Chinese ships patrol the waters around the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands, a chain of uninhabited islands also claimed by China and Taiwan, near where Kinjo lives. The islands, known to China as the Diaoyu and Diaoyutai in Taiwan, have become one of the focal points of increasing tensions in the region.
“The bow of one of their ships was pointed directly at us and they were chasing us. I don’t know for sure, but I also saw what looked like cannons,” the 50-year-old fisherman said. told CNN. described one of several encounters with the China Coast Guard over the past few years.
Although the territorial dispute over the rock chain stretches back more than a century, China has increased its presence around the islands, especially in recent decades. That raised concerns that Beijing would lay claim to the disputed islands.
China’s Foreign Ministry told CNN that China Coast Guard patrols around the waters surrounding the islands are “an exercise in line with China’s sovereign rights.” But Japan also claims it has sovereign rights over the islands – and it is beefing up its military on Yonaguni and its sister islands in the Nansei chain, east of the Senkakus.
And all of this is of particular concern to Yonaguni residents like Kinjo, who worry about China’s intentions.
Their island, just 68 miles (110 km) off the coast of Taiwan, is a self-governing, democratic island that Beijing claims as its own, and they fear rising tensions could affect the community. their peace, especially if Beijing tries to limit their access to the fishing grounds that determine their livelihoods.
Quiet community with tense front row seats
Occupied by the United States during World War II, Yonaguni was returned to Japan in 1972 as part of Okinawa Prefecture, a strip of 150 islands located south of Japan’s main islands in the East China Sea. It’s Japanese, without a doubt, but located closer to Taiwan than Tokyo – so close that on a clear day you can see the faint outline of the Taiwanese mountains from the western tip of Yonaguni.
In the past, Yonaguni’s cooperation with Taiwan and China has made the island, home to less than 2,000 people, a popular tourist destination with scuba diving and hiking enthusiasts. But its location also puts it on the front lines of geopolitical tensions as China ramps up patrols in waters near the Senkakus and flexes its military muscle in the seas and skies near Taiwan.
Twenty years ago, the Japanese Ministry of Defense detected fewer than 20 Chinese warships – destroyers and frigates – from their shores each year, but not in the country’s contiguous zone, identified determined to be within 24 nautical miles of their coast.
Since then, that number has more than quadrupled to a new high of 71 last year. According to the ministry, including the ships of the China Coast Guard, this number increased to 110.
China has also increased its presence in the skies around Taiwan, repeatedly sending fighter jets into the island’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), prompting Taipei to deploy combat patrol aircraft, giving a warning radio alarms and activation of anti-aircraft missile systems.
Japan also sent fighter jets to respond to Chinese aircraft approaching its airspace.
China’s ruling Communist Party has long claimed Taiwan as part of its territory, though never ruled it. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has refused to rule out the use of force against Taiwan – a prospect that not only threatens peace in the region but also poses a national security risk to Japan. because 90% of the country’s energy goes through the waters near the island.
“Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine makes me concerned about the future of Taiwan and Yonaguni,” said local cafe owner Michiko Furumi. “I’m really worried about my grandchildren’s future.”
When Kinjo started fishing 25 years ago, he had never seen a Chinese vessel in Senkakus, but in the last few years he has increasingly sensed dangerous encounters. “I was blocked very hard. Sometimes I go there and they go around me, and I avoid them because it’s very dangerous, and then they go around me again,” he said.
Kinjo is concerned that China’s claims to the Senkaku Islands and its ambitions to occupy Taiwan could one day stretch to include Yonaguni. “Looking at China’s current moves, I have a sense of crisis that the island will eventually cease to be Japanese.”
Japan expands its defense force
As fear grows, the remote island where Kinjo and Furumi live is changing.
In response to the threat posed by Beijing, Tokyo opened a Japan Self-Defense Forces camp on Yonaguni Island in 2016, with about 160 troops participating in coastal surveillance.
This month, the Japan Air Self-Defense Force relocated a mobile radar unit from Miyakojima to the island to more closely monitor Chinese activity in the area.
In 2019, Japan opened new military bases on the sister islands of Yonaguni, Amami Oshima and Miyakojima, and equipped them with medium-range surface-to-air guided missiles and surface-to-ship guided missiles. short range type 12.
A fourth base under construction on Ishigaki island, east of Yonaguni, will be operational from March 2023, according to Self-Defense Forces officials. The new base will house about 600 troops and both medium and short-range missile systems.
General Yoshihide Yoshida, chief of staff of Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF), told CNN that additional defensive capabilities are needed to send a strong message to adversaries in the territory.
“We must defend our country’s territorial sovereignty at all costs. And, we need to send the message that we will resolutely defend our homeland,” he said.
Despite Japan’s recent attempt to bolster its defenses, Yoko Iwama, a security and international relations expert at the National Institute for Graduate Policy Studies, said the country is easy to hurt.
“We don’t have the ability (to attack) longer, and we definitely need that. What kind, how much, we have to start discussing, but it’s clear what we have at the moment. is not enough,” she said.
Current Japanese missile defense systems can only strike an oncoming target when it is within about 31 miles (50 km), according to Self-Defense Forces officials. But China, for example, has missiles that can be launched from a variety of warplanes from as far away as 186 miles (300 km).
Japan’s post-war constitution restricts the country from being defensive, but Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the government was exploring options to give it the ability to attack bases on enemy territory such as part of self-defense.
Fear for the future
Back in Yonaguni, the transformation from the sleepy island into a strategically important defensive outpost did not make all of its inhabitants feel safer. Innkeeper Fumio Kano said, if anything, she feels more vulnerable.
“I was taught as a child by my grandparents that the presence of a military facility makes you a target for attack,” she said. “I disagree that military facilities are being built on the islands.”
But Shigenori Takenishi, head of the Yonaguni fishing cooperative, says too much is at stake to stand any chance. “We need to strengthen our defense capabilities, including the Self-Defense Forces, but it alone will not be enough to defend Japan,” he said.
“I believe the only way to do this is to work closely with the US under the Japan-US Security Treaty Act and to further enhance Japan’s own defense capabilities.”
Takenishi said that if China blocked access to fishing waters around Senakakus, Yonaguni fishermen would lose their livelihood and the entire island would be affected.
Fisherman Kinjo agrees. “If the Senkaku Islands no longer belong to Japan, the territorial sea will become smaller, and since Japan is surrounded by the sea, this will be a matter of life and death,” he said.
However, Kinjo said he had no choice but to stare at the China Coast Guard ships every time he went out to sea. “Even when I do what I consider scary, I still have to go out to sea to make a living. I can’t stop working. I just do my job day in and day out,” he said.
