Analysis: China working tirelessly to snatch Japan’s resolve in disputed islands – Henry Club

According to the Japanese Defense Ministry, the Chinese Coast Guard and even naval ships have been spending a record amount of time in the waters around Senkakus this year.

A contiguous area covers the waters between islands that do not fall within the 12-nautical-mile range of a country’s territorial waters. Foreign warships are allowed in those waters – so the Chinese Navy has not broken any international agreements – and China’s foreign ministry told CNN earlier this year that Chinese Coast Guard patrols in the waters around the islands were “China”. was an appropriate exercise of “sovereign authority.”

A Japanese official said China attempted to demonstrate that authority on Monday when it warned a Russian Navy warship to leave the same waters.

“Beijing aims to establish and demonstrate effective control over the Senkaku Islands” and symbols of that control are needed, said James Brown, an associate professor of political science at Temple University in Tokyo.

“The sending of its frigates to monitor the movement of a Russian ship can be interpreted as such a symbol of control,” Brown said.

Brown said the amount of time Chinese ships are spending near Senkakus is another statement.

In order for Japan to present an international legal claim to the islands, “China needs to establish a greater permanent presence of its ships in the waters surrounding the islands,” he said.

competing claims

The islands “have potential oil and natural gas reserves, are near major shipping routes, and are surrounded by rich fishing areas,” it says.

Tokyo says its claims to the islands are rooted in history. Japan’s Foreign Ministry website states that the chain was incorporated into Japanese territory in 1895 when the government “carefully ascertained that there was no trace of control of Senkaku Island by any other state prior to that period.”

At one time, about 200 Japanese people lived in the islands, further solidifying Tokyo’s claims, and China did not challenge Japanese sovereignty over the Senkakus for 75 years, it says.

“This changed in the 1970s, when the islands received significant attention due to the possible existence of oil reserves in the East China Sea,” the ministry’s website says.

Now, those Chinese challenges come up regularly.

Japan said on Wednesday that Chinese Coast Guard ships had approached a Japanese fishing boat in Japanese waters in the Senkaku series for the 16th time this year.

The Japanese Coast Guard said its patrol ships continued to warn Chinese ships to leave. And Tokyo has said it has opposed the Chinese presence near Senkakus through diplomatic channels.

But China has given no indication that it is open to talks on the islands.

The country’s foreign ministry says the islands are China’s contained territory, and has accused Japanese fishing boats of “repeated incursions” into the area.

Zhou Yongsheng, a professor at the Institute of International Relations at China Foreign Affairs University, told the state-run Global Times on Monday that sending Chinese warships to patrol and monitor around the islands is “an act of protecting national sovereignty.” ,

So the Tokyo protests are just words. And if Beijing ignores them and keeps peeling onions, Tokyo has only options left for which it doesn’t have the stomach, Brown said.

He pointed to a 2010 incident in the islands, when a Chinese trawler hit two Japanese Coast Guard ships. Japan arrested the trawler’s captain, but he was later released without charge due to a number of escalating measures from Beijing, including an unofficial ban on the export of critical rare earth metals to Japan.

Tensions persisted for three months, and the Japanese government faced domestic protests over its handling of the incident.

“Japan will not risk a repeat of the confrontation,” Brown said.

chopping onions

Last year, China introduced a law that allows the Chinese Coast Guard to use weapons to defend national sovereignty, significantly expanding Beijing’s options in a confrontation as in 2010. According to Brown, this forces Japan to be even more cautious.

Too much caution can lead to paralysis. Just as the Philippines or Vietnam or Taiwan did in the South China Sea, Japan could be a victim of China’s relentless peeling.

“Overall, Japan runs the risk of seeing its administration of the Senkaku Islands slip away,” Brown said.

Some might argue that the Senkakus has a layer of protection that China may not be able to peel back – the US-Japan security treaty, which requires Washington to defend Japanese territory.

Read the fine print on that — and then consider the possible Japanese paralysis, Brown said.

“The US security commitment applies to ‘territories under the administration of Japan’. Beijing may therefore be of the view that, if Japan no longer exercises such an administration, the US security guarantees for the Senkaku Islands will no longer apply. Won’t be,” he said.

And at that time the onion will not only be peeled and chopped.