The Senkaku Islands (known as the Diaoyu Islands in China) occupy a strategic maritime corridor in the East China Sea. The islands lie 410 kilometers (255 miles) west of Japan's Okinawa Island and 350 kilometers east of the Chinese coast and are believed to hold significant energy and mineral resources. Since 1972, when the islands reverted from U.S. control to Japanese control, disputes over their sovereignty became a recurring diplomatic issue between Japan and China. (Taiwan also claims the islands as its territory.) Civilians would frequently organize and participate in activities to protect each country's claim to the islands. Despite these incidents, both governments exercised restraint for the sake of broader Sino-Japanese relations, until a boat collision in 2010 resulted in a serious deterioration in bilateral relations, which have not yet recovered completely. Tense rhetoric and frequent military activities in the East China Sea have become standard over the past two years. The dispute escalated July 7 when Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced that his government planned to purchase the islands and that it had already begun negotiations with the islands' owners, the Kurihara family. Beijing quickly opposed Noda's statement and warned that it would take necessary measures to safeguard Chinese sovereignty. Then on July 10, a Chinese general said the People's Liberation Army should use the islands for military exercises in order to increase China's presence in the region and counter Japan's territorial claims. Domestic politics are driving Tokyo's move to buy the Senkaku Islands. Recent years have seen a trend of increasingly nationalistic political discourse in Japan, and the Noda administration is attempting to boost its popularity by pursuing one of the nationalists' issues. Though acquiring the islands would have few concrete ramifications in the near term, the effort to purchase the islands is troubling to China because it shows the level of political influence held by those calling for a more assertive Japan. This could foreshadow larger changes in Japan's international conduct that would have important regional implications.
