China's Diaoyu Islands claim not motivated by resources

Some Japanese media have attacked China's claim of sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands as merely a step to exploit the resources in the waters.

They allege that China's government had not announced the claim after 1895 until bountiful gas and oil were found in the 1970s, and China today is such a pragmatic player that it won't miss any chance of grabbing resources.

These accusations are groundless. China claims Diaoyu Islands as its inherent territory whether or not the territory holds natural resources. On the contrary, Japanese journalists would be better served in depicting growing signs of a resurgence in Japan's militarism amid domestic crisis.

More than a century ago, few could be sure about whether there was gas and oil buried under the waters off the Diaoyu Islands. What has been certain all that time is that Japanese militarists have instigated wars for resources.

For a long time, Japan had insatiably occupied and plundered countries in the Asia-Pacific region as its resources and human power colonies, for which its forces also waged war against the United States.

Just on Wednesday, Japanese Liberal Democratic Party leader Shinzo Abe visited the Yasukuni Shrine, which commemorates many of Japan's war dead, including several high-ranking war criminals.

How could the international community truly believe the resources rhetoric of a nation that was defeated in World War II but has yet to sincerely make deep and profound reflections on its offence to the world?

China needs natural resources, but China in history never gave up trying to recover territory occupied by Japanese invaders, including Taiwan and Diaoyu Islands, its claims to which have repeatedly been endorsed by the Cairo Declaration, the Potsdam Proclamation and the China-Japan Joint Statement issued in 1972.

Japan's illegal control of the Diaoyu Islands is in essence the same as its stealing Taiwan in 1895, all for the encroaching on China's natural and human resources.

China regards territorial integrity as supremacy because it concerns national esteem and sovereignty. More importantly, the prevailing of China's claim reflects a triumph of justice over fascism in World War II which will maintain world peace and stability.