Senkaku Islands

Who controls the Senkaku Islands?

Japan does. The islands lie about 170 km north of Ishigaki, the Japanese city that administers them, about 170 km northeast of Taiwan and about 330 km from mainland China. Uotsuri, the largest island, covers about 3.81 km². Japan's government bought three of the islands from their private owners, the Kurihara family, on September 11, 2012 for 2.05 billion yen. Japan lets nobody land, not even Ishigaki's mayor.

Japanese nationalist activists put up a makeshift light on Uotsuri in 1978. A right-wing group later built a permanent lighthouse, which has been state property since 2005. Two of the islands, Kuba and Taisho, are still listed as US military bombing ranges but have not been used since 1978. Goats released on Uotsuri in 1978 by a private political group now number an estimated 300 or more. They have stripped much of the vegetation and threaten the Senkaku mole, which lives nowhere else.

Why do Japan, China and Taiwan all claim the islands?

Japan says a cabinet decision of January 14, 1895 made the islands Japanese after surveys found them uninhabited and under no state's control. A Fukuoka businessman, Koga Tatsushiro, then collected albatross feathers and made dried bonito there. Around 1908, 248 people in 99 households worked on the islands. In 1920, China's consul in Nagasaki thanked islanders for rescuing 31 shipwrecked Fujian fishermen and placed the wreck at "Wayo Island, of the Senkaku Islands, Yaeyama District, Okinawa Prefecture, Empire of Japan," a letter Japan often cites.

China says Chinese records named the islands centuries earlier and that they are affiliated to the island of Taiwan, which China considers part of China. China says Japan took them during the war of 1894-95, when Japan also took Taiwan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki of April 17, 1895. China says Japan should have returned the islands along with Taiwan in 1945.

The United States ran the islands with Okinawa after the war and returned administration of them to Japan on May 15, 1972. A survey sponsored by a UN body, reported in 1969, said the seabed nearby might hold large oil reserves. Taiwan claimed the islands in 1971, and China did so on December 30, 1971. Taiwan makes a similar historical case but claims the islands for the Republic of China, its official name, and refuses to cooperate with China's government on the claim.

What happens in the waters around the islands?

Chinese coast guard ships sail almost every day in the contiguous zone, a belt of sea between 12 and 24 nautical miles (22 to 44 km) from the islands, just outside their territorial waters. Japan's coast guard counted them there on 357 days in 2025, a record for the fourth year running. From January 1 to October 8, 2026, Chinese ships were in the contiguous zone on 277 of 281 days. One unbroken stretch lasted 335 days, from November 2024 to October 2025.

Chinese ships also enter the territorial waters around the islands. They did so on 30 days in 2025, often to follow Japanese fishing boats. The longest stay so far lasted 92 hours, in March 2025. On May 3, 2025 a Chinese coast guard helicopter flew over the islands for about 15 minutes, the first such flight by a Chinese coast guard helicopter. On October 10, 2026 four Chinese ships spent about an hour and 40 minutes inside the territorial waters off Uotsuri. China called it a "rights-protection patrol." Since late 2025, Japanese officials have quietly asked fishermen to stay away from the islands.

Why did the Senkaku dispute flare up?

Deng Xiaoping was China's vice premier in 1978 and soon became its leader. In October 1978 he said, by the usual translation, that "our generation is not wise enough" to settle the question and the next would be wiser. China says Japan agreed to shelve the dispute. Japan says no such agreement exists.

On September 7, 2010 a Chinese trawler collided with two Japan Coast Guard ships near the islands. Japan said the trawler rammed them and arrested its captain. Traders reported that China halted rare earth exports to Japan, which China denied. In 2012, Tokyo's governor, Shintaro Ishihara, raised money to buy the islands. To stop him, Japan's government bought three islands itself in September 2012, and large anti-Japan protests swept China. In November 2013, China declared an air defense identification zone over the East China Sea, including the islands. Inside it, China demands that foreign aircraft identify themselves.

On November 7, 2025, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told Japan's parliament that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could be a "survival-threatening situation". Under Japanese law, that would allow Japan's forces to fight alongside an ally. China answered with a travel warning, a halt to seafood imports and, in January 2026, a ban on exports to Japan of dual-use goods, items with both civilian and military uses. In November 2025, China's coast guard announced new patrols around the islands.

Would the United States defend the Senkaku Islands?

Article 5 of the US-Japan security treaty commits the United States to act against an armed attack on territory Japan administers. In April 2014, Barack Obama became the first US president to say this covers the Senkaku Islands. President Trump and Japan's then prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, reaffirmed it in a joint statement on February 7, 2025. The United States takes no position on who owns the islands.

The islands lie about 170 km from Taiwan, so a war over Taiwan would come close to them. China was angered by Takaichi's November 2025 remarks, which suggested Japan could use force if China attacked Taiwan, and stepped up patrols around the islands afterwards. Japan wants Takaichi to meet China's leader Xi Jinping at the APEC summit in Shenzhen on November 18-19, 2026. China has reportedly offered a meeting with Premier Li Qiang instead.