Riot police last week stand guard outside the Japanese Embassy in Beijing with two rows of barricades as people protest Japanese control of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, a contested group of islands in the East China Sea. (Sim Chi Yin, The New York Times)
SENKAKU/DIAOYU ISLANDSThe voyage to these remote islands at the center of one of Asia's most dangerous territorial disputes is a bone-jarring seven-hour boat ride from one of Japan's southernmost ports, a long-enough journey that the fishermen who brave the often-stormy seas regularly sail in pairs for safety. The trip from the mainland of China, which also lays claim to the islands, is even longer.
The waters around the islands are thought to be infested with man-eating sharks. And the islands themselves, while tropical, are hardly postcard quality. Uotsuri, the largest of the five islands, is nothing more than a pair of craggy mountains with boulder-strewn slopes that rise 1,000 feet almost straight from the water's edge.
Two nearby islands are nothing more than large rocks covered by scruffy shrubs and bird droppings. No one has lived on the islands since World War II.
The value of the islands has never been in their aesthetics, but in history and geopolitics: what control of the islands says about the relative power of Asia's two economic giants, one rising and the other in what many see as a slow decline.
It remains unclear how far the longstanding territorial conflict could escalate. China has in recent days tamped down protests that were threatening to slip beyond its control, and the two countries share deep economic ties that make the stakes of further escalation clear.
Interest in the islands rose in the late 1960s, when scientists began saying the nearby sea floor could hold oil deposits.
The current rise in tensions was evident during the recent boat trip to the islands, when a coast guard ship trailed the ship carrying the journalists and nationalists, even after extracting promises that no one would make a break for the islands. As the two ships were about three miles from Uotsuri, the coast guard demanded it go no further.
The three nationalists said they planned to point out the need to defend the islands against China by posting a short documentary of their trip on YouTube.
"We must draw the line with the Chinese here," said the leader, Hissho Yanai, 50, who heads the 80-member Association to Protect Our Children's Future from Chinese Intimidation based in Aitama, just north of Tokyo. "If we let them have the Senkaku Islands, they'll come after all of Okinawa next."
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Disputed islands test resolve of two giants: China and Japan
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