(to be revised)

Translation plan for:
Ishii, Nozomu. Senkaku Hanbaku Manyuaru Hyakudai (Senkaku Rebuttal Manual: One Hundred Points). Fukuoka: Shukosha, 2014.
https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/881422380

Senkaku Rebuttal Manual was originally published with the aim of providing the lay reader with commentary on historical records related to the Senkaku Islands written in classical Chinese. The English translation, however, will largely be for academic consumptions. It will consist of the following three parts only, as it omitting nonessential content:

Part One: A Brief History of the Senkaku Islands
(Translating approx. 4,000 English words)
Part Two: One Hundred Lessons on Historical Sources
(Translating approx. 40,000 English words; 150 plates)
Part Three: Rebuttals to Contemporary Discourse
(Translating approx. 30,000 English words)
Appendices: Chronology, index

Outline of this book is as follows.

Part One: A Brief History of the Senkaku Islands
In ancient times, the Senkaku Islands served as the gateway to Ryukyuans returning from other countries. The oldest record dates to 1534, when officials of the Ryukyu Kingdom escorted a ship carrying emissaries of the Ming Dynasty to the Senkaku Islands. From the time of Toyotomi Hideyoshi onward, the islands were also part of a north-south route used by shuinsen (“red-seal” trade ships licensed by the shogunate) heading out from Nagasaki. The history of the Senkakus prior to formally becoming Japanese territory can be described as one of bearing witness to history at the gateway of Japan’s culture.
As historical sources show, red-seal ships sailed a regular route passing through the chain of islands off the Fujian coast (including the Matsu Islands and Penghu Islands). Research by the author has revealed that Chinese records from the period defined the same Fujian coast island chain as the front line of coastal defense. The Senkaku route connects Ryukyu and Fujian by a straight line east and west, with the Matsu Islands sitting at the western entrance. This puts the Senkaku Islands far outside the limits of China’s said coastal defense line.
Furthermore, according to successive generations of official Chinese topographic maps, the officially recognized territory of both the Ming and Qing dynasties extended only as far as the continental coastline, with the exception of the island territories of Hainan and Qing Taiwan. Officially speaking, all other islands fell outside Chinese territory; the Senkaku Islands were likewise far removed from the border. This would remain the status quo until the early years of the Republic of China.
In 1885, the Battle of Tamsui (in northern Taiwan) occurred during the Sino-French War, while British forces occupied the Korean islands of Komundo. An English-language newspaper published by Britons living in Shanghai reported that British troops traveling between Hong Kong and Komundo sighted the Japanese flag as they passed the vicinity of the Yaeyama Islands (to the south of the Senkaku Islands), which suggests that the British had an interest in the territorial rights to Yaeyama. Moreover, there was information that French forces were eyeing the Yaeyama Islands as well. Alarmed by these developments, Japan began taking careful steps toward incorporating the Senkaku Islands to the north of Yaeyama with the intent of consolidating its defense of the latter.
Official Sino-Japanese correspondences in 1893 indicate that Qing China had zero grasp of the relative positions of the Yaeyama Islands, the Senkaku Islands, and Kagoshima, among other places. Neither did it care about Japanese nationals traveling to and setting foot on the Senkakus. The Japanese government was wary of the intervention of Western powers in Sino-Japanese relations over the Ryukyu Islands (present-day Okinawa Prefecture); with regard to the Senkakus as well, it carefully awaited an opportunity to incorporate the islands into its territory. But we now know that these concerns were unfounded, as recent research has revealed Qing to have had no interest whatsoever in the Senkaku Islands. On January 14, 1895, following the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War, Japan formally incorporated the Senkakus into its territory. The objective, as already noted, was to defend the Yaeyama Islands.
Whereas the Strait of Gibraltar in southern Spain and parts of Eastern Europe have been among the historical focal points of interstate disputes in the West, similar historical disputes in East Asia have centered on the Taiwan Straits. The Senkaku Islands, which lie east of the strait beyond the island of Taiwan, have never historically been a region in dispute.

Part Two: One Hundred Lessons on Historical Sources
Part Two will comprise concise quotations from the most relevant segments of 100 sources, primarily premodern historical records written in classical Chinese, each of which will be supplemented with commentary. It will consist of four chapters:
Chapter One: Historical Sources of the Ming Dynasty
Chapter Two: Historical Sources of the Qing Dynasty
Chapter Three: Unidentified Historical Sources
Chapter Four: Historical Sources Ignored by China
·     A small selection of the historical sources and commentaries is as followed.Chen Kan, Shi-Ryukyu-roku (Records of a Mission to Ryukyu), 1534
This is the earliest record by a Ming emissary that mentions the Senkaku Islands. China cites this as evidence of its sovereignty over the islands, but the original text notes that officials of the Ryukyu Kingdom guided the way. The Chinese ignore the paragraph about the Ryukuans’ guidance.
·    Author unknown, Shun-feng-xiang-song (Voyage with the Tail Wind), 1573 or later
China cites this book as evidence that the Chinese were the first to discover and name the islands, claiming it to be the earliest record of the Senkakus, completed in 1403. In its original, however, the second volume of this two-part source mentions the 1570 opening of the port of Nagasaki and the 1573 construction of a fortress in Manila. Moreover, discussions of eastern and western sea routes centering on the island of Borneo are divided between the two volumes, with eastern routes including such places as the Senkaku Islands, Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, Luzon, and Nagasaki all are  mentioned in the second volume. In addition, there are pronounced differences between the navigation techniques featured in the first and its in the second volumes. It follows that the older first volume and the second volume, which was completed no earlier than 1573, are two distinct documents.
·    Official Ming government document, Huangming-Shilu (Veritable Annals of the Ming Dynasty), 1617
According to this document, the chief of coastal defense of Fujian under the Ming Dynasty told a Japanese envoy that the territory of Fujian ended with the six coastal islands, including Matsu and Penghu, and that the ocean beyond those islands was shared by all countries. The Senkakus are situated in the “ocean beyond.”
·    Wang Ji, Shi-Ryukyu-zoroku (Miscellaneous Records of a Mission to Ryukyu), 1683
Wang Ji, an envoy of the Qing Dynasty, depicted a “Zhong-wai” boundary line as being to the east of the Senkaku Islands during a voyage from Fujian to Ryukyu. Zhong-wai literally means “inside and outside.” Today China interprets this as “China and foreign countries” and claims that everything in west of the line is Chinese territory. During the same voyage, however, Wang Ji himself  stated that “the land of Fujian ends here” at the Matsu Islands in the western part of the Taiwan Strait, which proves that Zhong-wai did not denote the dichotomy between China and other countries. According to various other historical sources, “inside” referred to Shuri palace, the seat of the Ryukyu Kindom, and the islands lying west of the main Ryukyu island were perceived as gradually transitioning from the “inside” to the “outside” in order of their distance from the main island. The eastern extremity of the Senkaku Islands was where this transition to the “outside” became complete. Thus, the Senkaku Islands were terra nullius from the perspectives of both the Ryukyu Kingdom and China, outside the realm of either.
·    Quan Kui, Chengchaji (Collection of Seafaring Poetry and Prose), 1756
Chengchaji is a collection of poems that Quan Kui wrote during his voyage to Ryukyu as an ambassador of the Qing Dynasty. In it, he  refered to the islets north of Taiwan as “Chogyo Island,” and he later  crossed the Hua-yi (“China and barbarian countries”) boundary in the middle of the ocean. Only after all this,  he  depicted the Senkakus.
·    Official document, Chongzuan-Fujian Tongzhi (Geographical Dictionary of Fujian Province, Revised Edition), 1871
A paragraph on defense of the northeastern coast of Taiwan says, “the northern limit is the promontory at the northeastern tip of the main island of Taiwan.” The characters for “Chogyo Island” can be found in the same paragraph, but they refer not to the Senkakus but to another island of the same name near Taiwan Island.

Part Three: Rebuttals to Contemporary Discourse
The books and papers given below are all critical of Japan regarding sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands. This book will offer rebuttals to each of them on the basis of premodern historical sources.

Yasushi Inoue, “Senkaku” Retto, Chogyo shoto no shiteki kaimei (Elucidating the History of the “Senkaku” or Chogyo Islands)
Shogoro Takahashi, Senkaku retto noto (Senkaku Islands Notebook)
Zheng Hailin,  (Study of the History and Legal Principles of the Chogyo Islands), revised and enlarged edition. 
Ju Deyuan, Chogyoto seimei (Correct Name of the Chogyo Islands)
Ukeru Magosaki, Nihon no kokkyo mondai: Senkaku, Takeshima, Hoppo ryodo (Japan’s Border Issues: Senkaku, Takeshima, the Northern Territories)
State Council of the People’s Republic of China, Chogyo-to White Paper
Article published in New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof’s blog, “The Inconvenient Truth Behind the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands”
Takashi Okada, Senkaku shoto mondai, ryodo nashonarizumu no maryoku (The Senkaku Islands Issue: The Spell of Territotorial Nationalism)
Ukeru Magosaki, Kensho Senkaku mondai (The Senkaku Issue Examined)
Wu Tianying, Research on the Ownership of CHogyo Island Before the Sino-Japanese Battle, revised and expanded edition.  
Susumu Yabuki, Senkaku mondai no kakushin (The Heart of the Senkaku Issue)
Tadayoshi Murata, Nicchu ryodo mondai no kigen, kobunsho ga kataru futsugo na shinjitsu (Origins of the Sino-Japanese Territorial Issue: Inconvenient Truths Revealed by Official Documents)
A certain Beijing scholar (Liu Jiangyong), “Jijitsu wa yuben ni masaru, Chogyo-to wa tashika ni Chugoku ni zokusu, Nihon bo gakusha (Ishii Nozomu) no byusetsu wo hyousu” (Facts Speak Louder than a Silver Tongue: The Chogyo Islands Undoubtedly Belong to China—Commenting on the Fallacies of a Certain Japanese Scholar [Nozomu Ishii])
Keiji Yamada, Kairo to shite no “Senkaku shoto,” kokai gijutsu shijo no yojo fukei (The Senkaku Islands as a Sea Route: Oceanscapes in the History of Navigation Techniques)

 (End of translation plan)












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