Japan takes a shot at China- via Taiwan
By Jens Kastner and Wang Jyh-Perng
TAIPEI - Japan has extended its Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) near
Taiwan in the East China Sea without consulting Taiwanese authorities in
advance. Taiwan's Kuomintang (KMT) government has condemned Japan's unilateral
move in a tone unusually firm compared with previous Taiwanese administrations
that dealt with similar issues.
Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs vowed not to make any concessions on what
it called a "matter of national sovereignty".
Members of Taiwan's opposition camp see Japan's ADIZ extension in a different
light. To them, the affair signifies that Japan doesn't trust Taiwan anymore.
According to the opponents of incumbent Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou's
cross-strait policy, the KMT not only distances Taiwan ever farther from
Washington and Tokyo but is also using the ADIZ issue to
deliberately incite anti-Japanese sentiment among the Taiwanese to appease
Beijing.
These are weighty allegations, and independent observers don't share the
opposition's opinion. To them, it also seems plausible that Ma's government's
strongly opposed Tokyo's move, but for another reason.
"It wasn't the KMT government's plan to stir up Taiwan's public opinion against
the Japanese," said Lin Cheng-Yi, a researcher on international relations at
Taiwan's Academia Sinicia, in an interview with Asia Times Online. "The
Taiwanese government is worried over China's reaction, so it doesn't want to
appear as being too soft on Japan."
A look out of the box of Taiwan's partisan politics reveals that Japan isn't
short of motives to step up its military presence in the East China Sea other
than to react to the KMT's pro-China course.
An ADIZ is an area where civilian and military aircraft are required to
identify themselves. Aircraft entering the zone are obliged to radio their
intended flight course to the respective country's air traffic controllers. The
boundary between the Japanese and the Taiwanese ADIZs over the East China Sea
used to be over a little island named Yonaguni.
Yonaguni is the western-most island of Japan and lies 180 kilometers from the
Taiwanese east coast. The ADIZ line, which has defined two-thirds of Yonganui's
airspace as being Taiwanese and one third as Japanese, was drawn by the US
military after World War II.
On June 26, Japan unilaterally extended the ADIZ line westwards by 22
kilometers. As a result, Taiwanese and Japanese AIDZs now overlap. That Tokyo
seems willing to put up with the prospect of doing damage to Taiwan-Japan
relations shows how much it worries about China's military activities in the
East China Sea. At least three disputed economically and militarily important
areas lie in this part of the Pacific Ocean.
The roots of the Sino-Japan East China Sea conflict lie in the cryptic wording
of the "Preamble to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea,
Article 76". There, it is stated that "The continental shelf of a coastal state
comprises the seabed and subsoil of the submarine areas that extend beyond its
territorial sea throughout the natural prolongation of its land territory to
the outer edge of the continental margin, or to a distance of 200 nautical
miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is
measured where the outer edge of the continental margin does not extend up to
that distance".
According to China, the Okinawa Trough, an arc-shaped ocean trench that runs
from southwestern Japan to northeastern Taiwan, separates China's and Japan's
continental shelves. Beijing therefore claims that its territorial waters
extend to the trough's center line. To Japan on the other hand, the Okinawa
Trough is nothing but an "accidental depression" in the ocean floor and not the
clear-cut boundary between continental shelves as China claims. Therefore,
according to Tokyo's logic, it's the "200 nautical miles" mentioned in Article
76 that define the edges of China's territorial waters in the East China Sea.
The knowledge that the few kilometers where waters claimed by both Beijing and
Tokyo overlap not only hold large reserves of oil, gas and fish but also are of
strategic importance has been fueling the dispute. In recent years, both sides
have significantly increased their military presence in the region.
Among the areas that have for a long time been in focus of Sino-Japanese
contests are the oil and natural gas fields in the Xihu depression, located
around 400km east of Shanghai in the East China Sea Basin. From the 1980s on,
the fields have provided greater Shanghai with gas for public and industrial
use. The fields have undergone further development to cater to the self-supply
economy model pursued by the Chinese government.
Japan claims the area to belong to its own exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and
therefore regards the Chinese extraction of oil and gas reserves as a
large-scale theft of its resources.
Another disputed area is the sea near Okinotorishima, a reef far east of Taiwan
and roughly 1,700km south of Tokyo. There, within the past 18 months, the
Chinese navy has appeared three times. Japan claims to have the right to
establish an EEZ around the reef. China acknowledges Japan's territorial rights
to Okinotorishima itself, but unlike Japan, Beijing regards it as rocks, not as
an islet.
Here again the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea comes into the
game. Its hallmark misinterpretation states that "rocks which cannot sustain
human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic
zone". Ironically, the question whether or not a rock can sustain human
habitation or economic life seems left to be answered by the very countries
involved in the respective disputes.
In June 2009, China's navy approached Okinotorishima with a missile destroyer,
a supply ship, a support ship and two frigates. In April 2010, a fleet
consisting of two guided missile destroyers, three frigates, two Kilo-class
submarines and one supply ship crossed the line between Okinawa and Miyako
Island, home to popular Japanese beach resorts. Then, in proximity to the
Okinotorishima reef, the Chinese held sea-air joint anti-submarine warfare
drills, and China's ship-borne helicopters once came as close as 90 meters to a
Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship. In military terms, this is very near.
After the incidents, Japanese media suspected China of having plans to solve
the Okinotorishima dispute once and for all by blowing up the uninhabited reef
with the use of special forces, naval guns or a missile attack.
A look at the map reveals that it's not primarily fish and oil that attracts
China's navy to the area - Okinotorishima lies midway between Taiwan and Guam,
which is home to a US naval base. Japan believes China's ships mapped the
ocean's bottom over which the US Pacific Fleet in future conflicts would pass
on its way to Taiwan.
Also a major point of contention are the Diaoyu Islands - called Senkaku
Islands in Japanese - which are divided from Okinawa by the Okinawa Trough. The
islands are controlled by the Japanese. An estimated three to seven billion
tons of oil are hidden under the ocean floor around Diaoyu, and fishery experts
count on an annual catch of 150,000 tons.
Apart from this, Diaoyu is a sensitive spot in Japan's 1,000 nautical mile
defense line since the foothold enables the Japan Self-Defense Forces to push
forward more than 300km southwest. The islands are considered an ideal location
to draw fire off Japan proper in the event of an outbreak of war in the East
China Sea.
Japan regards Diaoyu as suitable for stationing electronic detection devices
and ground-to-air missiles. It is further believed that the US and Japan plan
to turn Diaoyu into an operational outpost of their joint ballistic missile
defense system.
To protect its control over Diaoyu, Japan goes to great lengths. In Japan's
Coast Guard District Number 1 on Okinawa, no fewer than 20 warships are
stationed, five of which belong to the Kiloton class. Japan's aircraft patrol
the area every morning and afternoon, sometimes even three times a day. On the
nearby Miyako and Kume islands, radar stations have been built which
double-monitor Diaoyu.
The Chinese side, however, doesn't seem too impressed with Japan's military
buildup. As was the case in the waters around Okinotorishima, the Diaoyu
Islands have been witnessing China's military showing off increased
self-confidence. In 2008, China's coastguard fleet and J-10 fighters patrolled
around Diaoyu, and in 2009 two Chinese J-10 fighters expelled three Japanese
F-2s. Earlier this year, a Chinese Oceanic Administration's research vessel
came close to a Japanese coastguard ship and followed it for almost four hours.
From a Japanese perspective, China has been challenging Japan's interests in
the East China Sea in ever-shorter intervals. China's navy has been coming
closer and closer and has crossed sea lines considered sensitive by Japan. It's
obvious that Japan's extension of its ADIZ is to be seen in the context of the
complicated East China Sea sovereignty disputes. Tokyo's choice to go ahead
with the extension without consulting Taiwan's authorities is revealing since
it demonstrates that Japan worries to a high degree. a recent extension of the
ADIZ over the entire island of Yonaguni, Japan has a freer hand in monitoring
the Diaoyu Islands and even the oilfields in the Xihu depression. The
deployment of significant fire power on Yonaguni has also become an easier
task.
That the Taiwanese have seen their sovereignty infringed by Japan's actions in
the East China Sea is something that has happened in the past. From Lee
Teng-hui over Chen Shui-bian to the incumbent Taiwanese president Ma - all had
reasons to complain about Japanese unilateral moves conducted in that part of
the Pacific Ocean.
Yet, previous and present-day Taiwanese administrations handled the matter
differently. As Academy Sinicia researcher Lin puts it, "The problems with the
Japanese aren't new, and they have always been raised by the Taiwanese.
However, under Taiwan's administrations that were pro-Japanese, there was no
urgent need to solve them."
Jens Kastner is a Taipei-based writer. Wang Jyh-Perng is a reserve
captain of the Taiwan Navy and associate research fellow at the Association for
Managing Defense and Strategies.
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