Demonstrations around China involving wanton property damage have threatened Japanese business operations, forcing temporary closure of some plants, and protests outside the Japanese Embassy in Beijing have again put a cloud over the third-biggest economic partnership in the world. The last tiff over this issue between Northeast Asia’s two giant partners occurred when a Chinese trawler rammed two Japanese coast guard vessels near the islands and Japanese authorities arrested the captain of the trawler and put him on trial, before intervention from the very top short circuited a very messy process. The context in which the latest spat has flared — with leadership transition in China and a Japanese government that looks like it is facing political oblivion — was not auspicious, aggravating dark fears that jingoist politics would take over both sides and these minor bilateral troubles would fracture regional stability.
It is wise to get some perspective on where things are actually at.
As Sourabh Gupta argues in this week’s lead essay on the dispute, commentators are wrong to suggest that the Japan–China relationship has once again hit rock-bottom, nor that these disturbances threaten the core of the huge (and complex) relationship between Japan and China. Getting perspective on these developments requires less palpitation and a little more focused reason. Certainly the trawler incident and its hapless management by a new Japanese government in September 2010 was a more serious event. And that event did not slow the deepening trade and investment relationship or stymie political initiatives between the two countries. Moreover, as Gupta observes, commentators ‘are doubly wrong to infer that the two countries stand just a miscalculation away from the possible outbreak of hostilities. Both countries’ foreign ministries have managed the current spat with admirable restraint, exercising a judicious mix of assertion and restraint within a firmly established diplomatic ceiling’.
The rights and wrongs of this dispute are not entirely so straightforward, of course, as either partner might want us to believe and it is wise for third parties to take a neutral stance. The United States, of course, is at special risk of being dragged into affrays instigated by its friends or alliance partners whether it wants to be or not. A major test of US Asia Pacific diplomacy will be to avoid being wedged into such conflicts where it has no wish, nor any interest, in being and where its taking other than a neutral stance will likely exacerbate rather than ameliorate conflict in which it has no fundamental stake.
The Japanese case for ownership of these islands appears to be that these territories were terra nullius prior to incorporation and that their incorporation was not a product of imperial victory and settlement under the Shimonoseki treaty of 1895. So, the argument runs, unlike other territories neither the letter nor the spirit of San Francisco, Cairo or Potsdam agreements (which required that territories so acquired should revert to their former owners) applies to the Senkakus because the sovereignty of China (or Taiwan) was non-effective.
There is recent Taiwanese scholarship using evidence from Japanese archives, however, that very much suggests otherwise.
In brief, the evidence seems to suggest that the islands were not terra nullius; that the Imperial Japanese government was, on balance, aware of this; that incorporation of the islands into Japanese territory was done secretly; that it was not announced at any time publicly by Imperial Decree or in other words registered publicly; that incorporation was the product of imperial victory and that, hence even if the letter of the post-war arrangements do favour the Japanese, the spirit of these arrangements was violated and, perhaps, maybe even its letter.
Whatever the rights or wrongs of the dispute, there are clearly reasons for restraint, moderation and seeking practical ways of cooperation in achieving win-win outcomes on both sides.
Ironically, Yoshihiko Noda was one of 3,000 young Japanese invited by Premier Hu Yaobang to strengthen the relationship with Japan in 1984, and President Hu Jintao is said to have been one of the young Chinese leaders who welcomed him at Shanghai airport. So it’s not all bad blood. Noda’s ‘nationalisation’ of three of the five islands, which sparked the current contretemps, was forced by the threat of the right-wing governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, to acquire them, an act that was likely prelude to escalating tension through provocative building and other activities on the islands. Noda and his Foreign Minister, Koichiro Gemba, sought to forestall these eventualities through the national purchase. Apparently, Gupta reports, it was the best of eight options they had under consideration. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
There are clear signs that Beijing is trying to wind the confrontation back. Late last week protests in front of the Japanese Embassy in the capital were banned.
The protests and property damage over the past week (as well as concern by the Chinese authorities about the safety of Japanese and other foreigners at the same time as they rode the ramping up of hostility) illustrate the speed with which bilateral ties can begin to look nasty if the Senkakus issue is handled carelessly. As Gupta notes, ‘conservative forces in Tokyo bent on disturbing the status-quo have been put on notice’.
Ishihara’s son, Nobuteru, is a potential leader of the LDP Opposition in Japan and, perhaps, near-term prime minister and may not be able to resist his father’s antagonistic intentions, however he might wish. So the Senkakus issue has a little while to play yet and it could go bad again sooner rather than later. But what’s at stake in the relationship between the two countries also means that there is no rational calculus that would suggest to either country that it should be let get out of hand, as management of the events of the past few weeks have reminded all who care to observe.
Peter Drysdale is Editor of the East Asia Forum.