Diaoyu peace in our time?

Thirty-two years ago, paramount leader Deng Xiaoping found a solution to a dispute with Japan over five tiny, uninhabited islands: shelve the disagreement and focus on joint development of economic resources.

That was in 1978. Today, however, the policy seems to be unravelling in the wake of Japan's arrest of a Chinese fishing trawler captain and China's increasing assertiveness.

The dispute over the islands, known as the Senkakus to Japan and the Diaoyu Islands to China, goes back to the early 1970s, shortly after the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East released the results, in 1968, of a scientific survey confirming the existence of oil resources in the area around the islands.

China then claimed the islands, which had been taken over by Japan in 1895. In May 1972, the post-war American administration of Okinawa ended and the Senkakus were returned to Japan along with the Ryukyu Islands. That September, Japan and China established diplomatic relations and made no mention of the territorial dispute. Both countries put normalisation ahead of territorial differences.

In 1978, when Deng was the country's new leader, China and Japan signed a treaty of peace and friendship.

Deng himself set out China's policy. 'It does not matter if this question is shelved for some time, say 10 years,' he said. 'Our generation is not wise enough to find common language on this question. Our next generation will certainly be wiser. They will certainly find a solution acceptable to all.'