Vol.11, December 19, 2024

What is happening in East Asian Maritime Security? The Research Institute for Peace and Security (RIPS) publishes the biweekly newsletter, the information on maritime security relevant to East Asia and Japan's territory.

  Monthly Column

by

Go ITO

Professor, Meiji University

At a workshop with Chinese scholars, conducted after the Chairmanship election of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), quite a few scholars in China said that Shinjiro Koizumi or Sanae Takaichi would be chosen as the LDP Chairman. In fact, this comment surprised me, since the general public in Japan were sick of listening to the corruption by Seiwa-kai politicians. Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s faction has provided the Chinese with a conviction that Japanese politics has pursued its foreign policy strategically.

Of course, the conventional wisdom in international negotiations has been predicated on the idea that states pursue their national interests for the sake of their own survival. China’s foreign policy, together with its rise in economy, has claimed the broader territorial and maritime areas. For instance, it started to claim the areas of the Senkakau in the year 1970, conducted reclamation of the Philippine’s Mischief in 1997, and recently started to refer to the possible ownership of Okinawa. As its economy rises, it has claimed the wider areas of territorial ownership.

Already in the 1950’s, a history professor at Georgetown University mentioned an “ameba type” of territorial activities against the Soviet Union and China. The “ameba-type” means that they tend to expand their territories unless the opponent deters the expansionist behaviors.

The same logic can be applied to today’s Chinese activities in the maritime area. One day, they started to claim the areas of islands as their territories, to conduct reclamations, to make their planes land, and to militarize them. Then, they refer to classical writings (not necessarily official documents of history), saying that the areas used to belong to China. They say that their claim is not sudden, but seek to recollect the territories taken by other countries in the past.

On these maritime disputes, China has employed particular methods for negotiation. The first is intentional delay of the disputes. Regarding the Senkaku Islands, when Deng Xiaoping visited Japan in August 1978 for the Japan-China Peace and Friendship Treaty, he mentioned at a press conference that the issue should not be addressed either by China or Japan for the time being. The decision could be wise for both countries under the banner of the bilateral friendship (although the Japanese side clarified later that the Deng’s reference to the delay was not official, but occurred unofficially at the press conference).

The second is to show intentional compromises. In the case of the East China Sea, Japan’s EEZ overlaps with China’s, and Japan has suggested the medium line between the marginal line of Japan’s EEZ and that of China’s. Against Japan’s suggestion for seemingly compromise, however, China has argued that the marginal line of the continental shelf reaching out close to Okinawa, which lasts longer than 200 miles from the Chinese continent, should have been under China’s control. Strangely enough, however, China has claimed the continental shelf against Japan over the East China Sea, while arguing against Vietnam that the medium-line of the EEZ should be the basis of the bilateral maritime interests with Vietnam. That is, China has employed contradictory approaches toward its maritime interests, depending on the usefulness of its tactics in international negotiations.

The third method is the temporary making of norms regarding the conduct of concerned countries over the disputed areas. As far as the South China Sea is concerned, China signed the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) in 2002, and also declared its readiness to establish the specific action norms for the security of the South China Sea in 2007. However, for the recent decade, a number of Chinese military vessels as well as submarines have appeared in the disputed area. There is a tendency regarding China’s gradual entry into the South China Sea that fishing trawlers first come to the hotspot, then vessels to patrol the fishing trawlers show up, and finally military vessels appear, the gradation process of which should have become more fearful for neighboring countries as time goes by.

Fourth, China likes to conduct negotiations on a bilateral basis. That is, it dislikes to be positioned into a multilateral framework. China’s secret bilateral deals about the Second Thomas Shoal with the Philippines’ Duterte government is now a famous story, and China continues to argue that the bilateral agreement has still been plausible (although the Marcos presidency doesn’t agree to this statement.). Also, after Prime Minister Anwar bin Ibrahim took office, there have been several talks between China and Malaysia, and Anwar has called the talks a new era of Malaysia-China relations. These interventions by China into the ASAEN have occurred as usual tools to gain primacy.

That is to say, China is strategic enough to make many ASEAN countries see the disputes as a litmus test for a newly strong China’s relations with any of them: whether China would use its formidable military power to attempt to intimidate the other claimants, or settle the matter peacefully through good-faith negotiations. Vietnamese who fear long term Chinese intentions see in the Spratly and Paracel Islands disputes a harsh and sometimes violent counterpoint to China’s Asia-Pacific “smile diplomacy.” Moreover in negotiations with South Korea, China also has had territorial disputes over a small island (argued by the South Korean government) in the northern East China Sea for long years. Judging from all of these territorial disputes as well as the gradual expansion of its maritime interests, it can be argued that China’s concession can be a harbinger of more forceful attitudes like the “one-step back, two-step forward.”

In this sense, China has been making use of the “carrot and stick” diplomacy. It sometimes conducts “smile diplomacy” to make agreements with countries in disputes. But, the agreements do not last for long, and then strong claims on the territorial dominations will be indicated in bilateral negotiations. Here, China often emphasizes the historical legacy of the territories. It usually argues that it was Chinese who used to stay in such hotspots. They often cite classical Chinese writings as what justifies China’s territorial rights. As the continental Asia used to be influenced culturally by the Chinese empire, it is common that a variety of writings exist in China about the movement of Chinese to the hotspots. It is questionable, however, that such classical writings can be effective in claiming China’s territorial rights under the principles of the modern international law.

China has emphasized that modern international law is a product of Western violent culture, while their own international order has been predicated on the spirit of peaceful harmony. The differences in the claims remind me of religious wars in Europe. That is, each religious group has the logic that our belief is right and peaceful, whereas others are wrong and belligerent. Modern international law has been made by repeated numbers of brutal wars stemming from this kind of one-sided belief. In modern international relations, states pursue their interests, while at the same time its foreign policy has been predicated on reciprocity.