China-Japan relations: Beijing opens online museum to bolster claims to Diaoyu Islands

Group of eight uninhabited islets in East China Sea are administered by Japan, which calls them the Senkaku Islands, but claimed by both sides, and Taiwan

Museum includes newspaper reports by Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily and a government white paper ‘proving’ China’s territorial rights

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The Diaoyu/Senkaku chain comprises eight uninhabited islets in the East China Sea. Photo: AFP

Published: 1:30pm, 4 Oct 2020Updated: 1:30pm, 4 Oct 2020

China sought to bolster its claims to the disputed Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea on Saturday by opening an online “museum” of newspaper clippings and other items related to the issue.

The materials, including reports from People’s Daily – the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party – and a government white paper, were curated by a team from Fujian Normal University and uploaded to the semi-official Diaoyudao.org.cn website run by the China Oceanic Information Network.

The group of eight uninhabited islets are administered by Japan, which calls them the Senkaku Islands, but claimed by both sides, and also by Taiwan. Beijing says it exercised jurisdiction over the islets centuries before Japan even discovered them.

The sovereignty dispute has been a thorn in the side of China-Japan relations since Tokyo bought the islands from a private owner in September 2012.

On Thursday, Japan effected a change to the official addresses of the five main islands in the group by including the word “Senkaku” in their names. The decision to do so was made in June, but its implementation coincided with China’s National Day holiday, which marks the foundation of the People’s Republic of China by the Communist Party.