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Japan
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Japan secretly asked China to drop Diaoyu Islands claim before emperor Akihito’s 1992 visit

  • Declassified documents showed Tokyo urged Chinese officials to refrain from publicly speaking about the disputed islands to avoid causing rift among the Japanese public
  • Akihito toured Beijing, Xian and Shanghai for six days, becoming the first-ever Japanese emperor to visit China

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A Japanese surveillance plane flies over the disputed Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea. File photo: Kyodo News via AP
Kyodo
Tokyo secretly asked Beijing not to make territorial claims to the Japan-controlled Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea to avoid friction ahead of the Japanese emperor’s visit to China in 1992, according to Japanese diplomatic documents declassified on Wednesday.
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Then Japanese ambassador to China Hiroshi Hashimoto asked influential Chinese officials to refrain from publicly speaking about the issue of the uninhabited islets and historical disputes, in line with a secret order from then prime minister Kiichi Miyazawa in April 1992, the foreign ministry’s records showed.

The visit, which had been repeatedly requested by Beijing, was made by then emperor Akihito in October that year, marking the 20th anniversary of the normalisation of diplomatic ties in 1972.

A vast swathe of China was occupied by Japan during the 1937-1945 Sino-Japanese War.

Akihito’s father Hirohito, posthumously known as emperor Showa, was the nation’s ruler during the war.

The enactment of a new Chinese law on territorial waters and adjacent waters in February 1992, which first declared the island chain – called the Senkakus by Tokyo –as China’s territory, reignited war-related disputes with Tokyo and further worsened public sentiment in Japan towards China.

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