Japan’s refusal to accept that the islands are disputed rules out negotiations leaving China little option.
Dr. Jenny Clegg is senior lecturer in Asia Pacific Studies at the University of Central Lancashire. She is also the author of ‘China’s Global Strategy: toward a multipolar world‘
No sooner had China declared an air defence identification zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea area on November 23 than the airspace became filled with military aircraft – Japanese, South Korean, American B-52s, then Chinese.
With such heightened tensions, the fear is that a minor incident could spark a larger crisis bringing not only China and Japan but also China and the US, two nuclear-armed superpowers, into collision.
From reading the Western media, anyone would have thought that the next world war was about to break out, with China the instigator.
Yet China is doing nothing unusual let alone illegal: the US, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam have all had ADIZs in operation in the region for many years.
Some background is necessary. The area in question includes a number of uninhabited islands – known as the Diaoyu to the Chinese and the Senkaku to the Japanese – which are located 140km from Taiwan, 330km from China and 440 km West of Okinawa. They are under Japanese administration but are also claimed by China and Taiwan, who regard the current arrangements as a legacy of Japanese imperial rule.
The islands were ceded to Japan in 1895 following China’s defeat in the first Sino-Japanese War. At the end of World War 2, the US took over their control until 1972 when they were returned to Japan, at which point the Chinese asserted their claim.
Oil reserves were discovered in 1968 but the situation is not so much a ‘scramble over resources’ as, for China, a matter of equal treatment: the 1945 Potsdam Declaration stipulated that the ownership of minor islands claimed by Japan was to be defined by the wartime allies, of course including the Republic of China at that time.
In denial over its past war crimes, Japan has resolutely refused to recognise that the islands are disputed. Last year, it swapped some of them at will from private to government hands amidst a clamour of right-wing nationalist fervour.
This provocation to China received not a word of reprimand from the West.
Indeed, when in 2010 Japan unilaterally doubled the size of its own ADIZ to within 130 km of China’s coast, this was in effect endorsed just a few months later by Hillary Clinton, then US Secretary of State, who declared the islands to be covered by the US-Japan security pact and confirmed US commitment to opposing any unilateral action that would undermine their administration by Japan.
Rather than being driven forward by an expansionist nationalism, China’s latest move may well be a calculated test of US intentions in the region. The recent easing of tensions in the Middle East has left the US free to concentrate on its ‘Asia pivot’ whilst at the same time the US retreat from military intervention in Syria followed by Obama’s the cancellation of his visit to the Asia Pacific during the US government shutdown has raised questions about US commitment in the latter region.
Despite dispatching the two B-52 bombers, the US stopped short of calling for China’s ADIZ to be scrapped, much to the chagrin of the Japanese government. Has China succeeded in dividing the US and Japan? Or is it rather that the US seeks the role of ‘honest broker’ here between an increasingly assertive China and Japan’s unapologetic hawks.
In this way Obama might reclaim US authority as world leader, a role it has just been denied in the Middle East by Russian diplomacy.
With control over the key regional shipping lanes in its hands, the US has the power to cut off world trade with China. If China seeks to change this status quo, it does not mean that its aim is to replace American with Chinese hegemony.
Xi Jinping has repeatedly stated that the Pacific Ocean has enough space for two large countries. China’s serious commitment to power-sharing in North East Asia is clearly indicated by its dogged efforts to get the six party talks on Korean denuclearisation going again.
The failure of the US to take the opportunity this year, the 60th anniversary of the Korean war armistice, to open the way to a peace treaty equally suggests that the US is not ready to make way for a multipolar determination of East Asian security.
The mixed signals from the US could lead to an even more dangerous confusion within the region.
There is still, however, a way back from conflict if the China-India border defence cooperation agreement, signed in October, were to be taken as a model. Both sides here seek to avert an escalation of tensions by committing to avoid the use of force or threat of force, to refrain from provocative actions and not to tail each others patrols.
Japan’s refusal to accept that the islands are disputed rules out negotiations leaving China little option. What would be the reaction if China declares further ADIZ’s over the seas that bear its name? For the region to descend into a downward spiral of conflict would be a disaster for the world economy.
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25 Responses to “Crisis in the skies: China, Japan, the US and the East China Sea dispute”
Moodoo
There is nothing illegal about it at all. Just because you don’t like something does not make it illegal.
China had clearly abandoned its claim over the Senkaku Islands therefore the principle of Terra Nullius applied to the Japanese annexation. Important documents to testify to this could be Chinese maps and newspapers which list them as Japanese until the discovery of oil.
Even if we step away from the Senkaku islands we see China in border disputes with Vietnam, Philippines, we saw them sending troops over the border into India this year, ramping up military spending at more than 10% a year all of this points to an aggressive expansion strategy and the total repudiation of the so called “peaceful rise” idea.
70 years ago there was one bad guy in Asia, Japan. Today they are a democratic society who has apologised for its past (whatever China says). Now we see a brutal regime which has no respect for its own people which has no problem committing heinous crimes within its own borders attempting to expand. Can you point to one Chinese ally in the region? Just North Korea?
Jenny Clegg
I have never been a member of any political party until recently when I joined the Labour Party. I am not part of any group formed by George Galloway and Harpal Brar.
Hein.Q
Nothing illegal? LOL. Yes, we don’t like it and it’s illegal because the Declaration by United Nations gives us the right. It states that “Each government pledges itself to cooperate with the governments signatory hereto and not to make a separate armistice or peace with the enemies.”, which means the peace treaty with Japan without India, the Union of Soviet and China signing it is totally illegal especailly the part involving China. Actually, the conference didn’t invite China. The logic is really funny that the country which fought against Japan and contained the most of Japanese army was not invited to sign the treaty of their interests.
Could you tell me which government of China has declared offcially that Fishing Island belongs to Japan in any item of any document/declarition/announcement? If you want to mention the article of people ‘s daily in 1953, I can tell you it hasn’t said a word in Chinese that Fishing Island belongs to Japan. Also, the article is a tranlation of a Japanese article and it’s marked with striking words “资料”, means “materials”. If it is an “editorial” I would support you but unfortunately it is not. Actually I think using an article of newspaper as evidence looks like child’s play.
Let’s talk about India, Vietnam and Philippines. India, I think you want to mention McMahon Line which was set by a British in 1914. This line I think the situation is the same as East Sea. As you can see, a British set the border of China and India. Tibet is part of China, but Tibet government can’t represent for Chinese government. How can a British cede the territory of Tibet to India? You say we cross over the border, I can’t agree with you because none Chinese government has recognized those borders that a invader forced us to accept. Vietnam and Philippines，if I state the history and docs will you get bored? I’d say it’s really complex. In short, the islands are of South Sea, first founded in Song Dynasty and were belonged to Qing Dynasty. Some were invaded by France during almost 1890s-1930s, and finally all occupied by Japan during WW2. Peace treaty with Japan has mentioned these islands but it’s illegal. According to Potsdam Declaration, they should be returned to China.
Japan, if it had apologized sinserely to the countries it hurt, South Korea wouldn’t be such furious about Japanese history textbook issues. Neither would China. And Japanese government leaders wouldn’t visit the yasukuni shrine to memory all class-A war criminals in WW2. Yes, in your eyes, or we say in many western eyes and Japanese eyes, Japan is a model democratic country in Asia. And yes, it has established a system of western politics and owns a stunning system of high tech. But in history issues, or morality issues, I don’t think Japan has “apologised”. Not only China says, but also South Korea says, which is another your model of “Democratic Society”. Can the prime minister of Japan kneel to the people they killed during WW2, like that what German chancellor did? What would happen if German builded a memorial like yasukuni shrine to memory Hitler, Goring, Frank or Bormann? Do you think that one nation apologise to another after such terrible inhuman massacre can be a simple apology? Forgiveness is earned not just given.
To tell you the truth, I don’t care what your government says and my government says. All I only care about is that NO one can decide the coast and border line of my country without our permission. I think there’s an event of China you don’t know. According to the treaty of WW1, China had to transfer the sovereignty of Shandong Province from German to Japan, AS A VICTOR! Can you believe it? The same thing happened in WW2. So, “a weak nation has no diplomacy”. Sometimes it’s not we didn’t want to defend our territory but we were not able to, which others wish to. I know a rich and weak China will satisfy everyone, but it’s not 100 years ago and China is not Qing Dynasty. Why British set McMahon Line between India and China? Why the USA signed treaty with Japan? The answer is creating disputes. Just like a man loses money and the police gets it and gives it to another. Both of them want the money. One says “it’s what I lost.” while the other says “I get it by law.”
Peace rise, yes, we are willing to, if no one leads war to us. I’d like to say without these disputes, China, Japan and South Korea could have led ASEAN to build an economic union like Europe. And with that we can kick dollars out of Asia which means it will weaken American hegemony, so Japan has a chance to be a normal country if it shows some kind. The way that the USA balances the world just like some ancient Chinese emporers’ politics: seize the power in hands and let officials mutually restrain.
Hein.Q
Have you read news recently? Your Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Yasukuni Shrine yesterday. “Today they are a democratic society who has apologised for its past (whatever China says).” Such an “apology” is really “comforting”.
“Now we see a brutal regime which has no respect for its own people which has no problem committing heinous crimes within its own borders attempting to expand.” Yeah, I agree with that, it’s just like what Japan is doing.
Moodoo
I don’t see people detained without trial, tortured, murdered by unofficial party thugs, placed under house arrest for writing a blog or have their families targeted for collective punishment in Japan. In Japan you can speak more mind freely, protest against the state freely, form political parties in China all media is state controlled, most foreign websites are blocked, no international TV or newspapers are sold even the number of foreign films is limited to 12 a year and must be vetted first.
In Japan the constitution is respected and protects people’s rights, in China the constitution is a “sensitive topic” and the media are banned from quoting it and teachers banned from discussing it.
China is a brutal dictatorship, Japan is a liberal democracy trying to argue otherwise makes you sound as credible as China Daily.