PLA takes hard line in East China Sea
By Yoshikazu Shimizu
A dispute within the Chinese leadership seems to be going on over the defense
of maritime resources in the East China Sea.
Since the time of Deng Xiaoping, China has proposed to Japan joint development
of the Senkaku Islands (known in China as the Diaoyutai Islands) by setting
aside a sovereignty dispute, while maintaining its territorial claim over the
islands.
However, nothing has been reported, either in Japan and China, of what
President Hu Jintao said about the islands during his meeting with Japanese
Prime Minister Naoto Kan on November 13, the first since the collision between
a Chinese fishing trawler and Japanese Coast Guard vessels near the islands in
September. It is likely that the Chinese leadership considered it wise not to
mention China's stance for the moment and demanded that the Japan keep its side
of the argument from the public as well.
The People's Liberation Army has taken a hard line in this maritime power game.
The PLA was the first to warn against the joint military exercises planned by
the US and South Korean navies in the Yellow Sea where the sinking of a South
Korean corvette took place in March.
Ma Xiaotian, deputy chief of the PLA's general staff, told a Hong Kong-based
television broadcaster in July that he opposed the exercises because the site
was "too close to Chinese territorial waters". A week later, the Chinese
government, which had until then avoided making clear its stance out of
consideration for Washington, officially expressed its opposition to the
US-Korea joint exercises. Amid the abnormal situation of the military
determining China's foreign policy direction, a high-ranking Chinese diplomat
warned that "the military should not meddle in diplomacy".
To call the situation abnormal, however, is a taboo today in China. The Chinese
foreign policy heavyweight who cautioned against media appearances by the
military was attacked on web sites as a "traitor".
The Internet has become a mainstream outlet of public opinion in China, where
the number of users has exceeded 400 million. Yet we should not forget that the
Internet remains under state control and that only those strong opinions that
arouse patriotic feelings are allowed to go public. Chinese people are venting
their frustrations by attacking "traitors" with patriotic fervor, which in fact
is providing ammunition for the hardline foreign policy advocated by the
military.
The PLA is an unusual military for a modern state. It is supported by public
finance, but recognizes itself as the military arm of the Communist Party of
China (CPC). The PLA holds the view that making the military a state organ is a
dangerous idea. Among the 12 members of the CPC's Central Military Commission,
which holds supreme command, all but two - President and CPC's general
secretary Hu Jintao, serving as chairman, and Vice President Xi Jinping,
serving as vice chairman - are uniformed officers.
The National People's Congress and the central government are virtually
excluded from military policy-making. The structure is reminiscent of the
prewar Japanese military, which assumed supreme power over military policy by
rejecting the involvement of the cabinet and parliament on the basis that
supreme command resided with the Emperor.
Control of the military has been a thorny problem since the top military
position was assumed by Jiang Zemin, the former CPC General Secretary, and then
by Hu Jintao. Unlike Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, who led Chinese revolutions,
the two men had no military background.
Thus, in order to retain their positions, they needed to cater to the demands
of the military, such as by permitting double-digit growth of the defense
budget for 21 years and promoting officers more frequently. Even if Hu steps
aside as CPC General Secretary and is succeeded by Xi Jinping at the 18th CPC
Congress in 2012, he may well want to retain influence by remaining the
chairman of the Central Military Commission for a further two years, just as
his predecessors, Deng and Jiang, had done. Such ambition will only make it
more difficult for him to ignore the hardline policy of the military.
The collision incident near the disputed Senkaku Islands reminds the Chinese
people of the fact that Beijing has long acquiesced in Tokyo's valid control
over the islands despite the official territorial claim over them. The incident
also became a learning experience for the Chinese leadership, showing that
pressure works better than cooperation.
Even if Hu wants to improve relations with Japan, he is likely to encounter
strong opposition from the party, the government and the public. Anti-Japanese
demonstrations that have spread into rural areas since mid-October attest to
this. To cope with these growing hardliners within the Chinese leadership,
Japan needs to come up with a strategy designed to hedge against and encourage
China to pursue cooperative diplomacy by coordinating with Washington and
neighboring countries.
Yoshikazu Shimizu (simizu.y@chunichi.co.jp) is editor-in-chief of
the Tokyo Shimbun. The views expressed in this piece are the author's own and
should not be attributed to The Association of Japanese Institutes of Strategic
Studies.
AJISS-Commentary is an occasional op-ed type publication of The Association of
Japanese Institutes of Strategic Studies (AJISS) consisting of three leading
Japanese think-tanks: the Institute for International Policy Studies (IIPS),
the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA), and the Research Institute
for Peace and Security (RIPS). Used with permission.
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