Japanese Senkaku islands or Chinese Daioyu islands: A criticalanalysis of three diﬀerent Newspaper articles - The Japan Times,
The China Times and The New York Times.
Hakeem Adeolu Azeez
Abstract
This study shows how newspapers’ language influence their readers’ comprehension andacceptance of the reality. Newspaper articles on the islands dispute between Japan and China fromthree different countries, Japan, China and the United States were analyzed.
Different approaches such as transitivity analysis, text analysis and material process were
utilized and evaluated to analyze the three newspaper articles used in this study.
It concluded that the same occurrence was interpreted differently reflecting the writersʼ viewson the issue at hand. In other words, writers used different language resources to achieve theirobjectives of conveying their messages to their readers.
Keywords: C ritical Discourse Analysis or CDA, discourse, language, power, transitivity analysis,existential and behavioral processes.
1.

Introduction

Caption these! ‘China shows off dozens of fighter jets and hundreds of heavy duty military
weaponries in its recent display of military might’. Or ‘resurgent Japan can stand toe to toe withanybody’. These are examples of how newspapers play a vital role in gathering and disseminating
information in the society and how they influence their readers’ comprehension and understanding.
While reading newspapers, some people, often relate what they read to reality though they may beaware（or not）of certain stories or parts of the story being omitted and to what extent the realworld is mirrored by these stories in the newspapers. According to Fairclough（1995 p.81）reports− 121 −RESEARCH BULLETIN

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are rarely even - handed with all the various voices represented. Some are reported as very
important while some are presented as less important. Liao （2012 p.44） wrote that the writers’
world-view is either overtly or covertly encoded through linguistic choices in news reports. Thus,
reports are presented as important or less important based on the writersʼ or editorsʼ judgments.
This brief introduction to newspaper writings leads to the island dispute between Japan and
China as discussed succinctly in the following section. Also included in subsequent sections in thisstudy are; a review of different literature on Critical Discourse Analysis and Transitivity Analysis,
analysis of three different articles using transitivity analysis and a conclusion.
1.1

Island dispute between Japan and China
Japan and China have witnessed heightened tensions in their relationship over a chain ofislands, uninhabited but believed to be rich in untapped oil and natural gas resources, known inJapan as the Senkaku islands and in China as the Daioyu islands. It intensified a few years ago when
the Japanese government decided to buy the islands off from the private owners and nationalized
the islands. This angered the Chinese government and its people leading to violent demonstrations in
Beijing and its neighborhood with demonstrators targeting various Japanese interests in Beijing,
resulting in heavy losses for Japanese individuals and corporations in and around Beijing. In
December 2012, the Japanese house of assembly election saw a new prime minister, Mr. Abe, who isconsidered to be more nationalist and hawkish, been elected. While campaigning, Mr. Abe claimed
that these islands are ‘Japan’s inherent territory’ and promised to stop this challenge from China.
Thus, at that time, China had an interest in how far or what direction, good or bad, this new
Japanese prime minister would take his foreign policy concerning China to. China also had its oncein-a-decade leadership change about the same period elections were going on in Japan. The rulingcommunist party in China too toughened their rhetoric against Japan heightening nationalism that
reminisce their existing and reoccurring regional rivalry in Asia.
In a dangerous twist, sometime in January 2013, a Chinese frigate targeted a Japanese naval
ship with its weapon radar, though no shots were fired, prompting a stern response from theJapanese prime minister that Chinaʼs actions were ‘dangerous’. The fear on both sides and amongst
other nations was that a hasty and heedless captain could accidentally or ignorantly start a war.
Unfortunately, this island dispute stoked a trend of nationalism or extremism in both countries
hurting trade and bilateral relationship between China and Japan, the worldʼs second and thirdlargest economies respectively, though both countries were encouraged to resolve this dispute− 122 −

Japanese Senkaku islands or Chinese Daioyu islands: A critical analysis of three different Newspaper articles - The Japan Times, The China Times and The New York Times.

through dialogue and to avoid any further provocations or unilateral actions.
In the following section, relevant literature on Critical Discourse Analysis will be reviewed.
This is necessary because of the influence and importance of language and power in our societies.
The different terminologies used will be defined in subsequent sections, too.
2.

Literature review

Critical Discourse Analysis or CDA, as will henceforth be referred to in this study, has been
extensively researched and critiqued by many scholars over the last few years with Billig（2002p.35）to writing that critical discourse analysis is close to becoming ‘an intellectual orthodoxy’. Thismeans that critical discourse analysis is almost becoming a traditionalized discipline having its own
particular pattern and established opinions or principle. Furthermore, CDA has been defined
variously by different researchers depending on the viewpoints of these researchers. For instance,
Wodak（2002 p.6）considers CDA to be a ‘research program’ while Fairclough（1989 p.2）sees CDA
as ‘explaining existing conventions as the outcome of power relations and power struggle’. Whichever
way we look at CDA, it basically consists of two fundamental points, that is, ‘the workings of ideology
and power in the society and how language affects or contributes to these workings’（Breeze 2011 p.
494）.
Furthermore, there are many distinguished schools or groups in the CDA field and according
to Breeze （2011 p.493）, they include the initial British approaches as represented by Fairclough（1985）and its later forms as related by Chouliaraki and Fairclough（1999）. These later forms include
Van Dijk （1991） and his groupʼs ‘sociocognitive model’, Wodakʼs （1990） led ‘discourse historicalschool’, Jagerʼs （1999） Duisburg school and Maas （1989） approach which examines how
contradictions in society are registered in texts. Therefore, it is important to look at CDA from anacross-the-board view, that is, from a vast embodiment of theories and researches from the numerous
schools within the critical discourse analysis.
Before going into details of what the Critical Discourse Analysis is about, it is equallyimportant to look at various distinct terms such as discourse, language and power and what makes
them critical. According to Widdowson（2004 p.8）, discourse is the pragmatic process of meaning
negotiation and text, its product. This means that discourse can be defined by its effect and can also
be seen as a way of controlling and organizing what can be discussed and by anyone as well as how− 123 −RESEARCH BULLETIN

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it can be discussed. CD analysts Fairclough and Wodak（1997 p.261）further explained discourses as‘partly realized in ways of using language, but partly in other ways’ such as visual. Language, is not
powerful on its own – it gains power by the use powerful people make of it. Wodak（2002 p.10）and
Kroger and Wood（2000, p. 4）stated that language is taken to be not simply a tool for description
and a medium of communication but as a social practice, a way of doing things. Power includes
authority over a gathering of people by another an individual or another gathering of people.
CDA is considered critical because it is not just language-based in its entire scope. The CDAʼscritical aspect brings scholars with different ideologies together in challenging the use of language.
Wodak （2002 p.6） stated that CDA has its roots in “classical rhetoric, text linguistics andsociolinguistics, as well as in applied linguistics and pragmatics”. Therefore, CDA can simply be said
to be the distinct interest in the interrelationship between language and power and the examinationof their social context looking at why and how words, spoken or written, are conceived andexpressed and according to Wodak（2002, p.7）has never been seen as ‘providing a single or specifictheory’.
CDA as ‘socially constitutive as well as socially conditioned’ as it is（Wodak, 2002 p.8）, it isinteresting to note that some critical discourse analysts still find some contradictions in its models
and standards. For instance, Billig（2002 p.36）views the CDAʼs new-found status likely to make its
reflexivity impossibly an integral part of its critical agenda. Other analysts highlight the internal
discordances in CDA among its researchers either clamoring for more talks and discussions before
arriving at a definition as a school or those who look at such desire for harmony as misleading,
Fairclough and Wodak（1997 p. 271）
. Hammersley（1997 p.237）criticized the basic assumptions of
CDA faulting Fairclough and others of ‘affirming the need for a critical approach as though thesewere more obvious and unproblematic’ arguing firstly that orthodox Marxist theory is now
discredited and secondly to the analysis of the Frankfurt school as only providing immediate
antecedents for CDA while Slembrouck （2001 p.40） stressed that ‘CDA continues to be unclear
about its exact preferences for a particular social theory’. Martin（2004 p.186）brought appropriate
attention to the negative feature of CDA, putting CDA among ‘a pathological disjunction in 20th
century social sciences and humanities research which systematically elides the study of social
processes which make the world a better place in favor of critique of processes which disempoweredand oppressed’ seeking determined efforts at re-designing or re-adapting CDA in a more positiveway.

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In concluding this section, it could be argued that the strength of CDA, simply in linking real
language occurrence to the operatives of power in the real world, should not be subverted inprocedural defects or academic deficiencies.
In the following section, transitivity analysis, used in analyzing the three articles in this study
will be discussed because it serves as hypothetical meanings and functions of syntactic components
linguistically.
2.1

Transitivity Analysis
Transitivity analysis has been widely used to understand the language of speakers andwriters Nguyen （2012 p.86）. Nguyen stated further that researchers have shown that language
structures can produce certain meanings and ideologies not explicitly conveyed to readers using thetransitivity analysis. This simply means that transitivity analysis is used to ascertain the relationship（s）between words and their meanings in an article or as spoken. While Simpson（1993 p.88）notedthat transitivity simply refers to how meaning is represented in the clause, Kress（1976 p.169）statesthat transitivity is representation in language processes. Hasan（1988 p.63）affirms that transitivity isconcerned with a coding of the goings on: who does what in relation to whom/what, where, when,
how and why. This simply means that transitivity helps speakers or writers convert in language
their imaginative cogitation of the world and their explanation of their experience of things aroundthem. Furthermore, some three factors ascertain if a clause is transitive or not. Setiawan et al（2011）
discussed these three factors as:（a）The process, that is, the activity contained in the sentence itself
and disclosed in the form of a verb,（b）the participants, that is, as connected with the process above
and disclosed in the form of a nominal subject or object, and（c）the circumstances, that is, the stateor condition associated with the process and found in the form of a statement phrase or prepositional
phrase. Processes, as defined above, can be distinguished according to （i） whether the verbs
describe an action or event, material process,（ii）whether the verb describes what goes on in theinternal world of the mind, mental process, （iii） whether any relationship exists between two
participants, relational process,（iv）the process of saying, verbal process,（v）intermediate between
material and mental process, behavioural process and,（vi）existential process usually recognizable
because the subject is present. However, both behavioural and existential processes deals mostly
with spoken discourses and will not be analyzed in this work.

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2.2
2.2.1

No.86

Analysis
Articles to be analyzed
Here, three newspaper articles from China Times（CT）, Japan Times（JT）and New YorkTimes（NYT）will be analyzed. These newspapers have been chosen to reflect languages and biases
expected from the two peoples involved, Chinese and Japanese, as well as the western world viewed
by the Chinese as pro-Japanese or anti-Chinese. These articles were chosen because of theircontrasting styles, The China Times（CT）, being pro-government, The Japan Times（JT）seen as
neutral, especially among foreigners living in Japan like the writer, and The New York Times（NYT）being business oriented. Also these articles were chosen from different period of time toreflect the rhetoric employed at different periods in these countries. In the next sections, analysis ofdata will be done in three stages; firstly the identification of processes found in the corpus of thetexts. Secondly, analysis of frequencies of occurrence of material process type（such as actors andgoals）found within these articles and thirdly, the use of negative verbal process in the three articles.
2.3

Text Analysis
Table 1: Process types of the three articles
Japan Times（JT）

China Times（CT）

New York Times（NYT）

Material

49（50.51%）

9（36%）

29（42.03%）

Mental18（18-56%）

1（4%）

6（8.7%）

Relational

17（17.53%）

7（28%）

9（13.04%）

Verbal13（13.40%）

8（32%）

25（36.23%）

Total

97（100%）25（100%）69（100%）The distribution of the process types here gives us a better picture of the types of meanings
more commonly used to envision the real world in these newspaper articles. The results of theanalysis of the Process types of the three articles are summarized in Table 1 above. In the process
types employed, the three articles are similar because material type is the most used and this showsthat they all define the world in terms of actions and happening. Furthermore, in the CT and NYT
articles, the verbal process type was used more and, in fact, having more than doubled thepercentage compared with the JT article showing a degree of difference in realizing events innewspaper articles in these countries.
In the next section, the material process type will be evaluated and the participants（actors
and goals）and verbs in this process type will be examined.

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Japanese Senkaku islands or Chinese Daioyu islands: A critical analysis of three different Newspaper articles - The Japan Times, The China Times and The New York Times.

Table 2. Percentages of actors of material process in the three articles.
ActorsJapan Times（JT）

China Times（CT）

New York Times（NYT）

Japanese- government,
people and its oﬃcials

27（25%）

4（9.03%）17（21.79%）

Chinese- government,
people and its oﬃcials

31（48%）

23（53.49%）

27（34.62%）

Senkaku islands4（3.7%）0（0%）

1（1.28%）

Diaoyu islands and East
China sea4（3.7%）

6（13.95%）

2（2.56%）

Japanese military andwarships

16（14.81%）0（0%）

4（5.13%）Chinese military andwarships

13（12.04%）0（0%）

10（12.82%）

Ellipses10（9.26%）

10（23.26%）

17（21.79%）

Total

108（100%）

43（100%）78（100%）As seen in table 2 above, the categorization of actors by their properties （Japanese
government and its officials, Chinese government and its officials, Senkaku islands, Diaoyu islands,
Japanese military, Chinese military and Ellipses）shows who were included or excluded as an active
source of action in these articles. Table 2 shows differences in the frequency of these actors in the
different articles.
Firstly, the three articles have higher percentages for the Chinese government and its officials
as an actor compared with any other actor categorized. This could mean that the Chinese
government and its officials are seen as a principal actor in this island dispute. Examples of this arein the following clauses;
JT- Beijing should endeavor to create a peaceful environment in which China and Japan canresolve the Senkaku island dispute through dialogue.
CT- The Diaoyu islands are an inalienable part of Chinaʼs territory and the Chinese
government and itʼs people will absolutely make no concession on issues concerning its sovereignty
and territorial integrity”.
Next is the frequency of Japanese/Chinese military and warships as actors. It is noteworthy,
as shown in table, to find that CT made no mention of Chinese or Japanese militaries or movementof warships even though both countries have destroyers deployed at areas around these disputed
islands. However, JT has the third and fourth highest percentages of militaries and warships in its
article showing that the Japanese side is more concerned on effects of militarizing this dispute as
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JT- It is deplorable that the Chinese warships took these highly provocative and dangerous
actions. Beijing should realize that such conduct could lead to an armed clash and should order the
Chinese military to exercise restraint.
Also of importance here is the frequency of occurrence of Senkaku/ Diaoyu islands in thesearticles. CT has 0% for Senkaku but has 13.95% for Diaoyu while JT has an equal 3.7% for both
Senkaku and Daioyu as material process actors. It is interesting to find that the writer（s）of CT did
not mention or recognize the word Senkaku” even once though the writer（s）of JT recognized theword Diaoyu” in equal proportion with Senkaku, the Japanese name for the disputed islands.
Lastly, looking at ellipses as an actor from CT and NYT articles with 23.26% and 21.79%
respectively, the frequent use of this actor, ellipse, in passive clauses affects the representation of
events by not directly revealing who did what in some clauses as underlined below.
CT- The Chinese government and its people cherish their country’s hard-won nationalsovereignty and dignity more than anybody,”
NYT- He did not explain how he defined such hacking attacks, nor say if any were successful.
2.4

Material process type used as goals‘Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera disclosed on Tuesday that Chinese warships in January

had locked their fire-control radar on a destroyer of the Maritime Self-Defense Force and an MSDF
helicopter in two separate incidents in the East China Sea’ （JT article）. JT article shows theunderlined phrase above as the goals receiving actions from a Chinese warship. The language usedhere shows the Japanese destroyer and helicopter as innocent and the Chinese warship as
performing negative actions capable of escalating the already tensed situation around the East China
Sea.
Also, ‘After the East China Sea incidents were disclosed to the Japanese public,’ the Japanesepublic, is the goal receiving the news of the East China Sea incidence. The use of passive voices inboth examples above from JT foregrounds the goals and background the actors, that is, the writerseeks to present the goals as more important while situating the actor in the rear by using thepassive voices ‘had locked’ and ‘were disclosed’ respectively.
2.4.1

Verbs in Material Processes
Here, different interpretations to some verbs used in the material processes of the three− 128 −

Japanese Senkaku islands or Chinese Daioyu islands: A critical analysis of three different Newspaper articles - The Japan Times, The China Times and The New York Times.

articles will be analyzed. The choice of actor and goal constituents are not the only factors that
present reality in these articles, the choice of verbs also affects the presentation of reality. Chen
（2005, p.37）defined verbal process as ‘demonstrating a certain negativity of feeling on the part of
the writer towards the person whose words the verbal process is being used to introduce’. In otherwords, negative verbal process is prejudicial, detestable and inimical actions to the goals employedby the writer（s）. Examples of such negative material process verbs used in the articles are:
‘It is deplorable that the Chinese warships took these highly provocative and dangerous
actions’ JT. By using the verb ‘took’ here, the writer tends to portray the Chinese warships as
performing a negative action supporting this with a stronger adverb, highly, and adjectives,provocative and dangerous.
‘Recent signals from China are confusing’ JT. Confusing, as used in this clause, also shows theextent to which the writer is biased in favor of Japan on this issue portraying Chinese actions as
jumbled or disordered.
‘China accused Japan on Thursday of escalating the maritime tensions in their relationship byharassing Chinese ships’ NYT. Accused, or blamed, is another negative verb in material process
employed by parties in this dispute, in this case China, in their strong rhetorical war. China haspresented Japan to readers as the oppressor in this article in the NYT and itself as the oppressed.
Lastly, NYT deviated from the island dispute issue and showed its anti- Chinese side when it
wrote that ‘Mr. Geng repeated China’s denials that it was behind Internet hacking attacks aimed at
United States government, corporate and media Web sites’. The word denial, that is a refusal toacknowledge, as used by the writer could have been substituted with a more straightforward word
like ‘objected’.
3.

Conclusion

As seen in this study, the transitivity system helps in the analysis of language in action and in
substance and shows how the clause（s） and its fragments are likely sources of information.
Furthermore, Transitivity Analysis gives readers linguistic clues to buttress their perception of astory in deciding on the storyʼs meaning.

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Finally, as observed from the analysis of the three different articles from three different
peoples in this work, the same event can be represented differently reflecting the writersʼ
perspective on the issue at hand. This simply means that writers will utilize different language
resources to achieve their objectives of conveying their messages to the reading public as seen in
the different articles analyzed in this work.

References
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Newspaper References
The China Times edition of 5th of September, 2012 from http://www.thechinatimes.com/online/2012/09/5010.html
retrieved on March 2nd, 2013.
The Japan Times edition of 8th of February, 2013 from http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2013/02/08/editorials/
chinas-dangerous-conduct/#.UVKhBIwayK0 retrieved on March 2nd, 2013.
The New York Times edition of 1st of March, 2013 from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/world/asia/chinaaccuses-japan-of-provoking-tensions.html?̲r=0 retrieved on March 2nd, 2013.

Newspaper articles used in this work
1.
The Japan Times（JT）. From http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2013/02/08/editorials/chinas-dangerous-conduct/#.
UVKhBIwayK0
EDITORIALS
Chinaʼs dangerous conduct
FEB 8, 2013 ARTICLE
Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera disclosed on Tuesday that Chinese warships in January had locked their ﬁre-control
radar on a destroyer of the Maritime Self-Defense Force and an MSDF helicopter in two separate incidents in the
East China Sea.
On Thursday, Mr. Onodera told the Diet that the Chinese action could constitute a threat of force, which the United
Nations Charter calls on U.N. member nations to refrain from in their international relations.
It is deplorable that the Chinese warships took these highly provocative and dangerous actions. Beijing should realizethat such conduct could lead to an armed clash and should order the Chinese military to exercise restraint.
Japan lodged a protest with China on Tuesday and requested that it take measures to prevent a recurrence. This is areasonable response on the part of Japan.
It is imperative for Japan to act in a coolheaded manner in dealing with these incidents and make utmost eﬀorts to
diﬀuse tension. For its part, China should demonstrate sincerity by announcing concrete measures.
According to Defense Ministry oﬃcials, at around 10 a.m. on Jan. 30 the MSDF destroyer Yudachi detected that the
Chinese frigate Jiangwei II had locked its ﬁre-control radar on it. The two ships were only about 3 km apart.
Fire-control radar is used to aim weapons at a target and once itʼs locked the weapons can be ﬁred immediately. The
radar was locked on the MSDF destroyer for several minutes.
Beijing must realize that the Chinese frigateʼs action was, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has noted, dangerous conductthat could have led to an unforeseeable situation.
On Jan. 19, the Chinese frigate Jiangkai I locked its ﬁre-control radar on a SH-60K helicopter from the MSDF destroyer
Onami, setting oﬀ the helicopterʼs threat-alarm system. In both incidents, the MSDF ships exercised self-restraint
strictly following the principle of defense-only defense, but clearly the crews felt a high level of tension.
According to Defense Ministry oﬃcials, following Japanʼs nationalization of three islets of the Senkaku Islands in
September, two Chinese frigates have been deployed in an area 110 km to 130 km north of the islands at all times
and MSDF ships are observing their actions. It is imperative that MSDF ships continue to exercise self-restraint.
A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Wednesday said that she learned of the incidents through media
reports. She also hinted that her ministry did not know the details of the incidents until it received the protest
from the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
It is not known at this moment whether the Chinese leadership, including Chinese Communist Party General Secretary
Xi Jinping, directed the Chinese Navy to lock its ﬁre-control radar on Japanʼs MSDF ships or whether the frigatesinitiated the actions on their own.
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Either way, the action by the two Chinese frigates can be regarded as making a threat.
The Chinese leadership should realize that the use of threats will not produce positive results and will only serve to fannationalism in Japan, thus further worsening bilateral relations. It also should realize that such actions will
strengthen a perception in the international community that China is a menace to regional peace and order.
Beijing should endeavor to create a peaceful environment in which China and Japan can resolve the Senkaku Islands
dispute through dialogue.
If China continues to adopt a threatening attitude toward Japan, Japanese public opinion of China will worsen. This inturn will reduce the ability of the Japanese government to maneuver to improve bilateral ties.
Recent signals from China are confusing. When Mr. Xi and visiting Komeito leader Mr. Natsuo Yamaguchi met in
Beijing on Jan. 25, the Chinese leader said that it is important to solve the Senkaku issue through dialogue andconsultations.
In a personal letter that Mr. Yamaguchi handed to Mr. Xi, Mr. Abe said that the Japan-China relationship is one of themost important bilateral relationships. According to Chinaʼs media, the Chinese side highly praised the letter.
When former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama met with former Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan on Jan. 15 andformer Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama met with other Chinese oﬃcials on Jan. 29, the Chinese side stressed
the importance of the relations between China and Japan. But it was during this period that the radar-lockincidents occurred.
Because China is in the midst of a leadership transition, there is a possibility that communication between thegovernment and military is rocky. The radar-lock incidents in the East China sea show that Beijing muststrengthen civilian control of the military.
After the East China Sea incidents were disclosed to the Japanese public, Mr. Abe called on China to go back to theprinciple of a strategic relationship of mutual beneﬁt.
Mr. Abe should try to arrange a meeting with Mr. Xi to discuss this in person.
In addition, Japan and China should immediately establish a hotline between the leaders of the Self-Defense Forces andthose of the Chinese military to prevent incidents from spinning out of control.

The China Times（CT）. From http://www.thechinatimes.com/online/2012/09/5010.html
Absolutely no concession on Diaoyu Islands, says Chinese premier
Premier Wen Jiabao said Monday the Diaoyu Islands are an inalienable part of Chinaʼs territory and China will
absolutely make no concession on issues concerning its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Despite repeated solemn representations of China, the Japanese government announced Monday it would purchasepart of Chinaʼs Diaoyu Islands from private Japanese owners and bring the islands under state control.
Also Monday, Premier Wen pledged China wonʼt back down on issues surrounding the Diaoyu Islands.
The Diaoyu Islands are an inalienable part of Chinaʼs territory, and the Chinese government and its people will
absolutely make no concession on issues concerning its sovereignty and territorial integrity, Wen said while
addressing an inauguration ceremony for a statue of late Chinese leaders Zhou Enlai and Chen Yi at the China
Foreign Aﬀairs University in Beijing.
China has repeatedly told Japan that it holds a ﬁrm stance that the Diaoyu Islands and adjacent islets have been an
inalienable part of Chinaʼs territory since ancient times, and that any of Japanʼs unilateral moves against Chinese
nationals is illegal and invalid.
The Chinese government and its people cherish their countryʼs hard-won national sovereignty and dignity more thananybody, Wen told the students, noting that China has maintained such a ﬁrm and unyielding character even insituations of extreme hardship.
The New York Times （NYT）. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/world/asia/china-accuses-japan-of-provokingtensions.html?̲r=0
China Accuses Japan of Escalating Tensions Over Disputed Islands
By CHRIS BUCKLEY
Published: February 28, 2013
HONG KONG ̶ China accused Japan on Thursday of escalating the maritime tensions in their relationship byharassing Chinese ships, continuing a succession of tit-for-tat accusations that reﬂect increasing distrust between
the two countries.

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Japanese Senkaku islands or Chinese Daioyu islands: A critical analysis of three different Newspaper articles - The Japan Times, The China Times and The New York Times.

A spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of National Defense, Geng Yansheng, made the accusations on the same daythat the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, likened recent intrusions by Chinese ships into Japanese-controlledwaters near contested islands to Argentinaʼs 1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands, which set oﬀ a brief war with
Britain.
Tensions over the East China Sea islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China, deepened thismonth when Japan said that a Chinese Navy frigate had brieﬂy used missile-directing radar to lock onto a Japanesemilitary ship.
China vehemently denied doing that.
At a brieﬁng for Chinese journalists in Beijing, Mr. Geng repeated that denial and said he had proof that Japan would
be to blame for any mishaps.
For a long time, Japan has closely tracked Chinese vessels and craft to monitor and interfere with them, Mr. Gengsaid, according to a transcript on the Chinese Ministry of National Defense Web site.
This is the source of the maritime security problems between China and Japan, he said.
The Chinese side has ample evidence of this, and reserves the right to take corresponding measures.
Mr. Geng suggested that Mr. Abe was seeking to raise tensions.
China has always taken maritime safety very seriously and does not want to see accidents at sea, Mr. Geng said. But
the Japanese leader has repeatedly made provocative statements, exaggerated the China threat and made much ofmilitary issues, intentionally provoking military confrontation.
In a speech to Japanʼs Parliament, however, Mr. Abe used a comparison to the 1982 Falkland Islands war to cast Chinaas the provocateur.
He cited the memoir of the British prime minister at the time, Margaret Thatcher, who said her decision to go to war
was an eﬀort to defend the principle that rule of law should prevail over the use of force.
I want to appeal to international society that in modern times, eﬀorts to change the status quo by the use of force will
justify nothing, said Mr. Abe, referring to the standoﬀ with China.
The festering dispute over the islands erupted in September, when Japan bought three of the ﬁve islands from a
private owner in what it said was as an eﬀort to stop them from falling into the hands of an ardent Japanesenationalist.
China, however, called the purchase a provocative act that eﬀectively denied its territorial claims, and violent protests
broke out in dozens of Chinese cities.
In the months since, China has sought to demonstrate its claim to the islands by sending government vessels andmilitary ships and aircraft near them, in areas where Japanese Coast Guard ships conduct patrols.
Last Friday, Japan said it had asked the Chinese government to explain why it had placed several buoys in waters
near the disputed islands.
A Chinese oﬃcial said on Tuesday that the buoys were meant to monitor the weather, despite Japanese news reportsthat they could be used for tracking Japanese submarines.
At the news brieﬁng, Mr. Geng repeated Chinaʼs denials that it was behind Internet hacking attacks aimed at UnitedStates government, corporate and media Web sites.
He said the Ministry of National Defense Web site and another Chinese Web site devoted to military news weretargeted by an average of 144,000 hacking attacks a month from abroad last year, almost two-thirds of them fromthe United States.
He did not explain how he deﬁned such hacking attacks, nor say if any were successful.

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