ABSTRACT
This chapter chronicles the dispute cycles from the first official remonstrations raised against Japan by the Republic of China (ROC) and People's Republic of China (PRC) governments until the end of the Cold War. The 1968 UN discovery of oil reserves caused a scramble between oil companies but it was only in August 1970 that the issue of sovereignty over the islands came into the open because of disagreements between the ROC government and Japan-Taiwan had displeased Japan by granting US oil company Pacific Gulf rights to explore the seabed around the islands. The dispute continued to make news in Japan in 1970, especially after the PRC stepped into the debates. The PRC only started to officially contest Japan's sovereignty claims from 1971 on the occasion of the negotiations of the US-Japan Okinawa Reversion Agreement. The islands dispute recommenced in 1972 on the occasion of talks surrounding the normalisation of diplomatic relations between Japan and the PRC.
