Fishing Near the Senkaku Islands
FTV spends a day with Shotaro Tamashiro, a fisherman from the island of Yonaguni, the westernmost island of Japan:
Like many other fishermen in the area, Tamashiro wants to fish around the nearby Senkaku Islands. However, because of tensions with China, Japanese authorities have told citizens that they cannot take their private boats into the waters around the islands.
On the day they film with Tamashiro, they come across another fishing boat. It is a boat from Taiwan that is illegally catching fish in Japanese territorial waters. The Taiwanese fishermen make no effort to hide what they are doing. The intruders won’t leave unless the Japanese coast guard are called in. Tamashiro regularly comes across foreign fishing vessels, and says it is very common for them to escape back into Taiwanese waters before the Japanese coast guard can catch them.
Tamashiro says he has even been fired upon by Taiwanese patrol boats. ( It is unclear whether the incident he refers to took place in a disputed area. )
Also shown in the clip is a meeting between a Fisheries Agency official and Yonaguni fishermen. They ask that the official confirm that the Senkaku Islands are Japanese territory, and demand to know when they can fish in the area. He confirms that the islands are part of Japan, but he gives no concrete answer about the fishing question.
Tamashiro and other Yonaguni residents are disappointed in the weakness the Japanese government has shown towards China in the recent dispute over the arrest of a Chinese trawler captain who rammed Japanese patrol boats in the waters around the Senkakus. If the islands are Japanese territory, why does the Japanese government stop Japanese citizens from fishing in their vicinity? If Chinese patrol boats seized Japanese fishermen, would the Japanese government stand up to China?
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