China deserves credit for sending island dispute to UN

At last someone has done something sensible in the increasingly bitter fight between Japan and China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands: China has taken the issue to the United Nations.

China hasn't gone as far as sending the matter to the International Court of Justice, though if it were brave, it would. China has only asked for a geological survey by independent experts to ascertain where China's continental shelf ends. The commissioning UN organisation is probably The Law of the Sea's chamber of disputes.

The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea defines territorial waters and the exclusive economic zones, which stretch for 200 nautical miles. However, when the continental shelf extends farther, the limit extends beyond the 200 nautical miles. Most nations of the world, including China and Japan, have ratified the Law of the Sea. The US has not, although it abides by it.

The eight uninhabited islets being contested are located in waters rich with fish and perhaps oil. In 1972, the US post-war occupation returned the islands to Japan, and apparently China did not object. But according to Meiji-era documents, Japan acknowledged China as the owner in 1885.

The cocktails of the dispute are laced with China's growing animosity towards Japan. Old memories of the wartime atrocities of the occupying Japanese forces have returned to the fore. On Sunday, Japan elected in a landslide the party of Shinzo Abe, the former and incoming prime minister who tends to shun the truth about the war and thus provokes the Chinese. This is a disaster in the making.

There are two strains in Japanese political life. On one side are those who are ashamed of Japan's role in the second world war and are happy to live with Japan's post-war constitution, which outlaws the waging of war. On the other side are those who chafe under these constitutional limits on military practice and also support the writing of school textbooks to airbrush the nastier sides of Japan's history.