In mid-September, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said that the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) originally belonged to China’s Qing Dynasty and were ceded to Japan under the Treaty of Shimonoseki. This meant that they should have been given back to the Republic of China (ROC) at the end of World War II. In contrast, former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) says that Japan should have sovereignty over the Diaoyutais.
For serving and former presidents to have such starkly different opinions about their country’s national territory is not just a first for Taiwan, but also a rarity in world history. So, who is right?