evidence: Admittedly, there were points of friction. In 1978, when members of the ruling Japanese Liberal Democratic Party criticized their leadership for not leveraging Treaty of Peace and Friendship negotiations to get Beijing to cede its claim, hundreds of Chinese fishing ships appeared near the islands.76 The Chinese central government, however, later described the incident as "accidental," generating speculation that this was the result of internal divisions over the treaty.77 In 1992, the People’s Republic of China passed the Law on the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone, which explicitly names the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands as its territory. This move was reportedly fiercely debated internally and done under pressure from the military.78 But as both Beijing and Tokyo were more focused on the Japanese emperor’s upcoming visit to China, there was limited fallout.79 In 2008, official Chinese ships entered the territorial waters around the islands for the first time.80 In light of other high-level efforts to improve relations at the time, including a Sino-Japanese East China Sea joint development agreement — concluded despite internal Chinese opposition — some have attributed this to dissenting Chinese hardliners.81