外交部部长助理乐玉成在钓鱼岛问题座谈会上的讲话(中英对照)
外交部部长助理乐玉成在钓鱼岛问题座谈会上的讲话
Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, 14 September 2012
Experts and scholars,Friends from across the society,
Good afternoon. I wish to thank the hosts, China Institute of International Studies, Beijing Youth Federation and Xinhuanet, for inviting me to this symposium. We are all well aware of the background of this meeting. Four days ago, regardless of the repeated serious representations made by the Chinese side, the Japanese government announced the “purchase” of Diaoyu Dao and its affiliated Nanxiao Dao and Beixiao Dao and the “nationalization” of these islands. What the Japanese government did constitutes a gross violation of China’s territorial sovereignty. The Chinese government and people have expressed firm opposition to and strong indignation over this action. I would like to use the opportunity today to share with you a few personal observations on this matter.
Japan has been creating trouble and making waves on the issue of Diaoyu Dao for quite some time. This year alone, the Japanese government has named some of Diaoyu Dao’s affiliated islands; some members of the Japanese Diet went “angling” in the waters of Diaoyu Dao; right-wingers landed on the island and staged the farce of a so-called “ceremony to mourn the victims of war”. Finally, the Japanese government has come out from behind the curtain to execute the so-called plan to “purchase” the islands. This course of actions, which are closely sequenced, fully demonstrates that Japan’s “purchase of the islands” is by no means an isolated event. It is a result of the changing political climate in Japan. There is a sinister tendency inside Japan that is taking Japan and China-Japan relations down an extremely dangerous road.
Japan’s economy has been in the doldrums over the past two decades. Hit hard by the international financial crisis and last year’s devastating earthquake on March 11, Japan can hardly afford to be optimistic about its economic outlook. Instability and uncertainties abound in the Japanese politics as a result of ferocious political infighting and frequent change of government. The Japanese right-wing forces, represented by Shintaro Ishihara, Governor of Tokyo, have been using these domestic problems to incite tensions and make trouble, and gradually gained momentum. Some Japanese politicians would very often come out to publicly deny the history of Japanese aggression, the Nanjing Massacre, comfort women and other wartime atrocities. This shows the right-wing forces have become so energetic and assertive that they are already affecting the climate and future course of Japanese politics. Japan’s neighbors and the international community have already warned that Japan is moving towards “ultra-rightism”. Rather than keeping a lid on the trouble-making right-wing forces, the Japanese authorities have chosen to appease and give a free rein to them. The Japanese authorities have even used these forces as a shield to make provocations on neighboring countries in order to shift the attention of its domestic public to somewhere else. This has strained Japan’s ties with almost all of its neighbors. At the same time, the Japanese government is quite active in trying to revise its peace constitution and the Three Non-Nuclear Principles in an attempt to get out of the bounds of the post-war order. These are highly dangerous developments that should put us on the alert.
The sinister tendency in Japan is particularly obvious in the Japanese approach to China-Japan relations. There are always some people in Japan who can hardly come to terms with the fact that China is growing stronger, and who can hardly bear to see the Chinese people becoming better off. There are always those in Japan who would go out of their way to make trouble for China and to disrupt China-Japan relations. Hence they have seized on the issue of Diaoyu Dao as an important lever to undermine China-Japan relations.
It is therefore abundantly clear that the tensions surrounding Diaoyu Dao today are stirred up single-handedly by the Japanese side with the purpose of rewriting Japan’s inglorious history of illegally stealing Chinese territory and denying the historical fact that Diaoyu Dao belongs to China. Such attempts, which are null and void, are made to no avail. A legal maxim known to all says “Nemo dat quod non habet” or “No one gives what he doesn’t have.” What Japan is doing is like someone grabbing a bicycle from his neighbor. No matter who rides that bicycle, he or his son, it does not change the fact that the bicycle does not belong to him. Whatever “deals” Japan makes on Diaoyu Dao and its affiliated islands, whatever Japan does with the islands, it will not, not even in the slightest terms, change the historical fact that Japan invaded and occupied Chinese territory, and it will not change at all China’s territorial sovereignty over Diaoyu Dao and its affiliated islands. |