Pinnacle et nullité en mer de Chine Orientale

Abstract

The Senkaku (or Diaoyu, also Pinnacle) Islands, scattered in the East China Sea, were annexed by Japan in 1895 and are claimed by the Pekin and Taipei governments. More vital than the few acres of spectacular, though inhospitable volcanic rocks, is what prompted those claims, the undergroung resources thought to lie around them. Part of this article presents the arguments put forward to justify or deny those territorial claims. While the Chinese claim mainly rests upon history and geomorphology, the Japanese position is based on international law. This debate largely focuses on the status of those islands at the end of the nineteenth century, before and after the Sino-Japanese war. Were the islands Chinese only to be seized by Japan, and officialy ceded to him in accordance with the Shimonoseki peace treaty ? On the contrary, were they terrae nullius legally incorporated into Okinawa prefecture ? Can they be dissociated from the other peripherical islands ? We try to explore here a rich but somewhat obscure matter, where simple words sometimes lose their obvious meaning, where law seems to compete with history, space with time, and power with the absence of sovereignty.