evidence: In a speech by then-Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda in 2012, the Japanese stance was clarified: that the Senkaku Islands ‘are clearly an inherent territory of Japan, in light of historical facts and based upon international law’ (MOFA of Japan 2014; Noda 2012). Moreover, Japan denies any ‘issue of territorial sovereignty to be resolved’ in relation to the Senkaku Islands (MOFA of Japan 2016). The Japanese Government, after incorporating the Ryukyu Islands into Okinawa Prefecture, placed the Senkaku Islands in the same prefecture after 1885 surveys (conducted according to the established methods of duly acquiring territorial sovereignty under international law) which showed the islands as terra nullius, i.e., uninhabited with no sign of being under control of any state (MOFA of Japan 2014). Japan has provided documents to argue that, indeed, the PRC recognised the Senkaku Islands as part of Japanese territory in the 1950s and 1960s, such as in a 1953 issue of the China’s People’s Daily (Renmin Ribao), which reports on the populace of the Ryukyu Islands (which includes the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands) battling the US occupation (People’s Daily 1953). This position is further evidenced by Beijing’s silence on America’s use of the Senkaku Islands (Taisho Island and Kuba Island) for firing drills, as well as a Chinese map publisher’s atlas in 1958 illustrating the islands as the ‘Senkaku Group of Islands’ under Okinawa (MOFA of Japan 2010; Okinawa Peace Assistance Center 2016; Sakamoto 2016).