Japanese authorities have decided to deport Chinese activists who rallied on the Senkaku Islands. The archipelago is the subject of a territorial dispute between China and Japan.
The Senkaku archipelago, or as it is called by the Chinese Diaoyutai, moved to Japan in 1895 as a result of the first Sino-Japanese war. At the end of World War II, he came under the jurisdiction of the United States, which returned them to Japan in 1970. China does not agree with this, since there is the Cairo Declaration of 1943, signed by Britain, China and the United States. In it, the Allies pledged to make joint efforts in the war with Japan until its complete surrender. The expulsion of Japan from all territories it conquered was also declared there.
Until recently, the question hung in the air and few people were interested, but in 1999 natural gas was found on the archipelago, whose reserves are estimated at 200 billion cubic meters. Thus, the territorial dispute is now of great economic interest.
The Chinese oil and gas company CNOOC has already begun developing the shelf on the Chinese side from the line dividing the economic interests of the two countries. Official Tokyo protests, believing that gas is pumping from a tank belonging to Japan. Chinese society is more emotionally and aggressively responding to this debate. Pogroms of Japanese shops take place in the country, anti-Japanese demonstrations take place, etc.
To mark the 67th anniversary of the defeat of Japan in World War II, 14 Chinese citizens decided to travel to the disputed archipelago. As a result, they were detained by the Japanese Coast Guard. The detainees during interrogations rejected accusations of illegal entry into the territory of another state, arguing that the Diaoyutai Islands belong to China.
A tense telephone conversation took place at the level of deputy foreign ministers of the two countries, in which the Chinese side demanded the immediate release of their citizens. The Japanese did not begin to fall into ambition and at the government level decided to deport the Chinese.
