The traitor to Japan, Yukio Hatoyama

Yukio Hatoyama former PM is a long-time traitor to Japan and no longer official Japanese politician. He retired since last December.

He said "The Japanese government says there are no territorial disputes (between the two countries). But if you look at history, there is a dispute." on 16th January 2013.

But, Japanese government's position is there is no territorial issue between Japan and China, we have indisputable territorial sovereignty over the Senkaku islands.

Five Reasons Why the Senkaku Islands are not Chinese Territory

1. International Law

"Island of Palmas Case" (1928), one of the most highly influential precedents dealing with island territorial conflicts say as follows,

1. Firstly, title based on contiguity has no standing in international law.
2. Secondly, title by discovery is only an inchoate title.
3. Finally, if another sovereign begins to exercise continuous and actual sovereignty, (and the arbitrator required that the claim had to be open and public and with good title), and the discoverer does not contest this claim, the claim by the sovereign that exercises authority is greater than a title based on mere discovery.

The Senkaku Islands were incorporated into Japan in 1895 by "prior occupation of terra nullius," but both PRC (People's Republic of China) and ROC (Republic of China) had never protested against Japan's claim over the Senkaku Islands until 1971 for 76 years. Instead they had recognized the Islands as Japanese territory explicitly in their documents, newspapers, textbooks and maps. International law gives them the qualification to claim the Islands any longer.

2. The Senkaku islands were discovered first not by Chinese but by Ryukyuans (Okinawan people).

It was only 23 times that Chinese investiture Missions sailed to the Ryukyu Kingdom (Okinawa) in 507 years, while Ryukyuan Tributary Missions sailed to China over 580 times in the same period via the Senkaku Islands.

3. There is no historical fact that China has exercised any "effective control" on the Senkaku Islands.

China has claimed that the Senkaku islands had been Chinese territory "since the Ming Dynasty." However, during the Ming Dynasty, even Taiwan was not a part of China. Taiwan was incorporated into Qing in 1683 for the first time. And all Chinese official documents written during the Qing Dynasty regarding Taiwan say the north end of Taiwan was the present Hoping island never Keelung. There is no historical fact that the Senkaku Islands were incorporated into China ever.

4. The Japanese old map China quote often never admitted that the Senkaku islands were Chinese territory.

China often quotes the Japanese old map, 「琉球三省並三十六島之図」(1786) by 林子平(Hayashi Shinei) to argue that the Senkaku Islands were colored in the same color as mainland China, so Japanese at that time recognized that the Senkaku islands were Chinese territory. However, in the same map, Taiwan was colored with the different color from the mainland China despite the fact that Taiwan was already incorporated in to Qing when the map was published in Japan. And Hayashi Shihei was not a Japanese governmental official, but a mere private citizen who was even arrested and punished by the Tokugawa Shogunate. We can not think Japan's official view was reflected in his map anyway.

5. There is no historical fact that Senkaku Islands had ever belonged to China, so China cannot say that they were stolen from China. So the Cairo Declaration has nothing to do with the Senkaku Islands.

China has invaded and absorbed Tibet, East Turkestan, Inner Mongolia, and Manchuria. China is going to swallow the Senkaku Islands, Okinawa and Taiwan this time. The reestablishment of full-fledged Chinese Empire is their ultimate objective.

Former Japanese prime minister slammed as 'traitor' at home

The Japanese government has criticized former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's acknowledgment of a "territorial dispute" with China over islands in the East China Sea, with the defense minister going so far as to use the word "traitor."

On his four-day private visit to China, Hatoyama told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday, "The Japanese government says there are no territorial disputes (between the two countries). But if you look at history, there is a dispute."

The remarks contradict his own government's position of indisputable territorial sovereignty over the islands that it calls Senkaku and that China calls Diaoyu.

"If his (Hatoyama's) remarks have been politically used by China, I'm unhappy," Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said on television Thursday. "At that moment, the word of 'traitor' arose in my mind."

The day after his controversial remarks, Hatoyama, 66, and his wife visited the Nanjing Memorial, which is for the estimated 300,000 people killed in a 1937 massacre by Japanese forces.

He is the third former Japanese prime minister to visit the memorial, following predecessors Toshiki Kaifu and Tomiichi Murayama. The tribute for Chinese victims stands in contrast to visits by Japanese officials, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and predecessor Junichiro Koizumi, to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which is dedicated to Japan's war dead, including war criminals.

"In the eyes of the Chinese public, (Hatoyama's) visit is very valuable and undermines those in China who argue that all Japanese suffer from amnesia about wartime misdeeds," said Jeff Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University Japan.

"I think this mission is an effort by him to introduce a different tenor into bilateral relations, to show it's not all about saber-rattling," he added.

Chinese media extensively covered Hatoyama's "apology for Japan's wartime crimes," with pictures of the Hatoyamas bowing and paying silent tribute at the site.

On social media, the visit triggered wide discussions. According to an online poll by Phoenix Online (iFeng), 80% of the more than 222,000 people who voted said Hatoyama's visit did not have much political significance, as compared with German Chancellor Willy Brandt's kneeling before the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial in 1970.

In another question, nearly two-thirds of 140,000 people surveyed said the visit by a former leader wouldn't set an example for a fellow Japanese politician.

CCTV commentator Yang Yu, however, praised Hatoyama and urged the Chinese to "remember the unusual kindness due to its scarcity," saying via Weibo, the microblogging site, "We have reprimanded Japan too many times for not acknowledging the massacre."

The official account from Xinhua, China's state-run news agency, warned that the nationalism of people who "scold any Japanese they see ... is in fact leading the country to distress."

An editorial by the government-run Global Times said that "China shouldn't change its policy to Japan just because Hatoyama, a politician currently out of office, gave a few words of friendship."

Grievances over World War II atrocities added fuel to violent anti-Japanese protests in China in September, particularly on the anniversary of the 1931 Japanese invasion of China.

And it is not a coincidence, Kingston said, that a Chinese plane entered airspace over the disputed islands -- prompting Japan to scramble fighter jets -- on December 13, the 75th anniversary of the massacre. It was the first time that the territorial dispute involved planes.

"The next day on the front page of the newspapers were the images of the (Nanjing) Memorial ceremony and the planes," Kingston said.

The dispute over the islands stems from 1895, when, at the end of the Sino-Japanese war, Japan annexed them. China has said that the islands have been its territory for the last five centuries.

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