Context:

Japan’s Ishigaki city Assembly passed a bill to rename an administrative area covering a group of islands in the East China Sea, immediately triggering backlash from China and Taiwan, both of which also claim the uninhabited islets as their own.

About:

• The disputed islands are known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China.
• Ties between China and Japan have been strained by a territorial row over a group of islands, known as the Senkaku islands in Japan and the Diaoyu islands in China.
• There is a total of eight uninhabited islands and rocks in the East China Sea.
• They have a total area of about 7 sq km and lie north-east of Taiwan, east of the Chinese mainland, and southwest of Japan’s southern-most prefecture, Okinawa. The islands. are controlled by Japan.

The changed names

• The assembly changed the name of the southern Japan area containing the Senkaku Islands from “Tonoshiro” to “TonoshiroSenkaku,” which both Beijing and Taipei see as an attempt to cement Tokyo’s claim by inserting the Japanese name “Senkaku.”
• The renaming took effect on October 1, 2020, and it is aimed at resolving administrative confusion between a locale in downtown Ishigaki, which shares the name “Tonoshiro” with the isles.

Japan’s claim

• Japan says it surveyed the islands for 10 years in the 19th Century and determined that they were uninhabited.
• On 14 January 1895 Japan erected a sovereignty marker and formally incorporated the islands into Japanese territory.
• After World War Two, Japan renounced claims to a number of territories and islands including Taiwan in the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco.
• These islands, however, came under US trusteeship and were returned to Japan in 1971 under the Okinawa reversion deal.

Claims made by China

China says that the islands have been part of its territory since ancient times, serving as important fishing grounds administered by the province of Taiwan.

Taiwan’s claim

Separately, Taiwan also claims the islands.