Japan’s Ministry of National Affairs and Communications has issued an administrative warning to broadcaster NHK over an incident in which a Chinese employee referred to the disputed Senkaku Islands (Chinese name for Diaoyu) as “Chinese territory” during a broadcast.
⠀
The authorities demanded that NHK take the necessary measures to prevent a recurrence of such an incident.
⠀
The day before, Japanese TV channel published the results of an internal investigation into a Chinese employee who, on August 19, during a radio broadcast in Chinese, deviated from the approved text and called the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands “Chinese territory.” The employee was fired. Following the incident, the editor in charge of the issue tendered his resignation, and the company’s chairman and four other senior employees voluntarily returned half of their salaries.
⠀
“This is an extremely serious incident in which the company failed to fulfill its responsibilities under the law on the dissemination of information and also violated its own standards for international broadcasting. We again offer our sincere apologies,” NHK said in a statement.
⠀
There is an ongoing territorial dispute between Japan and China over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands in the East China Sea. Japan claims to have occupied them since 1895; Beijing recalls that on Japanese maps of 1783 and 1785, Diaoyu is designated as Chinese territory. After World War II, the islands were under US control and were transferred to Japan in 1972, along with the island of Okinawa. Taiwan and mainland China believe Japan is holding the islands illegally. Japan is convinced that the islands have always been an integral part of Okinawa Prefecture and belong to it by right.
⠀
The territorial issue between China and Japan particularly strained relations between the two countries after the Japanese government bought three of the five uninhabited islands, which Beijing considers Chinese territory, from a private Japanese owner in 2012. In 2018, a warming was expected in relations between the two countries after the visit of then Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to China, during which he met with Xi Jinping and then Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China Li Keqiang.
