06-13-08, 05:47 AM
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| Sage
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Awards:  | Re: Taiwan fishing boat sunk by Japanese frigate
Quote:
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Did Taiwan give up sovereignty over the Tiaoyutai Islands?
The China Post news staff
There seems to be an international conspiracy to make the Tiaoyutai Islands part of Japanese territory. The Japanese call them the Senkaku Islands, while the Chinese use pinyin to spell their name Diaoyudai, which like "Tiaoyutai" in its Wade-Gile Romanization means Fishermen's Platform. Taiwan and China claim sovereignty over the group of eight islets, the biggest of them being familiarly known among local fishermen as "Burinduo," or No Man's Island in Hoklo.
One tell-tale piece of evidence attesting to the conspiracy is Beijing forbidding activists in Hong Kong to make an annual pilgrimage to the islands to demand that Japan return them to China. Technically, however, the activists, some of them from Taiwan and elsewhere, were forbidden to leave for Diaoyudai because their ship's operating license was suspended. The truth, however, is that the Chinese authorities don't want to irritate the Japanese, who have Maritime Safety cutters patrol off Senkaku to stake out what they claim is their territory. Beijing certainly doesn't want any activist to be drowned like David Chan in September 1996. Chan jumped overboard when his protest ship, blocked by a Japanese flotilla, was unable to reach the islets.
Beijing is beginning a honeymoon with Tokyo after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met with Chinese President Hu Jintao almost a year ago. It is understandable that Hu wants no flare-up over Diaoyudai with Japan, but Taipei appears to have tacitly given up sovereignty over the islands, which are registered officially as part of the county of Yilan, though no one lives there.
| Did Taiwan give up sovereignty over the Tiaoyutai Islands? - The China Post  |
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