Sep 27, 2010
Outcome of detained captain incident marks Asia power balance shift
By Kwan Weng Kin
MANY Japanese could not believe their ears. Neither could many countries in Asia.
After days of attempting to flex its political muscle, Japan suddenly caved in on Friday last week and returned a detained trawler captain to China in the face of escalating Chinese economic and other threats.
Whether the victory for Beijing was the result of a vastly emboldened China or, as is now apparent, diplomatic mistakes by Japan's greenhorn Democrat-led government is quite beside the point.
That Japan was seen to be bullied into giving in to China demonstrated to the world in the starkest of terms the shifting power equation in the region.
It was, of course, no overnight change.
The signs were long in coming. As the Chinese economy grew in recent years, so too did Beijing's voice in the region.
At the same time, the Chinese naval presence looms larger than ever before, and Beijing has been increasingly assertive in staking its claims to the Spratly Islands and several other island clusters in the region.
Beijing's shrill objection to Japan's detention of its trawler captain on Sept 7 following a collision with a Japanese vessel was that it had taken place near the Senkaku Islands, which China calls the Diaoyu Islands and claims as its own territory.
Earlier this year, China finally overtook Japan to become the world's second-largest economy.
That alone, however, cannot account for the new intransigent face of China that we have seen in the past three weeks as it demanded that Japan return the captain.
Had Japan's security alliance with the United States been as strong as it was under previous Liberal Democrat governments, China would probably have thought twice before turning the screws on Japan.
But Japan's security ties with the US have been considerably weakened through the fault of Japan's last premier Yukio Hatoyama, who upset Washington through his bungled attempt to find an alternative site for a US airbase in Okinawa.
Mr Hatoyama had also sown suspicion in the minds of US administration officials with his avowed desire to see Japan have an 'equal relationship' with the US.
China was no doubt encouraged enough by the weakening of the Japan-US security relationship to take an unprecedentedly tough line against Japan over the captain's detention.
But Japan's climbdown does not necessarily mean it will always have to play second fiddle to China in future.
'Japan is still a major power in terms of its economy and military strength. The Japanese should remind themselves of this fact and regain their composure,' said Professor Kan Kimura, an East Asia expert at Kobe University.
But he acknowledges that the weakening of Japan's leadership has taken its toll on the country.
According to Jiji Press, Asia expert Bruce Klingner of the Heritage Foundation sees Japan's surrender to China as a setback for not only Japan, but also the US.
The signal that Japan has sent to China, he says, endangers the future peace and stability of Asia.
It will only embolden China further into taking provocative actions in the region, making it all the harder for the US to tackle regional issues by strengthening its alliances with Japan and South Korea.
To Prime Minister Naoto Kan's dismay, the return of the trawler captain has not put an end to the crisis.
Not only has China not expressed any appreciation for the captain's release, but it has instead demanded an apology and compensation from Japan, which the Japanese leader has dismissed as outrageous.
Using the captain's detention as an excuse, China has also suspended negotiations with Japan on the joint exploration of disputed marine gas fields, and has reportedly begun undersea drilling.
The crisis has indeed cast a long shadow over Japan-China ties, which are unlikely to recover any time soon.
Premier Wen Jiabao, previously one of the strongest proponents among China's top leaders of better ties with Japan, is now seemingly one of its strongest critics.
As China enters a stage of leadership renewal and transfer of power, and with Chinese military leaders now apparently in the ascendancy in Beijing, leaders like Mr Wen are obliged to take on a less pro-Japan hue.
The impact on bilateral economic ties is likely to be enormous.
Japanese businesses, freshly alarmed by the Chinese government's latest show of belligerence in protecting its core interests, and by China's increasingly demanding workforce, are likely to take their factories to other low-cost production centres such as Vietnam and Indonesia.
As for the Kan administration, it may have been legally justified in arresting the Chinese captain, but whether or not it was the right diplomatic decision is another thing.
One also questions the Japanese government's continued assertion that there is no territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands, despite the fact that both China and Taiwan lay claim to them.
With no informal channels to the top Chinese leadership, as past Liberal Democrat governments had, and with ministers who lack experience in diplomatic negotiations, the Kan administration is clearly no match for its bigger and vastly more experienced neighbour.
Even while the present crisis remains unresolved, Mr Kan faces the very real question of what to do if Chinese trawlers were again to trespass into Japanese territorial waters.
The current crisis is as much the result of a resurgent China as it is of an ineffective leadership in Japan.
In the end, something has to give, and it could well be the current Japanese administration.
wengkin@sph.com.sg
[The rise of an aggressive China in this region without a balancing power is a matter of concern. Now that they have managed to flex their power, and get away with it, and trying to get even more out of it, they will be emboldened. If they decide that they have the military might to steam-roll over all objections and over issues such as the disputed islands, they will become the malignant superpower that we all fear.]
Update:
Sep 28, 2010
Editorial: Region watches Beijing closely
CHINA has demanded an apology and compensation from Japan for its detention of a Chinese trawler captain, though the Japanese released the captain last Friday. Is this Beijing reaching for a foot after gaining an inch - decun jinchi? Or is it merely posturing to drive home the point that it does not recognise Japan's claims of sovereignty over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, which China also claims? These must be questions that the regional and international communities must also be asking.
Even if Beijing's demand for an apology is tactical, how it has dealt thus far with the latest incident in the disputed waters of the East China Sea would already have caused countries in the region to worry how far it will wield its increasing strength in resolving disputes with its smaller neighbours. As it is, an editorial in a South Korean newspaper has urged Seoul to make contingency plans to protect the country's national interests against an assertive China over the two sides' overlapping exclusive economic zones. The newspaper cited Beijing's 'hardline' response to Japan's detention of the captain, including summoning the Japanese ambassador to China in the middle of the night, the alleged blocking of the export of rare earth minerals to Japan and discouraging Chinese citizens from visiting Japan.
What China does next in the unfolding saga of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands incident will be closely watched in the South-east Asian region too, where several countries have competing claims with China in the South China Sea. Will Beijing pull its punches now that the Japanese have backed down or will it push as far as it can go? What happens next will have repercussions in this region.
At the US-Asean Summit last Friday in New York, Asean leaders desisted from mentioning the South China Sea in their joint communique with the US, presumably in deference to the region's wide-ranging relations with Beijing. Nevertheless, the White House in a press statement on the summit mentioned the South China Sea explicitly: US President Barack Obama and Asean leaders, the US read-out said, 'agreed on the importance of peaceful resolution of disputes...including in the South China Sea'.
This is the second summit a US President has held with Asean leaders within two years. Washington is now serious about closer engagement with Asean in large part because of a stronger and more assertive China. If Beijing, through its actions, were to cast doubt about its professed peaceful rise, it would cause countries in the region to consider how they might better protect their interests in the face of a resurgent and insistent China.
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