Uneasy crowd control in East China
Sea By Jens Kastner
TAIPEI - Ever since the Japanese
government this month signed a deal with a private
landowner to purchase and nationalize the East
China Sea's Senkaku Islands (called Diaoyu Islands
in Chinese), which are controlled by Japan but
subject to competing claims by Beijing and Taipei,
the waters in the area have been witnessing a
rapid buildup of semi-military forces belonging to
the three powers that have hugely complex
relationships with one another.
While even
the most seasoned observers on Asian security
affairs have difficulties imagining the
consequences the first shot fired would bring
about, it is obvious that the more warriors and
military hardware are ordered into the theater by
leaders who want to save
face at home, the higher
the likelihood of carnage.
On September 7,
Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou sought to
underscore Taiwan's sovereignty over the disputed
islands by a two-hour whirlwind visit to Pengjia
Islet, which at 140 kilometers is the closest
Taiwan-controlled soil gets to the Senkakus. On
Pengjia, the Beijing-friendly Taiwanese leader
slammed the Japanese government's plan to
nationalize the islands as an "invasion" of
territory of Republic of China (Taiwan's official
name), and while shaking his fist, he had a
handful of ROC Air Force Mirage 2000 and F-16
fighter jets thundering over the scene.
A
few days later, he ordered two coast guard ships
armed with 20-millimeter cannons and 50mm guns to
the waters surrounding the Senkakus to "protect"
Taiwanese fishing boats, which in the past have
often been chased away by the Japanese coast guard
when fishing there.
This, of course,
implies that Taiwan's coast guard vessels will in
future interfere at gunpoint whenever their
Japanese counterparts attempt to expel what they
perceive as foreign poachers. As Taipei
orchestrated Ma's Pengjia trip as well as the
coast guard vessels' dispatch with as much martial
fanfare as possible, and Taiwanese patrol
operations near the Senkakus are now conducted
around the clock, it not only makes the vicinity
of the contested islands a more crowded place, but
also sets the bar higher. Any future failure by
the Taiwanese coast guard to shield the fishermen
from Japanese action will draw flak in Taiwan's
domestic politics to the detriment of the ruling
party, Ma's Kuomintang.
All signs are that
the Taiwanese government will want to prevent such
an outcome by putting additional pressure on its
coast guard, thereby creating a vicious cycle.
A disaster is undoudtedly brewing on the
mainland Chinese side. The state-run Xinhua News
Agency reported that nearly 2,000 Chinese fishing
boats have left port this week sailing for the
Diaoyu waters. This will surely make the situation
even less controllable. Chinese media proclaims
that over 1,000 Chinese fishing boats catch
150,000 tonnes of fish annually in the disputed
waters - and they have all the right to continue
doing so, as, according to the usual Chinese
phraseology, the "Diaoyu Islands and their
affiliated islets have been China's inherent
territory since ancient times".
Before and
upon Tokyo's purchase of the Senkakus, violent
protests broke out in many Chinese cities against
the Japanese, who are generally disliked in China
as they were the country's brutal occupiers in
World War II. Meanwhile Beijing, desperate not to
be seen as weak and cowardly at home when taking
on Tokyo, acted by ordering six ocean surveillance
ships to intrude into Japanese waters in a
high-profile move that sent chills down spines
around the globe.
It is not clear whether
Japan has also raised the stakes since by
dispatching more personnel and hardware into the
scene. But given its two competitors' apparent
determination, it is a near-certain outcome.
When addressing international audiences,
government officials and affiliated observers from
all three sides - unlike when they are firing up
their respective home crowds - tend to point out
in a bid to demonstrate moral high ground that
their military still plays no direct role in the
events. In Japan's and Taiwan's cases, the coast
guard is a civilian law-enforcement agency under
the cabinet, as opposed to an organization that
steams ahead under navy command, while the
mainland's patrol boats so far involved belong to
the paramilitary China Marine Surveillance under
the auspices of the State Oceanic Administration,
not the PLA Navy.
However, according to
experts interviewed by Asia Times Online, this
does not make the situation much safer. The risk
of minor combat accidentally erupting looms ever
larger over the Senkakus, they say.
"These
maneuvers are all threats that leave something to
chance," said John Pike, director of
GlobalSecurity.org, a US-based think-tank. "But
that's the whole point: if there was no risk of
accidental escalation, no one would be paying
attention."
When asked about his take on
concrete combat scenarios, Pike sees only one
that's thinkable. According to him, there will be
no combat between Japan and Taiwan. He also
dismissed a notion popular with Taiwanese
academics lately, according to which if Taiwanese
vessels were to come under Japanese attack Beijing
would jump on the opportunity to protect the
Taiwanese forces to promote its sacred aim of
cross-strait unification.
Nor is there a
possibility that Taiwan and the mainland could
combat each other, according to Pike, as "everyone
is making too much money".
But if mainland
China were to fire at Japan first, things could
get very interesting very fast, he said. "It is
important to remember that this is the one
disputed island where the US does have a position
on the competing claims - the US [which is in a
defense alliance with Japan] is clear that Senkaku
is Japanese."
James Holmes, an associate
professor at the US Naval War College, expounded
more on the dangers of having three governments
fielding semi-military forces.
"Crowding
the seas and skies with assets from multiple
countries, and from multiple services within each
country, does make for a volatile situation," he
said. "Not only does it increase the likelihood of
something touching off a small-scale
confrontation, but it also makes it difficult for
each government to coordinate its response
effectively."
Holmes noted that coast
guards have different bureaucratic cultures from
navies, and are still more different from air
forces and other bodies that may be present around
the Senkakus. "Organizations may respond quite
differently to the same circumstances. The chances
of a fragmented response rise in times of stress,
and this in turn increases the chances of
miscalculation and escalation."
He
concluded by drawing a historic parallel that is
intriguing, indeed.
"The situation reminds
me a bit of the [1962] Cuban missile crisis.
Thankfully, the stakes are smaller and the weapons
deployed create a lot smaller bang," Holmes said.
"But here again, fairly confined waters were
flooded with naval vessels and merchantmen. The
contenders' rules of engagement were unclear,
heightening the uncertainty. Some truly
hair-raising things occurred. We hear echoes of
that in the East China Sea."
Jens
Kastner is a Taipei-based journalist.
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