Sino-Japan military ties face
challenges By Jing-dong Yuan
MONTEREY, California - The visit by
Chinese Defense Minister General Cao Gangchuan to
Japan this past weekend begins the process of
rebuilding military confidence between the two
countries and raises expectations. But judging by
the past, Sino-Japanese military ties still face
many challenges.
The minister's visit, the
first in almost a decade, has been described as an
important step in bilateral military relations.
Several of the more noticeable achievements
include the decision
to
negotiate a military hotline to ease tensions and
react to potential crisis, exchange visits by
high-ranking defense officials, port calls by
warships, and observation of military exercises.
These are all encouraging signs, especially as
they come on the heels of more than five years of
stagnation in bilateral relations.
But if
the past can offer any sign of where this might be
headed, one is cautioned against unrealistic
expectations, and both sides will benefit by
taking small but concrete steps in reducing
suspicions, managing tensions and conflicts, and
developing the rules of the road in Sino-Japanese
defense ties.
Between the mid-1980s and
2001, China and Japan developed some rudimentary
confidence-building measures, including an annual
security dialogue begun in 1993 and exchange
visits between the two countries' top defense
officials. In 1984, Chinese defense minister Zhang
Aiping paid an unofficial visit to Japan. The
People's Liberation Army (PLA) chief of the
General Staff Yang Dezhi visited Japan in 1986 and
the director general of the Japan Defense Agency
visited China for the first time in 1987.
After the end of the Cold War, both China
and Japan began to reassess their security
environments and develop new policies, including
the need for more regular bilateral exchanges on
security issues. Since the mid-1990s, top defense
officials of the two countries had exchanged
visits, including General Zhang Wannian, vice
chairman of the Central Military Commission - the
highest military officer (September 1998) -
General Chi Haotian, China's defense minister
(February 1998), and General Fu Quanyou, PLA chief
of General Staff (April 2000), among others.
Top Japanese defense officials
reciprocated through numerous official visits to
China: the chairman of the joint staff council of
the Self-Defense Forces (1995), the Defense Agency
administrative vice minister (August 1996), agency
director general Fumio Kyuma (May 1998),
administrative vice minister Ema Seiji (November
1999), Fujinawa Yuji, chairman of the council of
joint chiefs of staff of the Self-Defense Forces
of Japan (June 2000), and Shoji Takegouchi, chief
of the Air Self-Defense Force (October 2000).
These exchange visits covered a wide range
of issues, including discussion on mutual port
calls, joint training, and exchange of students
from each other's military academies.
The
first bilateral security dialogue was held in
December 1993 between the two foreign ministries.
The second meeting followed between the two
defense authorities in March 1994. Beginning with
the third meeting, China-Japan security dialogues
were attended by both foreign and defense
officials of the two countries. The two sides
exchanged views on a number of issues of common
concerns, achieved some consensus but remained
divided on others.
However, the bilateral
security dialogue was suspended in 2001 because of
the Japanese history-textbook issue and then-prime
minister Junichiro Koizumi's controversial visits
to the Yasukuni Shrine.
The dialogue was
resumed in Tokyo in March 2002 amid China's
double-digit increase in defense expenditures.
Japan raised concerns over the increase and the
lack of transparency, while China worried about
the expansion of Japan's military role. A
high-level PLA delegation visited Japan last
November, and both sides agreed to exchange port
visits this year.
Since the late 1990s,
growing controversy over the disputed
Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands developed between the two
countries. Reported Chinese naval and research
activities into what Japan considers its exclusive
economic zone and around the Diaoyu (as they are
called by the Chinese) or Senkaku (as the Japanese
call them) Islands became a major concern for
Tokyo.
Sino-Japanese discussions also
focused on developing function-level activities
such as port visits and exchanges of senior
military officers, cooperation in promoting
regional security, and implementation of
international arms control agreements. Parallel to
the official exchanges, Track-II activities
promoting security dialogue have also taken place.
However, a major constraint on the
credibility and effectiveness of Japan's approach
is the US-Japan Security Treaty, which makes real
progress on Sino-Japanese relations impossible
without posing the risk of seriously rupturing the
former. Japan is in an awkward position of seeking
to convince China of its harmless intentions while
at the same time maintaining and even
strengthening its alliance with the United States.
Clearly, Sino-Japanese defense ties have
undergone uneven developments over the past
decade. There are a number of factors that affect
their pace and direction. Tokyo is concerned about
Beijing's double-digit increases in defense
spending and advances in weapons procurement and
military modernization. Beijing, on the other
hand, is worried about Japan's increasing
assertiveness in pursuing a "normal state" status,
including the development of a military that goes
beyond a purely defensive role.
There are
unresolved issues, historical and territorial, and
growing nationalism, which potentially could pit
the two militaries against each other. The PLA has
nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, but the
Japanese Self-Defense Forces are one of the
best-equipped militaries in the region, especially
in naval capabilities. Increasingly the two
militaries run into eyeball-to-eyeball encounters
in areas they both claim sovereignty over. Without
proper rules of the road, it is conceivable
maritime clashes could take place.
Cao's
visit makes an important step toward addressing -
or at least managing - these issues. While the
departure of Koizumi and his successor Shinzo
Abe's pragmatism, along with the resumption of
bilateral summitry, have offered opportunities for
rapprochement, which has proved conducive to
better defense ties, this cannot be taken for
granted.
Beijing and Tokyo must sustain
the momentum and develop realistic and pragmatic
mechanisms to reduce mutual suspicions and
concerns, promote confidence and trust, and chart
a new course for the two militaries so that they
will become forces of stability in the
Asia-Pacific region rather than future enemies.
Leaders of both countries should seize the
moment and make important progress toward
rebuilding trust and friendship to mark the two
upcoming anniversaries: the 35th anniversary of
the establishment of diplomatic relations and the
30th anniversary of the 1978 China-Japan Treaty of
Peace and Friendship.
Dr Jing-dong
Yuan is director of education at the James
Martin Center for Non-proliferation Studies and
associate professor of international policy
studies, Monterey Institute of International
Studies.
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