Lobbying can't hide truth

Japan is showing no signs of repenting its past military aggression in which it seized China's Diaoyu Islands, instead it has now launched a diplomatic offensive in a bid to lobby international support for its illegal claim to the islands.

Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba is on a trip to the United Kingdom, France and Germany, while two other top parliamentary ministers, including a special advisor to Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, are visiting other countries for the same purpose.

These Japanese officials are on a mission to peddle their lie that Japan has sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands.

By attempting to stand the facts on their heads in a bid to mislead the international community, Japan is trying to deny the historical truth that the Diaoyu Islands are the inherent territory of China and only became a territorial dispute because the US, which administered the islands after the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II, illicitly handed them to its ally.

Japan insists that it does not have a territorial dispute with China over the islands it calls the Senkaku Islands. But the way it is trying to "maintain and administer" the islands contradicts this.

Japan is staking its illegal actions on its alliance with the United States. The two countries conducted a joint exercise to "retake" an island near Guam in September and are considering a full-scale joint military exercise on an uninhabited island near Okinawa in November.

Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force is beefing up cooperation with the US Marine Corps, and it started dispatching young officers to the Marine's command center in Okinawa and other facilities earlier this month.

Such actions belie Japan's claim that it is administering the islands in a "peaceful and stable" manner.

Japan has asked its diplomatic missions all over the world to prepare to post Japan's position online in various languages, but such a public relations offensive can't change the fact that its claim of sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands is illegal.

Japan's global diplomatic campaign won't work. The external support it is now trying to solicit to back its illicit claim will only complicate the situation.

This is the cold, hard fact that Japan can't erase. And this is the premise for talks between China and Japan.

The Japanese envoys should feel ashamed when they try to make their case in Germany, because the root cause of their country's territorial disputes with China and other neighbors is its refusal to face up to its past sins.

(China Daily 10/17/2012 page8)