Tokyo's rightwing governor plans to buy disputed Senkaku Islands

Pledge to protect islands coveted by China, Japan and Taiwan for natural gas and fisheries by populist Shintaro Ishihara
A protester wears a T-shirt with the slogan 'Japan get out of Diaoyu Islands (Senkaku islands)'
A protester wearing a T-shirt with the slogan 'Japan get out of Diaoyu islands (Senkaku islands)' on Thursday arranges flags of the former Imperial Japanese military near Japan's consulate in Hong Kong. Photograph: Kin Cheung/AP

The governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, has angered China after announcing plans to buy a group of islands at the centre of a long-running territorial dispute.

Both countries claim sovereignty over the uninhabited islands, known as the Senkakus in Japan and the Diaoyu in China, which are surrounded by rich fishing grounds and potentially large natural gas deposits.

Ishihara, a rightwing populist who has never shied away from provoking the Chinese, raised the idea of buying the islands from their private owners during a trip to Washington this week.

"Tokyo will protect the Senkaku Islands," he said in a speech to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank. "Why would any country have a problem with that?"

He said the presence of Chinese fishery patrol boats in the area was tantamount to a "declaration of war" against Japan.

He did not reveal how much the Tokyo metropolitan government would pay the Japanese owner for three of five main islands, saying only: "It's not that much."

Central government pays ¥24.5m (£187,400) a year in rent to the owners of the three of the five main islands in the Senkaku group, which are administered by Okinawa prefecture.

Map - Senkaku/Diaoyu islands Location of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands

The uninhabited islands are extremely important to Japan's development of energy sources and fisheries, Ishihara's metropolitan government said in a statement.

China condemned the move, having previously warned it would take "all necessary steps" to protect the islands.

"Any unilateral action taken by Japan on the Diaoyu and nearby islands is illegal and invalid, and cannot change the reality of China's ownership," Liu Weimin, a foreign ministry spokesman, said.

"We do not wish statements in Japan to encroach on China's sovereignty and harm China-Japan ties. I believe they not only damage the overall state of China-Japan relations, but also harm Japan's international image."

A foreign ministry spokesman in Taiwan, which also claims the islands, said Ishihara's plan was totally unacceptable.

Sovereignty over the island has long been a source of friction between China and Japan, where concern is rising over Beijing's increasingly robust naval presence in the East China Sea.

A 2008 agreement to jointly develop gas fields in the area has made little headway and Japan has accused China of drilling unilaterally.

Relations reached their lowest point in years in 2010, when a Chinese trawler collided with two Japanese coastguard vessels near the islands. The trawler's captain was released after a short detention, angering Japanese hawks who believe he should have been prosecuted.

Ishihara's gesture is also directed at Japan's centrist prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, whom he has accused of failing to protect the country's territorial interests for fear of upsetting China.

Noda has since indicated that the state is considering buying the islands, a move that would further enrage China. "We would like to keep all options open," he said in parliament.

Conservative online commenters applauded Ishihara's audacity, but the left-leaning Asahi Shimbun accused him of jeopardising Japan's relations with a vital trading partner.

"Even though Ishihara is the governor of the capital of Japan, he is in no position to settle an international territorial dispute," the paper said in an editorial. "We can only call him irresponsible for talking big, fully knowing its negative impact on Japan's diplomacy."

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