Regional Tensions and Territorial Disputes

A cluster of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan and the Diaoyu Islands in China and Taiwan, has been the focus of a long-running sovereignty dispute among the three governments. Japan has administered the islands since 1972, when the United States returned Okinawa Prefecture, but China and Taiwan both maintain competing historical claims; tensions rose sharply in September 2012, when the Japanese government purchased three of the islands from a private owner, prompting large anti-Japanese protests in Chinese cities and a marked increase in Chinese coast guard patrols near the islands that has continued in the years since.