Tensions flared up in the East China Sea between Japan and China on Tuesday at the start of the live war exercises of the Chinese navy in waters near Zhoushan, East China’s Zhejiang province. The exercises are seen by Beijing’s maritime neighbors in Asia as an escalation of its show of naval power amidst worsening territorial disputes in the region.
China’s defense ministry had announced that the navy would conduct a six-day, live-ammunition drill, while the People’s Liberation Army issued two announcements prohibiting all vessels from entering the designated exercise area. According to the announcements, the area is bigger than in previous drills but it is not in the waters disputed by China and its neighbors, and the exercises are not a counteraction to current joint military exercises between American and Philippine forces in the waters near the islands of Mindanao and Palawan in southern Philippines.
Although the exercises were planned months ago, they were launched after Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said Saturday that Japan was considering buying a chain of islands at the center of its bitter territorial dispute with China and Taiwan. These islands in the East China Sea are called Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese, and are farther to the east of the area of the exercises. China reacted angrily to Noda’s remarks. The exchange quickly deteriorated into a diplomatic row between Tokyo and Bejing, widening the compass of the territorial disputes in the region beyond the standoff that had centered on China’s dispute with the Philippines and Vietnam over rival claims on the Spratly chain of islands, and with the Philippines over Scarborough Shoal (which the Philippines calls Panatag Shoal or Bajo de Masinloc) in the South China Sea, (also known as the West Philippine Sea).
The diplomatic row between Tokyo and Beijing is a development that cannot be dismissed out of hand, in light of the fact that Japan is the leading maritime and naval power in East Asia and, of particular interest to the Philippines, has been aiding the Philippines in building up its coast guard capability. Japan is also capable of standing up to China’s increasingly aggressive maritime intrusions in the waters of smaller neighbors.
A day after the start of the Chinese naval exercises, Japan protested to China for asserting its “indisputable sovereignty” over the disputed chain of islands in the East China Sea. Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba “strongly lodged a protest” to his Chinese counterpart.
Three Chinese patrol boats were seen in the islands claimed by Japan. The crews of the Chinese vessels, which have left the vicinity, initially rebuffed the Japanese order to leave.
According to the Japanese coast guard, the Chinese crews said: “We are conducting official duty in Chinese waters. Do not interfere. Leave China’s territorial waters.”
The Chinese ambassador in Tokyo was summoned over the alleged intrusion, but the Chinese foreign ministry said it did not “accept Japanese representations over this,” according to a report by Agence France-Presse. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi countered to Gemba that the islands “have always been Chinese territory since ancient times, over which China has undisputed sovereignty.”
This has also been China’s line of argument in rejecting Philippine claims on disputed territories in the West Philippine Sea.
The East China Sea islands lie in rich fishing grounds and are thought to hold valuable mineral reserves. Tokyo recognizes a private family as the owner of the islands and the city government has plans to buy them.
China’s hardening position on its territorial claims and the diplomatic row between Tokyo and Beijing present a rising obstacle to the efforts of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to forge in its meeting in Phnom Penh a code of conduct to ease tensions in the South China Sea. These tensions did not escape the Asean summit. In particular, Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario was prompted to remark, “It looks like they (the Chinese) are becoming more aggressive every day.”
As the Asean members conferred, China warned that they should keep the territorial disputes off their agenda. It warned the forum against “hyping” a dispute over the South China Sea. It insisted that the dispute should be resolved only bilaterally between the rival claimants—an approach it favors because it would give it advantage in picking off the rival claimants one by one
“This South China Sea is not an issue between China and Asean, but an issue between China and some Asean countries,” Liu Weimin of China’s foreign ministry told reporters. “Hyping the South China Sea issue … is against the common aspirations of the people and the main trends of the time to seek development and cooperation, and an attempt to take China-Asean relations hostage.”
What about gunboat diplomacy in the naval exercises with live ammunition? Is that more persuasive?