based on this report, the League of Nations deliberated on a draft recommendation, and on February 24 of the following year the Assembly voted 42 to 1 in favor of approving the document. Japan announced its withdrawal from the League of Nations on March 27, and, isolated, pursued its rule over Manchuria and expansion into the Asian mainland.¹⁰

The Second Sino-Japanese War began on July 7, 1937, when Japanese and Chinese forces clashed on the Marco Polo Bridge outside of Beijing. The Japanese army occupied the capital of Nanjing on December 13. The Chinese government that had formed the First United Front between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party relocated to Chongqing in November and called on US, British, and Soviet support in an all-out war of resistance. The front extended all across China. Japan occupied the island of Hainan in February 1939. Then, in July 1940, it adopted a policy of southward expansion, which would include the use of force, in order to acquire strategic resources for conducting war. Japan’s reach consequently extended to the Dutch East Indies and French Indochina. Japan signed the Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact in Moscow on April 13, 1941. Having reduced the risk of a two-front conflict, Japan started the Pacific War by declaring hostilities against the Chongqing government’s supporters, the US and the UK on December 8 (December 7 in the US).

It is useful at this juncture, before we review Japan’s territory prior to the outbreak of World War II, to refer to the Four-Power Treaty on Insular Possessions and Dominions in the Pacific concluded among Japan, the US, France, and Italy, as the central part of the Washington System, which accounted for 10 years of peace between World War I and World War II. A Protocol was added to the treaty in February 1922, the year after it was signed. It states: “The term ‘insular possessions and insular dominions’ used in the aforesaid Treaty shall, in its application to Japan, include only Karafuto (or the Southern portion of the island of Sakhalin), Formosa and the Pescadores, and the islands under the mandate of Japan.”

Other than the territories prescribed by the Four-Power Treaty, Japan also held the Korean Peninsula, and its colonial interests in China included leased land and settlements, and the Beijing Legation Quarter, as well as railway-affiliated land. In fact, Japan signed a pact on January 9, 1943, with the Chinese government in Japanese-occupied Nanjing led by Wang Jingwei concerning the retrocession of settlements and the abolition of extraterritoriality. All settlements and the Legation Quarter had reverted to China by August 1. However, the government in Chongqing led by Chiang Kai-shek refused to recognize the treaty and considered it inherently null and void. Meanwhile, the Spratly Islands, where mining operations were underway to retrieve phosphoric ore that the Japanese had discovered in 1915, were incorporated into the jurisdiction of the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung in 1939. Although the Japanese had been mining phosphoric ore in the Paracels since 1920, Japan had never asserted its sovereignty over the islands before World War II.

The End of World War II and Territorial Issues

Territories won and lost through war are finally decided by a peace treaty. As had been the case with the Treaty of Shimonoseki, the Portsmouth Peace Treaty, and the Treaty of Versailles, the Treaty of Peace with Japan, which was signed in San Francisco in September 1951, determined the extent of Japan’s territory after World War II. In the case of World War II, however, the armistice and surrender documents prior to the official peace contained clauses concerning territory and broadly outlined the political conditions for peace and reparation principles. Furthermore, the occupation of Japan lasted a lengthy period of 6 years from the end of war to the official peace. Of course, there are many instances in history when a preliminary peace was arranged, during which conditions for the official peace to come were worked out, but the timeframes ranged from a few months to at most a year, and thus 6 years was unusually long. Therefore, there is value in conducting a detailed analysis of the peace that was arranged after World War II.

Three important documents touched on the matter of Japan’s territory prior to the end of the war: the Cairo Declaration of November 27, 1943, the secret Yalta Agreement of February 11, 1945, and the Potsdam Declaration of July 26, 1945. The Cairo Declaration was incorporated into the Potsdam Declaration, and the surrender document Japan signed on September 2, 1945, contained a pledge to carry out the provisions of the Potsdam Declaration in good faith. In contrast, the Yalta Agreement remained only as an agreement of the leaders of the US, the UK, and the Soviet Union, which was made public on February 11, 1946, after Japan’s surrender. The Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Declaration are decisively different in legal nature from the Yalta Agreement in terms of whether or not Japan accepted them prior to the peace treaty.

There are two other documents that stated the general goals of the Allies in the war. These were the Atlantic Charter of August 14, 1941, and the Declaration by United Nations of January 1, 1942. In both documents, the Allies advocated the principles of no territorial aggrandizement and the self-determination of peoples. This is what most definitively distinguishes World War II from the imperialistic wars fought previously.

The Allies involved used these declarations and agreements to unilaterally incorporate Japanese territory as their own and to take other measures prior to the conclusion of a peace treaty. Not only are these measures of questionable legitimacy in terms of the end to territorial aggrandizement and the self-determination the Allies had themselves advocated, but they also created a problem concerning the peace treaty’s final legal validity. The following is an examination of these actions taken by the Allies, the relationship between those actions and principles, and the problems they created.

Acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration

The US, China, and the UK issued the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945. The Declaration begins with the following statement: “We—the President of the United States, the President of the National Government of the Republic of China, and the Prime Minister of Great Britain, representing the hundreds of millions of our countrymen, have conferred and agree that Japan shall be given an opportunity to end this war.” On July 28, however, then Prime Minister of Japan Suzuki Kantarō ignored the Potsdam Declaration and announced that the war would go on. The first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6. The Soviet Union joined the war on August 9: the Red Army commenced an invasion of Manchuria, northern Korea, and Sakhalin. That same day, the second atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki. Japan finally accepted the terms of the Potsdam Declaration on August 14. On August 16, Emperor Hirohito ordered all Japanese forces to cease fighting immediately. Thereafter, the Soviet Union began landing forces on Shumshu Island on August 18; they had completed their occupation of Shikotan Island, Kunashiri Island, and the Habomai Islands by September 3. In Manchuria, Soviet forces took Fengtian, Changchun, Harbin, and Jilin on August 20, and Lüshun and Dalian on August 22. In Korea they seized Pyongyang on August 24. On September 2, Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Mamoru and Chief of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Umezu Yoshijirō signed the surrender documents aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Also that day, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), General Douglas MacArthur, issued his first general order to the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy.

The Potsdam Declaration was written by the US, the UK, and China, then later agreed to by the Soviet Union. It contains 13 paragraphs. Number 8, which concerns territory, reads as follows: “The terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out and Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine.”

To briefly sum up how World War II started, a great war was declared in Europe on September 3, 1939. The next day, the Japanese government declared that it would not be involved in the hostilities in Europe and that it would move forward in settling the Second Sino-Japanese War. Japan, Germany, and Italy signed the Tripartite Pact in September 1940. In a speech on December 29, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, elected to an unprecedented third term in office in November, denounced the Tripartite Pact and declared that the US would supply arms to democratic nations. The US enacted the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941 to support the countries fighting against Germany. The Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact was signed on April 22. Hostilities broke out between Germany and the Soviet Union on June 22 when German forces launched an invasion of the USSR. It was at this juncture that Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met in Newfoundland, where they announced the Atlantic Charter, a document that advocated the building of a new world to ensure the freedom, equality, and peace of people. The Atlantic Charter confirmed eight points of common national policy principles, which begin as follows: “First, their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other; Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned...”

Meanwhile, Japan declared war on the US and the UK on December 8, 1941. On January 1, 1942, the US, the UK, the Soviet Union, China, and others declared the formation of an alliance whose goals would be those espoused in the Atlantic Charter. Each of the Allies vowed that they would not independently seek a ceasefire or peace settlement with the Axis powers. As they fought the war, the main Allies, including the US, the UK, China, and the Soviet Union, met to discuss the conditions for peace with Japan. Deliberations with the Soviet Union had a particular focus on the conditions under which it would join the fight against Japan, but these discussions did not go into considerable detail until 1943. The British foreign minister met with President Roosevelt in Washington, D.C. in March of that year. Roosevelt then met with Churchill in Quebec in August. In October, the foreign ministers of the US, the UK, and the Soviet Union held a meeting in Moscow. It was here that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and the Soviet foreign minister informed US Secretary of State Cordell Hull that the USSR would go to war against Japan. Roosevelt, Churchill, and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, accompanied by their military and diplomatic advisors, met in Cairo from November 22 to 25 to discuss the war against Japan. The results of their deliberations were announced on the final day of this conference. They are presented in the Cairo Declaration. It reads as follows:

The Three Great Allies are fighting this war to restrain and punish the aggression of Japan. They covet no gain for themselves and have no thought of territorial expansion. It is their purpose that Japan shall be stripped of all the islands in the Pacific which she has seized or occupied since the beginning of the first World War in 1914, and that all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and The Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China. Japan will also be expelled from all other territories which she has taken by violence and greed. The aforesaid three great powers, mindful of the enslavement of the people of Korea, are determined that in due course Korea shall become free and independent.

With these objects in view the three Allies, in harmony with those of the United Nations at war with Japan, will continue to persevere in the serious and prolonged operations necessary to procure the unconditional surrender of Japan.

The Cairo Declaration laid down two principles concerning issues related to Japan’s territory. The first is opposition to territorial aggrandizement, a principle also shared with the Atlantic Charter and the Declaration by United Nations. The second principle established is that those territories of Japan that were “seized,” “stolen,” and “taken” (terms that are not necessarily accurate from a legal perspective) shall be stripped from Japan. These territories were those which were absorbed in Japan’s expansion in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War, and in World War I.

The day after the Cairo Conference concluded, Roosevelt and Churchill held meetings with the Soviet leader in Tehran until December 1. Stalin again stated that the USSR would go to war against Japan, and he made the return of territories and special rights taken by Japan in the Russo-Japanese War an issue. However, the Soviet Union’s reward for fighting Japan was not definitively finalized until the Yalta Conference in February 1945. A pact concerning Japan was made in secret at these Yalta meetings. Fearful that details of the agreement may leak out, the US, UK, and USSR did not invite Chinese officials to these deliberations, even though the topic at hand concerned their country. China was not promptly informed of the pact. The Yalta Agreement on Soviet involvement in the war against Japan states the following:

The leaders of the three Great Powers—the Soviet Union, the United States of America and Great Britain—have agreed that in two or three months after Germany has surrendered and the war in Europe has terminated the Soviet Union shall enter into the war against Japan on the side of the Allies on condition that:

• 1. The status quo in Outer-Mongolia (The Mongolian People’s Republic) shall be preserved;

• 2. The former rights of Russia violated by the treacherous attack of Japan in 1904 shall be restored, viz:

  • (a) the southern part of Sakhalin as well as all islands adjacent to it shall be returned to the Soviet Union,

  • (b) the commercial port of Dalian shall be internationalized, the preeminent interests of the Soviet Union in this port being safeguarded and the lease of Port Arthur [Lüshun] as a naval base of the USSR restored,

  • (c) the Chinese-Eastern Railroad and the South-Manchurian Railroad which provides an outlet to Dalian shall be jointly operated by the establishment of a joint Soviet-Chinese Company it being understood that the preeminent interests of the Soviet Union shall be safeguarded and that China shall retain full sovereignty in Manchuria;

• 3. The Kuril islands shall be handed over to the Soviet Union.

It is understood, that the agreement concerning Outer-Mongolia and the ports and railroads referred to above will require concurrence of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek. The President will take measures in order to obtain this concurrence on advice from Marshal Stalin.

The Heads of the three Great Powers have agreed that these claims of the Soviet Union shall be unquestionably fulfilled after Japan has been defeated.

For its part the Soviet Union expresses its readiness to conclude with the National Government of China a pact of friendship and alliance between the USSR and China in order to render assistance to China with its armed forces for the purpose of liberating China from the Japanese yoke.

This secret pact contained rewards inserted by Roosevelt and demanded by Stalin in exchange for joining the fight against Japan. The USSR was promised to receive (1) the Japanese territories of southern Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands, and (2) Japan’s interests in Manchuria.

President Harry S. Truman, who assumed office following the sudden death of Roosevelt, abided by the Yalta Agreement. As Japan’s interests in Manchuria were a matter involving China, Truman informed then Minister of Foreign Affairs Soong Tzu-wen of the ROC of the agreement in Washington, D.C. on June 14, 1945, and Soong commenced negotiations with Stalin and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov in Moscow on June 30. During this time Stalin temporarily halted the negotiations to attend the conference in Potsdam on July 14. The Potsdam Declaration was issued on July 26 and negotiations between China and the Soviet Union resumed on August 5. On August 8, the USSR declared war on Japan. The Soviets invaded Manchuria on the following day and commenced military operations inside Chinese territory.

The negotiations finally wrapped up on August 14. The two sides signed the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance (the instrument of ratification was not exchanged until later in Chongqing, on December 3). This was also the date on which Japan accepted the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. Under the terms of the Japan-Soviet Treaty, the Soviet Union gained the advantageous position and interests in the Three Northeastern Provinces—roughly equivalent to Manchuria—that Russia had enjoyed during its Imperial era. This unfair treaty for China was the price for Soviet aid in the fight against Japan. When the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was founded in 1949, it formed a new agreement, the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance, which was concluded on February 14, 1950, to replace the treaties and agreements of the Republican era. Nevertheless, Japan’s leases and its interests in Manchuria were recognized by international treaties such as the Portsmouth Peace Treaty in 1905, the treaties between Japan and the Qing dynasty, and the January 20, 1925, treaty on basic rules governing relations between Japan and the Soviet Union that reaffirmed the continuing complete validity of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty that Japan had signed with Russia. Thus, the parties involved were required to take legal steps to make any changes to these treaties (hence the signing of the Treaty of Peace with Japan and the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty).

Japan was completely unaware of the secret Yalta Agreement on southern Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands. Thus, Japan was not bound by the agreement itself. With regard to southern Sakhalin, the Cairo Declaration, which is incorporated into the Potsdam Declaration, stated that “Japan will also be expelled from all other territories which she has taken by violence and greed.” Southern Sakhalin became Japanese territory in the peace treaty that ended the Russo-Japanese War. Therefore, this sentence from the Cairo Declaration can be interpreted as also referring to southern Sakhalin. However, since the Kurile Islands changed hands peacefully, this sentence from the Cairo Declaration does not apply. Instead, the islands’ transfer to the Soviet Union is only in agreement with the clause in the Yalta Agreement which states: “The Heads of the three Great Powers have agreed that these claims of the Soviet Union shall be unquestionably fulfilled after Japan has been defeated.” Even so, the transfer of this territory should have been postponed until a peace treaty had been signed. In any case, Japan was kept uninformed of the Yalta Agreement when it agreed to the terms of the Potsdam Declaration.

Drafting the Treaty of Peace with Japan

At the February 1947 Paris Peace Conference, the Allies signed peace treaties with Italy and other Axis States Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, as well as with Finland. The peace with Japan and Germany was finally put on the agenda. On March 17, SCAP Douglas MacArthur put forth a proposal in Tokyo for a prompt peace with Japan that would mark a shift from implementing a harsh peace to a magnanimous peace.

Earlier, on March 12, Truman had declared to the world the start of the “Cold War” between the US and the Soviet Union. On June 5, the US worked out the final details of the Marshall Plan, a massive aid program for Europe. In the meantime, China’s civil war had intensified.

Even with these fast-paced developments occurring, the US government suggested on July 11 to national representatives on the Far Eastern Commission (FEC) in Washington, DC that preliminary meetings on the peace with Japan be held in August. However, the proposal to hold a meeting of the 11 FEC member States was at odds with the proposal for a four-way meeting of the foreign ministers of the US, the UK, the Soviet Union, and China, where the Soviets would hold veto power. Furthermore, although members of the British Commonwealth agreed on swiftly implementing a peace with Japan, the timing conflicted with the British Commonwealth Conference in Canberra in August, so the FEC meeting was, in fact, postponed. During this year and the next, the debate over peace with Japan grew international in scope as the focus turned toward the American proposal. However, the global situation was rapidly changing, as the Cold War became ever more serious. The Berlin Blockade was launched in September 1948. In August, the Republic of Korea (ROK) was founded south of the 38th parallel on the Korean Peninsula and recognized by the US; in September, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was established north of the line and recognized by the Soviet Union. The US then signed an aid agreement with the ROK in December. The North Atlantic Treaty forming NATO was signed in April 1949. The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) was created as a provisional government in May. The PRC was founded in Beijing on October 1 and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) was established on October 7. Then, the ROC relocated its capital to Taipei, Taiwan in December. In 1950, Mao Zedong and Stalin met in February in Moscow, where they signed the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance. The structural framework of opposing sides known as the Cold War eventually led to actual fighting when North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel and pushed southward on June 25.

Little progress was made on settling the peace with Japan, but John Foster Dulles, who had been assigned as a consultant to the US State Department in April, was charged with working on the peace agreement in May. He then began exploring a multilateral (separate) peace agreement. The Americans prepared for the negotiations by drafting seven principles that outlined their thinking. These principles were based on a vast trove of past documents and draft treaties the State Department had collected over the years. The FEC member States commenced their negotiations in September.

Details of the American memorandum on the Seven Principles for Peace with Japan came out in bits and pieces in the press in October. The State Department released the document on November 24, with seven principles covering: Parties, United Nations, Territory, Security, Political and Commercial Arrangements, Claims, and Disputes. The document clearly sets forth a basic path toward a magnanimous peace that would generally rule out claims for reparations, place no limits on Japan’s militarization or on industrial productive capacity, and would not consider establishing administrative organs in Japan following the peace. It states the following regarding territory¹¹:

Japan would

• (a) recognize the independence of Korea;

• (b) agree to U.N. trusteeship, with the U.S. as administering authority, of the Ryukyu and Bonin Islands and

• (c) accept the future decision of the U.K., U.S.S.R., China and U.S. with reference to the status of Formosa, Pescadores, South Sakhalin and the Kuriles. In the event of no decision within a year after the Treaty came into effect, the U.N. General Assembly would decide. Special rights and interests in China would be renounced.

Preliminary negotiations between FEC members and the US on the seven principles wound down in late October. The Soviet Union was against the proposal for a peace based on the seven principles. It particularly voiced objections over the clause on territory. The Soviets argued that the ownership of Taiwan and the Kurile Islands had already been agreed between the Allies during the war, and they were also opposed to a trusteeship arrangement for the Ryūkyū Islands. Such a position had been anticipated, and the US expected the negotiations to proceed to another round. However, when the UN Forces seemed to be approaching the Chinese border on the Korean Peninsula in late November, Chinese volunteer troops crossed into Korea and by early 1951 had pushed the UN Forces back to a position south of the 38th parallel. This change in the military situation and escalating clashes between US and Chinese forces led to the reemergence of the view that a peace treaty was premature and the idea of allowing Chinese representatives from both Beijing and Taiwan to attend the talks was written off. Nevertheless, the US began to push even harder for a quick peace settlement with Japan.

In March 1951, after discussions with other interested parties, American officials delivered an American proposal for the Treaty of Peace with Japan to the FEC member States. The Japanese government received the same document on March 27. The 22-article draft’s Preamble and Chapter III, which dealt with territory, were written as follows:

• 3. Japan renounces all rights, titles and claims to Korea, Formosa and the Pescadores; and also all rights, titles and claims in connection with the mandate system or deriving from the activities of Japanese nationals in the Antarctic area. Japan accepts the action of the United Nations Security Council of April 2, 1947, in relation to extending the trusteeship system to Pacific Islands formerly under mandate to Japan.

• 4. The United States may propose to the United Nations to place under its trusteeship system, with the United States as the administering authority, the Ryukyu Islands south of 29° north latitude, the Bonin Islands, including Rosario Island, the Volcano Islands, Parece Vela and Marcus Island. Japan will concur in any such proposal. Pending the making of such a proposal and affirmative action thereon, the United States will have the right to exercise all and any powers of administration, legislation, and jurisdiction over the territory and inhabitants of these islands, including their territorial waters.

• 5. Japan will return to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics the southern part of Sakhalin as well as all the islands adjacent to it and will hand over to the Soviet Union the Kurile Islands.

Furthermore, Article 11 of this document stipulates that “Japan renounces all special rights and interests in China,” while Article 19, the final article of Chapter VIII, states that “Except for the provisions of Article 11, the present Treaty shall not confer any rights, title or benefits to or upon any State unless and until it signs and ratifies, or adheres to, this Treaty; nor, with that exception, shall any right, title and interest of Japan be deemed to be diminished or prejudiced by any provision hereof in favor of a State which does not sign and ratify, or adhere to, this Treaty.” Through these provisions, the US was clearly showing that although southern Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands had been promised to the Soviet Union in Yalta and that they had come under Soviet occupation, the confirmation of Soviet title under a peace treaty would hinge upon whether the Soviet Union participated in said peace treaty.

The British government then completed a draft treaty in April. With this document, it made clear that it recognized the PRC as the government of China. Assuming this government would be the signatory to the treaty, the document went beyond having Japan renounce sovereignty over Taiwan and the Pescadores Islands by also clearly stipulating that China was the owner of these territories. The British draft was stricter than the American one regarding territorial issues, as it stipulated that Japan’s residual sovereignty of the Ryūkyū Islands and the Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands shall not be recognized, that Japan shall renounce sovereignty over them, and that Japan shall also renounce all future claims to the Antarctic region. In order to move the peace negotiations forward, the Americans and British devoted their combined energies to writing a joint US-UK draft that would meet each other halfway. From late April to early May, working level meetings were held in Washington, D.C., where a provisional joint draft was written. That draft was the basis for negotiations in London in June, where the two sides largely reached a consensus. Thereafter, this draft was shown to the Japanese. After they had met to clear up issues, the final joint US-UK draft was released on July 12. Japan had received the US-UK draft treaty on July 7. On July 20, this joint draft was officially sent along with an invitation to peace talks.

When the two sides were negotiating the provisions on territory in London, the British compromised because the US flatly denied it had any intention of exerting sovereignty over the Ryūkyū Islands. With regard to Taiwan, the UK had recognized the PRC as the government of China and argued for returning the island to China, but the US disagreed because it had recognized the ROC and wanted only for Japan to renounce sovereignty over Taiwan. As for the Kurile Islands and southern Sakhalin, the provisional draft written in May stated that these islands would be transferred to the Soviet Union as desired by the UK (although the British understanding was that the Habomai Islands and Shikotan Island were not a part of the Kurile Islands). However, the US did not want to provide any direct benefits to the Soviet Union and was concerned about becoming involved in disputes between Japan and the Soviets, who were in de facto control, over the method of transfer, should the Soviets not join the Treaty. Therefore, the US proposed that Korea, Taiwan, southern Sakhalin, the Kurile Islands and other territories be grouped together under one article only stipulating that Japan renounce sovereignty over them. This proposal was eventually adopted in the final treaty. Thus, Article 2 of the US-UK draft for the Treaty of Peace with Japan was completed and the draft was released on July 12.

Until the Treaty of Peace with Japan went into effect on April 28, 1952, Japan was under Allied occupation, during which it was under indirect rule.

However, SCAP, in a January 1946 memorandum entitled “Governmental and Administrative Separation of Certain Outlying Areas from Japan,” defined Japan as follows:

• 3. For the purpose of this directive, Japan is defined to include the four main islands of Japan (Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu) and the approximately 1000 smaller adjacent islands, including the Tsushima Islands and the Ryukyu (Nansei) Islands north of 30° North Latitude (excluding Kuchinoshima Island); and excluding (a) Utsuryo (Ullung) Island, Liancourt Rocks (Take Island) and Quelpart (Saishu or Cheju) Island, (b) the Ryukyu (Nansei) Islands south of 30° North Latitude (including Kuchinoshima Island), the Izu, Nanpo, Bonin (Ogasawara) and Volcano (Kazan or Iwo) Island Groups, and all the other outlying Pacific Islands [including the Daito (Ohigashi or Oagari) Island Group, and Parece Vela (Okino-tori), Marcus (Minami-tori) and Ganges (Nakano-tori) Islands], and (c) the Kurile (Chishima) Islands, the Habomai (Hapomaze) Island Group (including Suisho, Yuri, Akiyuri, Shibotsu and Taraku Islands) and Shikotan Island.

• 4. Further areas specifically excluded from the governmental and administrative jurisdiction of the Imperial Japanese Government are the following: (a) all Pacific Islands seized or occupied under mandate or otherwise by Japan since the beginning of the World War in 1914, (b) Manchuria, Formosa and the Pescadores, (c) Korea, and (d) Karafuto.

Unless explicitly stated otherwise, all memorandums and orders issued by General Headquarters thereafter were considered to apply to the above definition of Japan. However, the sixth item of the memorandum stated, “Nothing in this directive shall be construed as an indication of Allied policy relating to the ultimate determination of the minor islands referred to in Article 8 of the Potsdam Declaration.”¹²

The Current State of Japan’s Territory

Renunciation of Japan’s Expanded Territory: Korea, Taiwan, the Kurile Islands, Sakhalin, and the South Pacific Mandate

In accordance with Article 2 of the Treaty of Peace with Japan, Japan renounced Korea, Taiwan, the Kurile Islands, Sakhalin, and the South Pacific Mandate. Apart from the Kurile Islands, these were all territories that Japan added during the Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War, and World War I.

Korea was placed under military administration, with the area to the south of the 38th parallel occupied by the US military and the area to the north occupied by the Soviet military. Ultimately, in 1948, the Government of the ROK was established in the south and the Government of the DPRK in the north. In accordance with the Treaty of Peace with Japan, Japan “recogniz[ed] the independence of Korea” and on the day of entry into force of the Treaty, Japan accorded implied recognition to the ROK.¹³ Following lengthy negotiations between Japan and the ROK, the two sides concluded the Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea in June 1965. Japan is still engaged in negotiations with the DPRK, but no diplomatic relations exist between the two sides as of now.

As for Taiwan, authority over the country was given to Chiang Kai-shek during the reallocation of Japan’s occupied territories that was stipulated in SCAP General Order No. 1 of September 2, perhaps in part because the US, which had seized control of the Philippines in February 1945 towards the end of World War II, passed through Taiwan and landed in Okinawa in April of the same year. On October 25 a retrocession ceremony was held and China accepted the “surrender of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy and supporting forces in Taiwan and Penghu,” “took administrative control over the territory and people of Taiwan and Penghu, and seized the military and other assets of Taiwan and Penghu,” and proclaimed that from that day “Taiwan and Penghu were again incorporated formally into the territory of the ROC and that the territory, people and administration were placed under the sovereignty of the Nationalist Government of the ROC.” The ROC thus completed the reintegration of Taiwan under its own control through measures under its domestic law, thereby making Taiwan a province of the ROC. Taiwan, which was known under Japanese rule as a shū (Japanese for state or province), was now known as a xian (Chinese for county), and the Spratly Islands, which were part of Taiwan, were made part of Guangdong Province. Under the Treaty of Peace with Japan, Japan simply “renounce[d] all right, title and claim to Formosa and the Pescadores” and “to the Spratly Islands,” without specifying to whom it was doing so. Subsequently, this renunciation was “recognized” in the Japan-ROC Peace Treaty of 1952. Japanese court precedent interpreted this to mean that Taiwan was transferred to the Republic of China.¹⁴ However, in the 1972 Japan-China Joint Communique with the Government of the PRC, which considered Taiwan to be an inalienable part of its own territory, Japan merely stated that “the Government of Japan fully understands and respects this stand of the Government of the People’s Republic of China, and it firmly maintains its stand under Article 8 of the Potsdam Proclamation.”

The Soviet Union, which entered the war against Japan on August 9, 1945, launched an attack on South Sakhalin on August 11, and controlled all of Sakhalin by August 25. Meanwhile, Japan accepted the Potsdam Declaration on August 14 and the Emperor of Japan ordered the immediate ceasefire of all troops. However, fighting was initiated by the Soviet landing on August 16 on Shumshu Island, the island closest to the Kamchatka Peninsula, and all Japanese forces on the island surrendered on August 23. Though the Soviet literature on the matter contains different interpretations and there is no unified view, it is believed that the Soviet forces then headed south as far as Uruppu Island, which was formerly a territory of Russia and which had been transferred to Japan under the Treaty for the Exchange of Sakhalin for the Kurile Islands, occupying all 18 islands by August 28. It is said that the Soviets initially believed that Etorofu Island and other islands to the south of it were under US control and the troops that were advancing southward retreated. However, learning that US forces were not occupying the islands, the Soviet forces occupied Etorofu Island, Kunashiri Island, Shikotan Island, and the Habomai Islands by September 3, using a detached force (Fig. 1.1).

Fig. 1.1

National Boundaries with Russia

According to the 1907 Hague Convention Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, under a military occupation the occupant bears a number of obligations, including respecting the laws in force in the occupied territory, respecting private rights, and protecting the property of the hostile State. However, on February 2, 1946, the Soviet Union nationalized the land and banks on South Sakhalin and the “Kurile Islands,” and subsequently, on February 3, it took measures to incorporate the occupied areas as part of the territory of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, one of its member States. The Council of People’s Commissars affirmed the measures and ordered that the effects thereof be applied retroactively from September 20, 1945. In February 1947, the Soviet Constitution was revised to include provisions stipulating this change in territory, and in March of the following year, the Russian Constitution was also similarly revised. According to the 1951 Treaty of Peace with Japan, “Japan renounce[d] all right, title and claim to the Kurile Islands, and to that portion of Sakhalin and the islands adjacent to it over which Japan acquired sovereignty as a consequence of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty of September 5, 1905.” However, as the Soviet Union was not a party to the treaty, no rights, titles, or benefits were conferred to it, in accordance with Article 25 of said treaty (special provisions under Article 21 apply to China and Korea, which, like Russia, were not parties to the treaty).

Meanwhile, the Pacific Islands that were formerly under mandate to Japan came under the occupation of the US and on April 2, 1947, they became a UN trust territory. The end of the Japanese mandate was not necessarily legally defined, but in any case, Japan “accept[ed] the action of the United Nations Security Council,” in accordance with the Treaty of Peace with Japan.

Renunciation of the Kurile Islands and the Issue of the Northern Territories

Citing the agreements of the Yalta Conference, the Soviet Union occupied the Kurile Islands, as described above. At the same time, however, following various developments, Japan eventually accepted its renunciation of Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands under the Treaty of Peace with Japan. At the San Francisco Peace Conference, the Soviet Union had opposed the joint proposal by the UK and the US that only a renunciation be stipulated in the treaty, and had proposed a revision, which was not accepted, whereby Japan would recognize the complete sovereignty of the Soviet Union over these territories and renounce all right, title, and claim to them. As such, the question of to whom Japan would renounce these territories was not decided. However, it is well known that the Soviet Union has in fact controlled these territories until the present day.

In light of the fact that the Soviet Union did not ratify the Treaty of Peace with Japan, in accordance with its Article 20 Japan and the Soviet Union needed to conclude a bilateral peace treaty. So, in June 1955, for the first time, the two countries commenced negotiations to conclude a peace treaty. However, it seemed unlikely that they would be able to come to an agreement on matters other than the Habomai Islands and Shikotan Island in these talks. Therefore, on September 29 of the following year, as stated in the Matsumoto-Gromyko letters, Japan and the Soviet Union agreed to resume negotiations on the conclusion of a bilateral peace treaty that included the territorial issues following the resumption of normalized diplomatic relations, and in accordance with the 1956 Japan-Soviet Joint Declaration, the state of war between the two sides was brought to an end and diplomatic relations were resumed.

The disagreement between Japan and the Soviet Union centered on the geographical scope of “the Kurile Islands” that Japan had renounced. At the San Francisco Peace Conference, the Japanese plenipotentiary Yoshida Shigeru had already stated that, “At the time of the opening of Japan, her ownership of two islands of [Etorofu] and Kunashiri of the South Kuriles was not questioned at all by the Czarist government. But the North Kuriles north of [Uruppu] and the southern half of Sakhalin were areas open to both Japanese and Russian settlers.”¹⁵ Furthermore, Yoshida drew the attention of the countries in attendance in referring to “the islands of Habomai and Shikotan, constituting part of Hokkaido, one of Japan’s four main islands.” Although the Treaty of Peace with Japan itself did not define the geographical scope of the Kurile Islands, Japan’s interpretation was that “the Kurile Islands” referenced in the treaty did not include the Habomai Islands and Shikotan Island, nor did it include Etorofu Island and Kunashiri Island. However, it can be pointed out that a certain degree of uncertainty was evident during the interpellation sessions of the Diet around the time of the entry into force of the Treaty of Peace with Japan. In October 1951, Nishimura Kumao, director-general of the Treaties Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in reference to the difference between the South and North Kuriles, stated that, “I consider the North Kuriles and the two islands of the South Kuriles to be part of the scope of the Kurile Islands as stated in the treaty.”¹⁶ In May of the following year, Minister for Foreign Affairs Okazaki Katsuo stated in response to a question that, “According to the peace treaty, Japan has renounced the Kurile Islands and Sakhalin. It follows therefore, that since Japan has renounced them, we should not think about trying to recover them. That being said, the ideal outcome would be for the Allied countries to reconsider and revise the treaty. Furthermore, the islands to the south of the Kuriles, such as Habomai and Shikotan, are obviously not part of the Kuriles. Therefore, regardless of Japan’s renunciation of rights in Article 2 of the treaty, we of course intend to maintain to the very end the assertion that these are Japan’s territories... I believe there are differing views on the definition of the Kuriles. We intend to clearly resolve these points as soon as possible in the future.”¹⁷ Subsequently, in December 1955, Nakagawa Tōru, director-general of the Treaties Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated in response to a question that, “We consider the South Kuriles to not be part of the Kurile Islands. As you are aware, we are continuing to engage in the negotiations with the Soviet Union based on this stance.”¹⁸ On February 11 of the following year, at the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Morishita Kunio proclaimed the unified view of the government that the four Northern Islands of Japan’s Northern Territories were not part of the Kurile Islands that Japan had renounced.

With regard to the negotiations between Japan and the Soviet Union, under the 1956 Japan-Soviet Joint Declaration, the two sides agreed to resume negotiations to conclude a bilateral peace treaty following the resumption of normalized diplomatic relations and to transfer the Habomai Islands and Shikotan Island to Japan, in line with the wishes of Japan and out of consideration for its national interests. The negotiations lost momentum, however, partly owing to Soviet opposition to the subsequent conclusion of the Japan-US Security Treaty in 1960. In October 1973, Tanaka Kakuei, the serving Japanese prime minister, visited the Soviet Union, the first such visit since Prime Minister Ichiro Hatoyama’s in 1956. As a result of the summit meeting between Tanaka and General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet Union softened its previous stance that “the territorial question has been settled by virtue of various international agreements” and the Japanese side announced the two sides had affirmed that the issue of the four Northern Islands remained unresolved. Thereafter, however, time passed without significant developments. More recently, working groups on the peace treaty were established at the 8th Japan-Soviet Foreign Ministers meeting held in December 1988, in order to promote greater progress on peace treaty negotiations between the two foreign ministers. Although the Soviet Union’s stance remained firm, the two sides were nonetheless able to hold substantive discussions on the territorial issues. Following the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia emerged as the successor of the former Soviet Union, and negotiations between Japan and Russia have continued until the present day.¹⁹

Reversion of the Administrative Rights from the US: Amami, Ogasawara (Bonin), and Okinawa

While the dates on which these islands came under US military occupation differ, the date on which the US military landed on the main island of Okinawa was April 1945. The major US policy of establishing military bases in Japan, in order to administrate the Ryūkyū Islands under the UN Trusteeship system and under US military occupation, was first officially announced by US Secretary of State Henry Stimson in January 1950. In September of the same year, the secretaries of state and defense addressed a joint memorandum to the president, recommending the start of preliminary negotiations for the Peace Treaty with Japan and stating the need to secure exclusive and strategic US control of the Ryūkyū Islands south of 29 degrees north latitude. The Seven Principles of Peace with Japan issued in October stated that, “Japan would ... agree to U.N. trusteeship, with the U.S. as administering authority, of the Ryukyu and Bonin Islands” and negotiations with the Allied powers were subsequently begun.

In an aide-mémoire dated November 20, 1950, the Soviet Union pointed out that neither in the Cairo Declaration nor the Potsdam Declaration was there any mention of removing Japan’s sovereignty over the Ryūkyū and Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands, as well as the fact that the governments issuing the Cairo and Potsdam Declarations had stated the policy of not expanding territories, and therefore sought an explanation from the US regarding its rationale for placing these islands under UN trusteeship with the US as the administering authority. In response, the US issued a reply on December 28, citing Article 77 of the UN Charter and the Potsdam Declaration, explaining that trusteeship did not amount to territorial expansion, and that, in strict adherence to the Potsdam Declaration, it would determine in the peace treaty the future status of the “minor islands” referred to in the declaration. This contention between the US and the Soviet Union remained until the San Francisco Peace Conference, at which point the US plenipotentiary, John Foster Dulles, and the British plenipotentiary, Kenneth Younger, clarified that sovereignty over the Amami Islands and the Ryūkyū Islands would remain with Japan (i.e., residual sovereignty), while the Soviet plenipotentiary, Andrei Gromyko, proposed the recognition of Japan’s complete sovereignty. In any case, the administrative rights over the Amami Islands, the Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands, and the Okinawa Islands, which were transferred to the US under the Treaty of Peace with Japan, were returned to Japan through the respective reversion agreements concluded in 1953, 1968, and 1972, without it ever being proposed that they be placed under UN trusteeship. Japan currently has complete sovereignty over these islands.

Nevertheless, it was not entirely inconceivable that the conclusion of an agreement only between Japan and the US regarding the reversion of the administrative rights over these islands, which can be considered as changing the provisions of the Treaty of Peace with Japan, would give rise to legal issues in relations with other parties to the treaty. However, Article 3 of the treaty states that “Japan will concur in any proposal of the United States to the United Nations to place [the islands] under its trusteeship system, with the United States as the sole administering authority.” As such, Japan must concur with any such “proposal,” but if no such proposal is made, then Japan will not be made to bear any obligations. Furthermore, the US would not be obligated to make such a proposal, nor would there be any issue with the US making a direct reversion to Japan, the original sovereignty holder. Moreover, as evidenced in the interpellation sessions of the Japanese Diet, from the very beginning, the possibility was discussed of the reversion of the islands to Japan, if and when their strategic necessity was lost (Fig. 1.2).

Fig. 1.2

The Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands and Okinawa

Treaties Bureau Director-General Nishimura Kumao stated that “The United States has expressed, as its rationale for placing the Nansei Shotō Islands under the trusteeship system, the need for the United States to administrate the islands for the present time for the sake of maintaining peace and security, and has never once expressed the need to improve the political, economic, and cultural standards of our brethren living on these islands, and make them autonomous or independent.”²⁰ In addition, 2 days after, in response to a question, Nishimura stated that, “As the U.S. Government has officially explained, the purpose of Article 3 is not permanent, and is solely intended for the maintenance of peace and security in the Far East. Therefore... we believe it is necessary to make continual efforts to ensure the stability of the Far East as soon as possible, to bring about the day where measures such as those of Article 3 are no longer necessary, and to enable the region to revert to its original state.”²¹

It can therefore be said that the legal status of the Nansei Shotō Islands and the Nanpō Shotō Islands, as defined in Article 3 of the Treaty of Peace with Japan, is unique, in terms of the question of its consistency with the basic purpose of the UN trusteeship system, and the fact that it was the result of the political situation in the Far East.

Clashes with Other Countries’ Sovereignty: Takeshima and the Senkaku Islands

For the sake of the administration of the occupation of Japan by the Allied powers, Takeshima was included among the regions separated from Japan politically and in terms of administration where the exercise of the rights of the Japanese government was suspended, in accordance with an instruction note issued by SCAP on January 29, 1946.

Once the Treaty of Peace with Japan was signed on September 8, 1951, and the restoration of Japanese sovereignty became certain, the ROK took steps to strengthen its regulations of activities by foreign fishing vessels, and on January 18, 1952, ROK President Syngman Rhee issued the Proclamation of Sovereignty over Adjacent Seas (also known as the proclamation of the Syngman Rhee Line), a unilateral declaration of sovereignty over waters that included Takeshima. Japan immediately lodged a protest with the ROK side on January 28, stating that, while the ROK declaration appeared to assume territorial rights over Takeshima, “the Japanese government does not recognize any such assumption or claim by the ROK concerning these islets which are without question Japanese territory.” In response to Japan’s protest, the ROK stated by the note verbale on February 12 that the ROK “merely wished to remind the Japanese Government that SCAP, by SCAPIN No. 677 dated January 29, 1946, explicitly excluded the islets from the territorial possessions of Japan and that again the same islets have been left on the Korean side of the MacArthur Line, facts that endorse and confirm the Korean claim to them, which is beyond any dispute.” On April 25 of the same year, the Japanese government refuted the ROK response, stating that the SCAP instruction note was irrelevant to the sovereignty of Takeshima.²²

Thereafter, from 1954 onwards, ROK authorities have been stationed on Takeshima, and armed incidents have even occurred. As the ROK’s “illegal occupation” of Takeshima continues, the Japanese government has taken a variety of measures to date, including lodging protests each year.²³

The Senkaku Islands, meanwhile, did not appear to have any particular natural resources, nor were subject to much interest by the world. However, in the autumn of 1968, the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (now the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific) conducted a geophysical survey led primarily by Japanese, ROK, and Taiwanese scientists. The survey indicated the possibility of the existence of abundant petroleum resources in an area approximately 200,000 km² in size, mostly due northeast from Taiwan, attracting much attention from other countries. Precisely at this time, the negotiations between Japan and the US for the reversion of Okinawa were ongoing, and in June 1971 an agreement was reached on the Okinawa Reversion Treaty, and administrative control of Okinawa reverted to Japan in 1972.

Following the conclusion of the Okinawa Reversion Treaty in June 1971, on December 30 of the same year the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement asserting that, “Not long ago, the U.S. Congress and the Japanese Diet one after the other approved the agreement on the ‘reversion’ of Okinawa. In this agreement, the Governments of the United States and Japan flagrantly included the Diaoyu and other islands in the ‘area of reversion.’ This is a gross encroachment upon China’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. The Chinese people absolutely will not tolerate this!” and furthermore, that, “After World War II, the Japanese Government illicitly handed over to the United States the Diaoyu and other islands appertaining to Taiwan, and the United States Government unilaterally declared that it enjoyed the so-called ‘administrative rights’ over these islands. This in itself was illegal.”²⁴

In response, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in March 1972 issued a statement entitled “Basic View on the Sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands,” in which it stated that, since their incorporation into Japan’s territory in 1895, “Historically, the Senkaku Islands have continuously been an integral part of the Nansei Shotō Islands, which are the territory of Japan. These islands were neither part of Taiwan nor part of the Pescadores Islands, which were ceded to Japan from the Qing dynasty in accordance with Article 2 of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which came into effect in May of 1895;” that, “Accordingly, the Senkaku Islands are not included in the territory which Japan renounced under Article II of the San Francisco Peace Treaty. They were placed under the administration of the United States of America as part of the Nansei Shotō Islands, in accordance with Article III of the said treaty” and that, “The fact that China expressed no objection to the status of the Islands being under the administration of the United States under Article III of the San Francisco Peace Treaty clearly indicates that China did not consider the Senkaku Islands as part of Taiwan.”

While Japan has continued to control the Senkaku Islands, Japan and China did hold various exchanges on the matter around the time of the conclusion of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and the People’s Republic of China. On October 25, 1978, then Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping, who was visiting Japan for the exchange of the instruments of ratification for the treaty, stated that “Even if... the issue is temporarily shelved, I don’t think I mind.” In the first place, the idea that during the negotiations on the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and China, Japan arrived at the tacit understanding that the issue of the Senkaku Islands would not be mentioned in the treaty and would instead be shelved, is, as Minister of Foreign Affairs Miyazawa Kiichi stated in 1975, in response to a question on the matter, “a mistaken recognition, and it is not in fact the case that the negotiations on the treaty were held amid the issue being shelved.”²⁵ In addition, more recently, Treaties Bureau Director-General Saitō Kunihiko stated, in response to a question on the matter, that, “Since the Senkaku Islands are under the valid control of Japan and a part of Japan’s territory, the idea of shelving the issue is completely unthinkable. Thus, there was absolutely no agreement between Japan and China to shelve the issue.”²⁶

The Antarctic and Japan

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, all continents on Earth, apart from the Arctic and the Antarctic, have been divided up by different countries. Since 1908, the UK and six other countries have set up sectors in parts of the Antarctic, over which they have asserted their sovereignty, citing discoveries of coastlines or past expeditions as evidence. Sectors are fan-shaped areas determined by two lines drawn poleward from both extremes of the coastline or other geographic features on which the country in question bases its claim and a latitudinal line. “Sectorism” asserts that the laws of occupation,²⁷ which were established as a means by which human beings could acquire land for regular living, are inapplicable or inappropriate for the polar regions (Fig. 1.3).

Fig. 1.3

Antarctica

However, the effectiveness of sectorism has not yet been commonly recognized and jurisdiction over the polar regions remains uncertain. Thus, in order to avoid clashes over sovereignty among the countries concerned and to prevent territorial disputes, in the spirit of international cooperation realized by the International Geophysical Year, the Antarctic Treaty was signed in 1959 and entered into force in 1961. Under the treaty, all countries’ claims to territorial rights or territories south of 60 degrees south latitude were frozen and the whole region was opened up for peaceful use, resulting in the establishment of a completely unprecedented international regime. As for the Arctic, Canada and the Soviet Union established sectors therein, and have at present established their territorial rights over the land areas inside these sectors.

Japan, meanwhile, had at one point asserted its territorial rights over the Antarctic prior to World War II based on the exploration led by Lieutenant Shirase Nobu but had not taken measures to incorporate the area into its territory. However, in accordance with Article 2, paragraph (e) of the Treaty of Peace with Japan, Japan had renounced all claim to any part of the Antarctic area, and the Japanese stated the following in response to a question posed during Diet deliberations over the treaty.

Regarding ‘any part of the Antarctic’ as stated in paragraph (e), in January 1912, Lieutenant Shirase Nobu carried out an exploration to the Antarctic, marking the location at 156 degrees west longitude and 80 degrees south latitude, after which the Japanese government addressed a demarche to the U.S. Department of State in 1938 requesting the preservation of the title to decide the jurisdiction of these areas. In light of these circumstances, Japan has a strong right to express its views on these areas of the Antarctic. Under the aforementioned paragraph, Japan will renounce these claims.²⁸

The paragraph was not actually in the Seven Principles of Peace with Japan issued by the US Department of State in November 1950 and was originally included in the Treaty of Peace with Japan upon the strong urging of Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. The UK government had pushed for making Japan renounce current and future claims in the Antarctic but was unable to gain the agreement of the US, and so the parties settled on the current wording. As such, what Japan renounced was claims based on activities leading up to the conclusion of the peace treaty, in other words those before World War II, and this does not involve any benefits accruing to Japan from its subsequent activities. In fact, in the latter half of the 1970s, amid growing international interest in the harvesting of mineral resources in the Antarctic, the Japanese government stated the following in response to a question on the matter.

What Japan has renounced under Article 2 of the Treaty of Peace with Japan is any right, title to or interest in the Antarctic area at the time of the entry into force of said treaty. We do not consider that these provisions mean that Japan has renounced all claim to any right, title to or interest in connection with any part of the Antarctic area whether deriving from the activities of Japanese nationals or otherwise, following the entry into force of the treaty, in other words that Japan has renounced its position from the time of the treaty and into the future.²⁹

In practice as well, Japan is one of the original parties to the Antarctic Treaty, and it has continued to the present to exercise its right to comment on a variety of related issues, including territorial sovereignty. Japan’s basic stance on the issue of territorial rights is that, as a party to the Antarctic Treaty, it is possible for Japan to make territorial claims on an equal footing with the other parties to the treaty, but, outwardly, Japan has declared itself to be a non-claimant, in contrast to the claimants in the Antarctic. This policy is likely to remain unchanged.

The Antarctic Treaty includes provisions pertaining to the preservation and conservation of living resources in connection with research activities. However, if issues over the commercial use of resources were to arise, the territorial issues would become highly sensitive. Setting aside the issue of whaling that has taken place since before World War II, the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals was concluded in London in 1972. Additionally, in the latter half of the 1970s, Japan, the former Soviet Union, Poland, and the ROK operated a large-scale trial operation for the production of krill over an area spanning 200,000 km², and it was decided that regulations similar to those in conventional fisheries conventions would be established for the conservation of such zooplankton. At the time, the issue of 200 nautical miles became a major point of contention. Ultimately, the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources was concluded in 1980, which extended the applicable area to the Antarctic Convergence and included regulations based on the flag State doctrine.

However, matters become more complicated when issues of petroleum and natural gas deposits or mineral resources on the continental shelf are involved. Discussions on the subject are ongoing among the members countries of the Antarctic Treaty, while even the UN has tried to address such issues since 1983, giving rise to the argument that the Antarctic should be managed internationally as the “common heritage of mankind,” as described in the principles governing the deep ocean floor stipulated in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Eventually, the Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resource Activities was adopted in June 1988 and was released for signing in November. Additionally, the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty was adopted in October 1991.³⁰