Goodspeed Analysis: China flexes its muscles with Japan in land dispute
Okinawa Times/Handout/Reuters
Japanese Coast Guard crew disembark Zhan Qixiong (C), captain of a Chinese fishing boat, at Ishigaki port on the southern Japanese island of Ishigaki Sept. 8, 2010.
September 20, 2010 – 6:58 pm
By Peter Goodspeed
Two weeks ago, the battered blue trawler Minjinyu 5179 was just one of about 160 small Chinese fishing boats working the shallow waters near some uninhabited islands 150 kilometres north of the northeastern tip of Taiwan.
Today, the boat and its captain, Zhan Qixiong, 41, are the eye of a diplomatic storm that threatens to destabilize Asia and shatter relations between China and Japan.
When Japanese Coast Guard officials tried to intercept and board the Minjinyu, the Chinese ship fled, leading them on a two-hour chase, during which it allegedly rammed two Japanese cutters.
But after Japanese officials detained Capt. Zhan and said they intended to put him on trial in Japan for obstructing officials, the case exploded, unleashing all the built-up tensions of a centuries-old rivalry, complete with wartime hatreds, economic competition, ethnic prejudices and unresolved border disputes.
The boat was seized in a portion of the East China Sea that is claimed by China, Japan and Taiwan. Japan calls the islands the Senkaku, while China knows them as the Diaoyu Islands and Taiwan calls them the Tiaoyutai Islands.
All insist the islands are an integral part of their territory — mainly because three nearby gas and oil fields are suspected of holding seven trillion cubic feet of natural gas and more than 100 billion barrels of oil.
That’s enough to fuel the Chinese or Japanese economy for nearly 50 years.
That’s enough to fuel the Chinese or Japanese economy for nearly 50 years.
Japan and China have been haggling over the islands and their rich maritime boundaries for decades, but attempts to resolve the dispute have constantly collided with antagonism between them.
As a result, China sees Capt. Zhan’s detention as a direct challenge to its sovereignty. It claims Japan disregarded an informal truce both countries were observing, while trying to negotiate the boundary dispute. Japan insists it is simply enforcing its own laws on its own territory.
Seiji Maehara, Japan’s new Foreign Minister, said last week it was appropriate for the Chinese trawler captain to appear in Japan’s courts because the disputed islands are “an integral part of Japanese territory.”
“Territorial issues do not exist in this region,” he said.
But a newly assertive and militarily powerful China is determined to use the case to flex its muscles internationally and to reassert its maritime claims elsewhere.
In March, it rattled Asia by insisting its claims to the Spratley Islands and huge swathes of the surrounding South China Sea are “core national interests” on a par with its claims to Taiwan and Tibet.
“China demands that Japan immediately release the captain without any preconditions,” Ma Zhaoxu, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, said last week.
“If Japan insists on making one mistake after another, the Chinese side will take strong countermeasures, and all the consequences should be born by the Japanese side.”
When Japan ignored Beijing’s demands and announced Sunday it will hold Capt. Zhan for at least another week, Beijing escalated the confrontation by severely curtailing its relations with Japan.
This included cancelling talks over aviation rights, abandoning negotiations on the use of coal and suspending talks, scheduled for this month, on development plans for oil and gas fields in the East China Sea.
Politically, the issue is burning white hot in China. Thousands of people are taking to the Internet to demand Beijing act more forcefully.
There have been calls for a boycott of Japanese goods, suggestions China use its foreign currency reserves to undermine the Japanese yen and demands the Chinese navy be sent to the area as a warning.
Thousands of Chinese tourists have canceled trips to Japan and China has withdrawn its invitation from Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to have 1,000 Japanese students attend the Shanghai Expo.
The confrontation is expected to kill any chance of an informal meeting between Mr. Wen and Naoto Kan, Japan’s Prime Minister, this week in New York during the opening of the United Nations.
It hasn’t helped the crisis has occurred as China marked the 79th anniversary of Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931.
On the weekend, hundreds of Chinese protested outside Japanese diplomatic missions in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Shenyang.
In the light of past anti-Japanese riots in China, Japan issued a warning to its citizens in China and Chinese companies selling Japanese appliances hired extra security guards.
But the dispute shows no signs of rapid resolution.
“If China thinks that by taking a strong stance Japan will just roll over, then it is mistaken,” an editorial in Japan’s largest daily newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun said yesterday.
The Global Times, an official Chinese tabloid, countered by asking experts to suggest “severe countermeasures” Beijing might adopt.
“We should send regular battle-capable fisheries vessels to the Diaoyu area to protect navigation,” advised General Peng Guangqian, an analyst at the Chinese Academy of Military Science. (National Post)
Read more: http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/09/20/goodspeed-analysis-china-flexes-its-muscles-with-japan-in-land-dispute/#ixzz107fWAQnK
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