Existing archives already hold truth

A Japan Coast Guard boat (front) and vessel sail as Uotsuri island, one of the disputed islands, called Diaoyu in China, is pictured in the background, in the East China Sea, in this August 18, 2013 file photo. [Photo/Agencies]

Archives are supposed to be resources from which people can obtain a real picture of past. However, the Japanese government and some Japanese scholars are hoping to create an archive that does the opposite.

The Japanese government announced on Tuesday that it will build a database with some 1,500 items of so-called historical evidence to support the country's claims to the territory in its disputes with China and South Korea. Some 500 items, including land registration certificates and documents on the exploratory mining of mineral resources, pertain to China's Diaoyu Islands.

Japan plans to make the database part of its international PR campaign by translating the archives into English and offering free online access.

But by digging into the archives of Japan's ministries of home and foreign affairs, Tadayoshi Murata, emeritus professor of Japan's Yokohama National University, invalidates that effort by showing the Japanese government's claim to the Diaoyu Islands to be a house of cards.

The professor states that Okinawa prefecture is not Japan's inherent territory as Japan annexed what was known as the Ryukyu Kingdomas Okinawa prefecture in 1879, as a result, the alibi used by Japan for claiming sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands does not hold up.

In Sovereignty of Diaoyu Islands: A Thorough Examination of Historical Records published in Japan in January, Murata does a fine job of laying out all the documents in the decade during which Japan "acquired" the Diaoyu Islands.

For the first time, Murata presents the official dispatches from then Okinawa governor Shigeru Narahara (1892-1907). The local official wrote to Japan's home minister Inoue Kaoru and foreign minister Mutsu Munemitsu in 1893, asking the Japanese government to erect markers on the Diaoyu Islands to make them part of his prefecture. He gave a negative reply in 1894 when Japan's prefectural bureau director Kazuyuki Egi inquired of him whether there was any evidence in written or oral history that the islands were part of Japan.

The correspondence lays bare the irrevocable fact that the Diaoyu Islands were neither part of Okinawa nor part of Japan.

In 2013 book On the Origin of Japan-China Territorial Issues, Murata also states the Diaoyu Islands never appear in the history of Ryukyu Kingdom.

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