Japan's rejection of China olive branch on Senkaku-Diaoyu spat may be sign of tighter US ties
In the midst of current tensions between China and Japan in the East China Sea, a Chinese academic said Beijing wanted Tokyo to know it was intent on reducing its naval presence in the area earlier this year - an olive branch that was summarily snapped when right-wing forces in Japan hired fishing boats to go into the disputed waters, resulting in skirmishes between the two sides.
Liu Qingbin, an associate professor at Yokohama National University in Japan, said that a few months before Chinese President Xi Jinping was due to visit Japan in April, in what would have been the first visit by a Chinese president since 2008, Beijing had almost completely reduced its maritime activities in the Diaoyu Islands, or what the Japanese call the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.
However, Liu said the two sides went right back to skirmishing after the Japanese fishing boats entered the disputed waters, and Beijing once again began increasing its maritime activities there.
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"The true situation was that China had actually released enormous goodwill earlier this year", but that plan was derailed by the Japanese right-wingers, who wanted to create a scene before and during Xi's visit, Liu said.
"The Japanese claimed that the reduction in military activities was due to typhoons, but there were hardly any typhoons in February," Liu added.
Xi's visit was later postponed, ostensibly due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and no new date was set.
Liu added: "This resulted in a tit-for-tat scenario and the situation that we are in today."
A Chinese missile frigate launches an anti-ship missile during a military exercise in the waters near the South China Sea. Photo: AP alt=A Chinese missile frigate launches an anti-ship missile during a military exercise in the waters near the South China Sea. Photo: AP
CHINA'S HEIGHTENED PRESENCE
China has again been increasing its maritime activities in both the South China Sea and East China Sea over the past few months, partly in response to Beijing's concerns over the increasing US military presence in the region because of escalating Sino-US tensions.
On Wednesday, lawmakers from Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party urged the government to hold joint defence drills with the US in the East China Sea to bolster Japan's effective control over the disputed islands.
The lawmakers also called for quicker research and development of surveillance drones, amphibious combat vehicles and other weapons systems to better defend the islands.
Describing the proposed US-Japan drills as unnecessary for now, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University professor Sato Yoichiro, who specialises in foreign and security policy, said Japan can maintain deterrence in the region simply by increasing coastguard patrols and getting the US to meet its defence obligations in the region.
SALAMI-SLICING
China is said by some analysts to be using the so-called "salami-slicing method" in its maritime activities in the East China Sea, meaning that Beijing is slowly taking small actions in the region to assert control that eventually will add up to a major strategic change, moving gradually from the status quo to seizing administrative and real control over the islands.
East Asian security expert Alessio Patalano of King's College London's Department of War Studies wrote in a Royal United Services Institute commentary last month that China's recent longer forays into the disputed waters were aimed at normalising its law-enforcement presence and "actively challenge the Japanese government's position of effective administrative control".
From April to August this year, Chinese government ships were said to have entered the zone of disputed waters for 111 straight days.
Pointing out that the length of these incursions represented "a potentially important novelty" in Beijing's operational behaviour, Patalano said the "routinisation" of deployments - in other words, the salami-slicing approach - marks the first step in China's challenge to the status quo,
"It appears China no longer seeks to just showcase its presence in the waters around the islands. It is now starting to actively challenge Japanese control," Patalano wrote separately in War on the Rocks, a foreign policy and national security website, adding that China was adopting a three-pronged strategy: normalising China's presence, exercising law-enforcement rights and taking over exclusive control.
In response to queries from the South China Morning Post, Patalano said, however, that the final phase was not inevitable, as it would bring the two countries dangerously close to armed conflict - an outcome neither side wanted.
"However, I would pay attention to Chinese operational behaviour from March to April next year and into the summer," Patalano said. "That will give a much better indication of the time frame and the risks related to it."
CONTIGUOUS VS TERRITORIAL WATERS
Describing it as puzzling that China would escalate tensions with Japan at a time of increasing US-China tensions, Mike Mochizuki, an international affairs professor at George Washington University and an expert on Japan-US relations, said doing so would only prompt Japan to tighten its alliance with the US and to join Washington in containing Beijing.
However, Mochizuki observed that Japan Coast Guard (JCG) data might have given a misleading picture of Chinese activity near the islands, saying that "what becomes clear is the constancy of the Chinese presence, not an increase in the number of ships".
In a frequently cited graph provided by the JCG, the number of official Chinese ships inside the contiguous zone was said to have increased dramatically since April last year. In the 17 months from April last year to August this year, Chinese vessels were said to have entered the contiguous zone 456 days out of 519. In the previous 17 months from November 2017 to March 2019, the figure stood at 227 days out of 516.
Pointing to the difference between the China Coast Guard's (CCG) presence in the contiguous zone of the disputed islands and its intrusions into the territorial waters of the islands, Mochizuki said the former was consistent with the UN Convention for the Law of the Sea, while the latter was a violation of Japanese sovereignty over the islands.
While acknowledging that Japan does not abide China's presence in the contiguous zone due to its threatening nature, Mochizuki, who is also one of the top American authorities on northeast Asia, said that what China does is not illegal.
"Japan should remain vigilant to protect its territorial interests, but it should refrain from exaggerating the threat," Mochizuki said, adding that the situation was similar to the interactions between the US and China in the South China Sea.
"The US believes that its FONOPS manoeuvres are aimed at preserving the rule of law in the South China Sea. But China believes that such manoeuvres are threatening," Mochizuki said.
FONOPS, or Freedom of Navigation Operations, are said to be one of the principal tools by which the US challenges maritime claims deemed excessive under international law.
"But from the Chinese perspective, at a minimum the contiguous zone presence and the routinised intrusions into the territorial sea deter Japan from deploying a permanent personnel presence or constructing new structures on the islands," Mochizuki said.
DEFUSING TENSIONS
While a communication mechanism had existed between the navies and air forces of China and Japan since June 2018, efforts to install a hotline at the defence-ministry level or higher had failed to materialise, noted Sato, the Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University professor, adding that such military-to-military communication upgrading was a highly sensitive issue, given rising US-China tensions and the Japan-US military alliance.
What was more urgent and "less alliance sensitive" was a joint coastguard hotline between the two countries, even though this would not stop the assertive activities of Chinese fishing vessels or coastguard vessels that were sanctioned by Beijing, Sato said.
"However, rogue protests that are beyond China's control and overly aggressive Chinese actions based on the independent judgment of local officers or boat captains can be managed for de-escalation," Sato added.
WHAT'S AT STAKE
Mochizuki pointed out that China's stake in the disputed islands was primarily symbolic, and noted that even though Beijing would not give up its territorial claims, it also did not want to risk a military conflict with Japan and possibly the US "over small, uninhabited islets with very little strategic value".
As for Japan, the real danger, according to Mochizuki, is that with the rise of Chinese military capabilities, US-China-Taiwan interactions will become more complicated and fraught with tension, possibly increasing the risk of a military conflict.
"If a Taiwan military conflict were to occur, Japan would become involved inevitably because of the geographic location of Japan's southwest island chain, primarily Okinawa prefecture and the US military assets on Okinawa," Mochizuki said.
"In my view, a Taiwan contingency is much more serious for Japan than the Senkaku/Diaoyu island issue. The Taiwan question, not the Senkaku/Diaoyu island issue, is what is driving the militarisation of the East China Sea."
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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