Japan attempts to tamper history through 'purchase': expert

Japan's announced "purchase" of the Diaoyu Islands is an attempt to tamper territorial history, a German sinologist said Tuesday.

Dr. Ingo Nentwig, a sinologist and ethnologist, wrote in an article published in the German daily Junge Welt that Japan occupied China's Diaoyu Islands in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 -1895 and brought Taiwan and the Penghu Islands under its colonial rule through the imposed Treaty of Shimonoseki.

After World War II, Japan should have returned all the territories that it had usurped since the Sino-Japanese War to China based on the Cairo Declaration in 1943 and the Potsdam Declaration in 1945, both of which defined the terms for Japan's surrender, Nentwig said.

Although Taiwan and the Penghu Islands did go back into the arms of China afterwards, the Diaoyu Islands, together with Okinawa, remained occupied by the United States, according to the so-called Treaty of San Francisco in 1951.

However, China lodged an immediate protest against the 1951 treaty since it was not involved in the negotiations, Nentwig said.

"Therefore, the continuing control of the Diaoyu islands within the framework of the U.S. occupation was invalid under international law," the expert said. "As Washington 'returned' Okinawa and the Diaoyu islands to Japan in May 1972, China immediately protested against this illegal act."

Nentwig said that since last year, the "islands question" has become a card in Japan's domestic political fighting.

The Japanese government announced the "purchase" of Diaoyu Island and its affiliated Nan Xiaodao and Bei Xiaodao on Sept. 11, forcing China to take measures to protect its sovereignty, he said.

"It is clear that Japan has made an attempt to tamper the territorial results of World War II," Nentwig said.

"The memory of the aggression of Japanese militarism as Axis power is still fresh to many people in East and Southeast Asia, and it is strengthened in particular as many Japanese politicians, including leaders, showed little insight into their own history and even deny their war crimes in public," he said.

"Today we are witnessing a resurgence of aggressive arrogance of Japan, which stirs up bad memories of all its neighbors," he said.