The Japanese government asked the United States to amend its neutral stance on Japan's sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands in April 1978, a request Washington rejected, declassified U.S. government documents have shown.
The documents, obtained by Kyodo News from the U.S. National Archives, also showed that the American government had declined to alter its impartiality over the Japanese-controlled, Chinese-claimed islands in the East China Sea on the basis that the U.S. government's "position on Senkakus dispute had not changed since 1972," when Okinawa Prefecture, including the uninhabited islets, reverted to Japan.
