Japan's effective nationalization of the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea has opened a Pandora's box of conflicting sovereignty claims that China's late paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, tried in the late 1970s to keep sealed until wiser generations would be able to handle the issue.
Tokyo's purchase of three of the five islets, all of which have long been under Japanese control, from a private owner for ¥2.05 billion on Sept. 11 sparked a chain reaction changing the nature of Japan's relations with the other two claimants to the territory, China and Taiwan — and paradoxically weakened Japan's ability to claim exclusive sovereignty over the islets.
Japan has repeatedly denied the existence of any dispute over the uninhabited islets in order to avoid being forced to negotiate with Taiwan and China, and therefore to ward off making concessions that could weaken its effective administration of the Senkakus and surrounding waters, or highlight the hypocrisy of its criticism of South Korea's stance on the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute.