evidence: Explainer | Diaoyu/Senkaku islands dispute - The island chain, claimed by China, Taiwan and Japan, is made up of five islets and three barren rocks covering an area of 7 square kilometres [...] Japan annexed the archipelago following China’s defeat in the first Sino-Japanese war from 1894 to 1895. Yet the islands were left out of the Treaty of San Francisco at the end of the second world war that returned to China most of the territories previously occupied by Japan. [...] Two years earlier, a report highlighting the potential for oil reserves in the area prompted China to reassert its territorial claims over the islands. Japan does not recognise China’s claims nor the existence of a dispute over the islands’ sovereignty.