Page 2 of
2 Comedy
of errors in East China Sea By
Peter Lee
A major justification for the US
presence in Asia was the need for the United
States to lead the coalition of democracies and
not-quite democracies anxious to contain communist
China because Japan had forfeited its claim to
regional security leadership because of a certain
foreign-policy misstep, World War II, that had
resulted in Japan attacking, invading and/or
occupying virtually every member of what became
the postwar anti-China coalition.
The
theory was that Japan would stick to its own
defensive knitting, as mandated by its so-called
peace constitution. The United States would fill
the subsequent regional security vacuum with its
own doctrine and forces.
Today Japan
considers its wartime guilt thoroughly expiated,
thank you very much, and wants a free hand in
dealing with its
economic and military
competitor across the East China Sea. The peace
constitution is on the way out and it is assumed
that Japan is simply a cabinet meeting away from
fabricating its sizable store of weapons-grade
plutonium into a warhead, plunking it atop one of
the rockets it developed as part of its otherwise
unnecessary space program, and declaring itself as
a nuclear-weapon power.
The US government
would not be pleased at this turn of events, since
a primary justification for a near-universal
willingness - shared even by China - to keep the
United States engaged in the region to a certain
extent was the US role in preventing a
conventional and nuclear arms race in East Asia.
A Japan with nuclear weapons might
recapitulate the unfortunate precedent of Israel -
not an obedient client but the tail that wags the
dog, placing enormous pressure on the United
States to react and accommodate its ally instead
of lead it.
Judging from the
Senkaku/Diaoyu shenanigans, Japanese governments
may be on the way to becoming as willing as recent
Israeli governments to engage in brinksmanship
driven by domestic politics and by the perception
that an atmosphere of perpetual crisis may be the
best way to keep the United States engaged in the
region on Japan's terms, and prevent a
Sino-American strategic rapprochement that might
leave Japan out in the cold.
It can be
argued that this policy has already paid the
desired dividend.
According to published
reports, in 2010 the US administration had
privately advised the Japanese government that it
would decline to include the Senkaku Islands
explicitly in the scope of the US-Japan Treaty of
Mutual Cooperation and Security. [6]
The
Japan Times also noted: "Tokyo may have to take
countermeasures in light of China's increasing
activities in the East China Sea, according to the
sources."
By a remarkable coincidence,
soon after the US administration advised the
Japanese government of its lack of interest in
starting World War III over the Senkakus, Seiji
Maehara not only provoked a regional crisis over
the misbehavior of a Chinese fishing vessel near
the Senkakus, he flew to Washington to solicit US
support for the Japanese position.
There
is more than a whiff of suspicion that Maehara did
not receive the affirmation he craved, and instead
fibbed about the US position, hoping with good
reason that the US State Department would not hang
him out to dry with a denial. [7]
In any
case, after the Chinese disruption of rare-earth
exports to Japan, the China-bashing line was
unequivocally endorsed by the United States and in
October 2010 Secretary Clinton stated publicly and
unambiguously in response to a question from Kyodo
News Agency, which seemed to have "plant" written
all over it, that the Senkakus were covered under
Article 5 of the treaty. [8]
Kyodo also
served up a 2012 reaffirmation of the treaty
coverage of Senkaku by an anonymous "senior" US
official, which unfortunately raises the
interesting question of why Clinton did not see
fit to reiterate her 2010 statement publicly, and
Kyodo was called upon to troll the State
Department for an anonymous quote instead. [9]
Perhaps, as the 2010 precedent implies,
the dispute over the islands has to escalate to a
truly interesting and/or scary level to extort a
US statement.
The unfortunate difference
between 2010 and 2012 is that in 2010 then-prime
minister Naoto Kan was clearly uncomfortable with
Maehara's hard line. In 2012, Prime Minister Noda
sees a distinct political necessity in pushing the
crisis instead of defusing it, as The Australian
reported:
"Prime Minister Noda just passed the
consumption-tax bill in the lower house, so he
needs to demonstrate his political
assertiveness," Kyoto's Doshisha University
professor Koji Murata told The Weekend
Australian.
"If the Tokyo Metropolitan
Government purchases these islands first, then
many people will think the national government
has not taken the appropriate responsibility for
security measures. I am afraid the situation is
now very unstable."
Mr Noda hails from
the conservative wing of the ruling Democratic
Party of Japan and is something of a China hawk.
The rise of China's military and the
belligerence of North Korea have made the
Japanese public more receptive to the pro-US
defense and security policies favored by Mr Noda
and his allies in the DPJ. [10]
The
key backstory, of course, was that Tokyo Governor
Ishihara threatened to steal Noda's thunder by his
public campaign to buy the Senkakus.
One
can make the argument that Ishihara started it,
and Noda jumped in simply to keep the situation -
and the deterioration in Sino-Japanese ties - from
getting out of hand.
However, it appears
that, now that the process has started, Noda is
unwilling to duplicate Kan's unedifying cave to
China in 2010, and is lining up his forces -
including his recalcitrant ambassador to China -
to hold the political line.
"The Senkakus"
is now a dog whistle in Japanese domestic
politics, and in relations with the People's
Republic of China and the United States that
Japanese leaders can't help hearing.
Every
time Noda tries to contain the political and
diplomatic crisis, Ishihara tries to push him a
step further, perhaps offering a foretaste of what
Japanese politics will look like as the
competition between China and Japan continues to
drive Japanese public opinion to the right.
That's a matter of anxiety for the United
States as well as Japan.
On the matter of
keeping this an "internal Japanese affair",
Ishihara has made it clear his desire is to drag
the United States into the Senkaku/Diaoyu
conflict:
"I may advise that if the US does
not take an interest in this issue, all of the
Pacific Ocean will be lost," he said ... "This
is an issue that could determine the fate of all
of the Pacific, and not just Japan."
[11]
China, for its part, will
probably not be interested in escalating the
conflict precipitously.
Right now, it's
the Japanese government that looks idiotic,
Japanese elite opinion is divided, and the United
States looks extremely uncomfortable with the
competition between Prime Minister Noda and
Governor Ishihara for the role of most
irresponsible imperialistic dingbat.
Now,
one expects, is not the time for China to
duplicate its 2010 error and attract unfavorable
attention to itself by doing something stupid.
So far, the Chinese government has
confined itself to spraying diplomatic and
journalistic vitriol, and has sent fishery patrol
vessels, perhaps commanded by well-briefed and
level-headed officers, instead of trawlers
skippered by agitated fishermen, to assert PRC
sovereignty over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands.
In a little-noticed development, Taiwan -
which is also vociferous in its claims to the
islands - has also dispatched its naval patrol and
coast-guard vessels to the contested waters,
offering the now-rare sight of a local democracy
openly lining up on Beijing's side against Japan
on a foreign-policy issue, thereby adding to
Tokyo's discomfiture.
The People's
Republic of China may very well be interested in
stepping up confrontation with Vietnam over the
Spratlys. But in the matter of the Senkaku/Diaoyu
Islands, it may be content to watch Japan and the
United States dig a deeper hole for themselves in
the blue-green oceans of the East China Sea.
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