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I would say it is more China's fault based on the reasons why it was held and why it was handed back to Japan in 1972.
Originally the islands were going to be handed over to Nationalist China following World War II as a spoils of war. But China's Civil War stepped up before the San Francisco Treaty was finished and China was not made part of it directly. Later, by the time of the Korean War, Taiwan was given a seperate treaty similar to the San Francisco Treaty to end the conflict with Japan (at that time still under Allied occupation). Mainland China was not part of the deal since by then it was communist and an enemy of the remaining Allies. The islands remained under US control. As far as the Allies are concerned there is only one official China....Nationalist China on Taiwan.
Then comes 1972. The last Japanese soldier surrenders. Nixon goes to China and opens relations with the Communists. Because of this, Taiwan "officially" is considered part of Mainland China. The time for the US occupation of the Senkaku ended, but handing it over to Taiwan would mean handing over to China, and they were still communists and they the Vietnam War was ending. The US might open relations, but they were not going to give the Chinese something that could be a problem later. So with the Japanese now fully surrendered and on the slow but steady economic recovery, the islands reverted back to Japan.
Without the division of China and its civil war, the islands would have been Chinese by 1950. But because of that war and the political ramifications of the Cold War, by the time it the islands needed to go to someone other than the United States as a caretaker...Japan got them back. There was no longer a need for a spoils of war and Japan was now an ally against Communism.
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