Last weekend, angry young protesters in China and Japan took to the streets to demonstrate to the international community their countries' claims over what Tokyo calls the Senkaku Islands and Beijing refers to as the Diaoyu.
One of the sides must be wrong, historically. But which side? Each government, of course, says it has the better claim.
The mainland Chinese government and state-controlled media say the uninhabited islets in the East China Sea have belonged to China since ancient times, going as far back as the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). They also say Japan "stole" the islets together with Taiwan in the closing days of the first Sino-Japanese War (August 1894 to March 1895) in which Japan was victorious, critically weakening the already ailing Qing Dynasty.