ABSTRACT
The dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands erupted in the 1970s, but the territorial dispute between Japan and China itself had started earlier, over Okinawa, immediately after the Second World War. The major point of dispute in the Senkaku/Diaoyu issue is whether these islands are part of Okinawa or part of Taiwan. The former is the position of the Japanese government, while the latter is the position of both Chinese governments, that is, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in Beijing and the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan. There was no such dispute over these islands before the end of the Second World War, that is, when both Okinawa and Taiwan were territories of the Japanese Empire.
