Looming China-Japan conflict

S P SETH

China-Japan relations are at a crisis point. The trigger this time is the ownership of the Senkaku islands (known as Diaoyu in China) in the East China Sea, with both China and Japan claiming sovereignty. Japan first acquired the islands after the Sino-Japanese war in 1896. During WW11, these were lost to the United States. But since 1971, when the US returned the Senkakus to Japan, these are under Japanese control. Beijing claims that these islands were historically part of China, and the US had no business returning them to Japan.

The recent escalation of tensions in China-Japan relations started with the Japanese government’s purchase of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands from their private Japanese owners to reinforce its state sovereignty. Which has led China to send naval patrol boats to the area to affirm the seriousness of its own claim. There are reports that Chinese fisherman will soon be going to the contested waters for fishing, possibly under protection of Chinese naval vessels.

These developments have occasioned an unprecedented show of national anger in China targeting Japanese establishments, big and small, leading them to shut down their operations. Apparently, there was an element of state encouragement behind all this. But these are being carefully controlled lest such public anger turn on state institutions for unrelated reasons.

There are several aspects to China-Japan hostility. First, on China’ side, there is the century of humiliation starting with the Sino-Japanese war of 1895-96, the 1930’s occupation of Manchuria followed by the brutality and atrocities of WW 11. The Japanese invasion of China was a horrendous affair and the memories are still fresh with the Chinese. China believes that Japan never made suitable and adequate amends for their wartime crimes, and remains unrepentant. Instead, it is still clinging on to old relics like the Diaoyu islands, as China would see.

Over and above China’s historical claim to the islands, they are also seen now as valuable real estate in terms of potential oil and gas resources on the ocean surface. Besides, they are rich in fisheries. Tokyo feels that this is indeed the real reason for China’s new interest in the islands. These two, history and prospective gas and oil discoveries, are important factors behind China’s sovereignty claim. A resurgent and powerful China is seeking to assert its claim and thereby announce a new Chinese era in regional politics and strategy, as it is doing in regard to other maritime disputes with some of its neighbors.

Japan raises China’s ire for its perceived arrogance in refusing to come to terms with its wartime crimes with suitable contrition. Such arrogance comes up time and again when some Japanese prime minister or minister visits the Yasukini shrine, which is a memorial to Japan’s war dead, including some of its WW11 generals charged with war crimes. Similarly, there is the issue of Japanese school textbooks that tend to whitewash Japan’s wartime record. Another problem that has cropped up, from time to time, is Japan’s attempt to ignore, as much as it can, its disgraceful record of “comfort women” (local prostitutes) it requisitioned for its soldiers during its occupation of Asian countries.

What it means is that the current crisis over the Senkaku/ Diaoyu islands has a history involving China’s deeply felt humiliation when it was weak with Japan treading all over it.  Now that it is strong and powerful, it might be going overboard to right the wrongs of the past. As for Japan, it is not willing to give any ground on its ownership claim on the islands, which is under its control. On both sides it is a question of national pride, even more so in China with seething anger over Japan’s wartime record.

It is also a difficult political time in China with the leadership transition in the country to be formalized at the 18^th Party Congress to be held soon. Because of the Bo Xilai factor and his wife’s murky murder verdict, there is a certain political shadow hanging over the country needing clear resolution. The expulsion from the Party of Bo Xilai, followed by his likely trial on criminal charges, is supposed to clear the political climate. That would remain to be seen. For instance, only recently there were all sorts of rumors when the presumptive president Xi Jinping was not seen publicly for two weeks. Against this political backdrop, the national outrage against Japan, involving attacks on Japanese businesses and establishments in China, is a useful distraction and a mobilization technique.

The CPC, however, is always mindful of keeping popular demonstrations under close watch because nationalism is a beast that might take an unwelcome turn, even turning on the Party, for all sorts of reasons. The Party appears to be already taking steps to dampen down some of the anti-Japanese hysteria. But these protests serve a useful purpose from time to time to distract, as at present, from the country’s slowing economic growth, internal political wrangling from Bo Xilai affair and the leadership transition.

Whatever might be China’s internal political imperatives and compulsions, its external ramifications are quite worrying by way of increased regional tensions. Japan has its own ultra nationalists like the Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara who wanted to buy the Senkakus from its Japanese owners, thus forcing the national government to pre-empt him with its purchase. Indeed, Japan’s centrist ruling Democratic Party of Japan looks like it will lose the ensuing election to a right-leaning Liberal Democratic Party that has just elected Shinzo Abe, a fervent nationalist, as its president. With Abe becoming the next prime minister of Japan, the political temperature between the two countries is likely to rise further.

Beijing, however, is not interested in Japan’s internal political dynamics and is furious over the islands’ deal. While this is essentially an issue between China and Japan, any military conflict between them is likely to involve the United States on behalf of its ally, Japan. The US secretary of defense, Leon Panetta, has visited both Tokyo and Beijing emphasizing the need for both countries to sort out the islands’ issue peacefully, lest it develops into a military conflict that could involve the United States.

The People’s Daily of China has observed that Beijing might take punitive economic measures against Japan, if it doesn’t back off. Highlighting Japan’s economic paralysis of the last two decades, further compounded by the global financial crisis, it warned that, “Japan’s economy lacks immunity to Chinese economic measures”, even though admitting that it was a “double-edged sword” for China as the two countries’ economies are interdependent in many ways. It added,“ Amidst a struggle that touches on territorial sovereignty, if Japan continues its provocations China will inevitably take on the fight.” And it doesn’t take long for economic warfare to take on the shape of a military conflict.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.