The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 11, Issue 21, No. 3, May 27, 2013. Much Ado over Small Islands: The Sino-Japanese Confrontation over Senkaku/Diaoyu

Can Asia prevent its own Crimea?

by Bonnie S. Glaser • March 28, 2014 • 2 Comments

Source: televisius’s flickr photostream, used under a creative commons license.

With the world watching Ukraine with wary eyes, the U.S. Navy’s lead admiral in the Pacific suggested Asia could face a similar crisis if the continent’s other major power continues on its current path.

Since 2009, China has stepped up what Philippine officials have called a “creeping invasion” in the South China Sea. Although less dramatic than Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Beijing has been bullying its neighbors to assert and advance an expansive set of territorial and maritime claims encompassed by its “nine-dash line,” which skirts the coastlines of Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and the Philippines and gobbles up islands, rocks and resources in the process.

Seeking to make new facts on the ground (or, more literally, on the water), Beijing has permitted and encouraged its paramilitary law enforcement ships and navy to engage in persistent harassment and intimidation of non-Chinese fisherman, military vessels and energy companies seeking to go about their business in the South China Sea. Earlier this month, Chinese coast guard vessels reportedly interfered with the delivery of supplies to Filipino marines stationed on Second Thomas Shoal, a submerged reef near Reed Bank that is believed to be rich in oil and gas. If such incidents are allowed to continue, armed conflict could be around the corner.

But what distinguishes the contest over sovereignty in the Asia-Pacific from events unfolding more than 5,000 miles away in Eastern Europe is that hope remains for a peaceful solution that eschews coercion and force in exchange for international law and diplomacy.

Outmatched by China’s rapidly growing military, and dispirited by 17 years of failed bilateral diplomacy to settle its disputes with Beijing, the Philippines decided in January 2013 that its only recourse was to submit its claims to compulsory arbitration under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which governs international rules and rights on the world’s seas. This came on the heels of China’s illegal seizure and occupation (continued to this day) of the contested Scarborough Shoal off of the Philippines’ west coast.

Despite Beijing’s unrelenting efforts to pressure Manila to drop the case, the Philippines plans to file its final “memorial” at the end of March, which will detail its case that many of China’s claims, including the notorious “nine-dash line,” have no standing in international or customary law. Legal experts predict a ruling could come down as early as mid- or late 2015.

In the meantime, countries in the Asia-Pacific – and the international community – have an opportunity to decide what kind of world they want to live in: one governed by rules and institutions; the other by brute force.

The underlying problem, however, is that many governments are reluctant to publicly support a process that Beijing opposes.

It is incumbent upon leaders in Canberra, Paris, Berlin, Jakarta and elsewhere to say as much.

Now is the time for like-minded countries to take a public stance on this issue. If more countries – including leading European nations, Australia and especially some of the ASEAN countries – speak out in favor of the right to use arbitration to resolve maritime disputes (while not siding with Manila), then the reputational cost to China of flouting international law will increase. Beijing may then be compelled to rethink its current position of defiance. It may even avail itself of the opportunity to participate in the tribunal and present a legal defense of its claims, including the nine-dash line.

The low profile taken by states both nearby and far away is to some extent understandable. Their economic dependence on China is growing. What is to be gained by risking Beijing’s ire, which in the Philippines case has resulted in flagrant Chinese diplomatic, economic, and other forms of pressure?

But waiting quietly for the ruling is a losing strategy. If there are no penalties for defying a binding ruling of an international court, then China will assuredly ignore any decisions it dislikes, further destabilizing the region and closing off a potentially promising path for the peaceful management of otherwise noxious disputes. The disruptive consequences would also likely reverberate beyond the region, as China’s willingness to play a constructive and positive role in the international system would be rightfully called into question.

If Asia wishes to prevent events in its own neighborhood that mirror those unfolding today in the Ukraine, it must seize this remarkably clear-cut opportunity to support the development of a rules-based system in Asia. Staying silent on the Philippines arbitration case is a tacit vote against such a future.

NYT

The Inconvenient Truth Behind the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands

September 19, 2012 7:38 pmOctober 9, 2012 2:39 pm

Japan’s recent purchase of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands has predictably reignited tensions amongst China, Japan, and Taiwan. Three months ago, when Niwa Uichiro, the Japanese ambassador to China, warned that Japan’s purchase of the islands could spark an “extremely grave crisis” between China and Japan, Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintaro slammed Niwa as an unqualified ambassador, who “needs to learn more about the history of his own country”.

Ambassador Niwa was forced to apologize for his remarks and was recently replaced. But what is most alarming amid these developments is that despite Japan’s democratic and pluralist society, rising nationalist sentiments are sidelining moderate views and preventing rational dialogue.

The Japanese government maintains that the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands are Japanese territory under international law and historical point of view and has repeatedly insisted that no dispute exists. Despite that the rest of the world sees a major dispute, the Japanese government continues to evade important historical facts behind its unlawful incorporation of the islands in 1895.

Specifically, the Japanese government asserts, “From 1885 on, our government conducted on-site surveys time and again, which confirmed that the islands were uninhabited and there were no signs of control by the Qing Empire.”

My research of over 40 official Meiji period documents unearthed from the Japanese National Archives, Diplomatic Records Office, and National Institute for Defense Studies Library clearly demonstrates that the Meiji government acknowledged Chinese ownership of the islands back in 1885.

Following the first on-site survey, in 1885, the Japanese foreign minister wrote, “Chinese newspapers have been reporting rumors of our intention of occupying islands belonging to China located next to Taiwan.… At this time, if we were to publicly place national markers, this must necessarily invite China’s suspicion.…”

In November 1885, the Okinawa governor confirmed “since this matter is not unrelated to China, if problems do arise I would be in grave repentance for my responsibility”.

“Surveys of the islands are incomplete” wrote the new Okinawa governor in January of 1892. He requested that a naval ship Kaimon be sent to survey the islands, but ultimately a combination of miscommunication and bad weather made it impossible for the survey to take place.

Japan Diplomatic Records Office.Letter dated May 12, 1894 affirming that the Meiji government did not repeatedly investigate the disputed islands.

“Ever since the islands were investigated by Okinawa police agencies back in 1885, there have been no subsequent field surveys conducted,” the Okinawa governor wrote in 1894.

After a number of Chinese defeats in the Sino-Japanese War, a report from Japan’s Home Ministry said “this matter involved negotiations with China… but the situation today is greatly different from back then.” The Meiji government, following a cabinet decision in early 1895, promptly incorporated the islands.

Negotiations with China never took place and this decision was passed during the Sino-Japanese War. It was never made public.

In his biography Koga Tatsushiro, the first Japanese citizen to lease the islands from the Meiji government, attributed Japan’s possession of the islands to “the gallant military victory of our Imperial forces.”

Collectively, these official documents leave no doubt that the Meiji government did not base its occupation of the islands following “on-site surveys time and again,” but instead annexed them as booty of war. This is the inconvenient truth that the Japanese government has conveniently evaded.

Japan asserts that neither Beijing nor Taipei objected to U.S. administration after WWII. That’s true, but what Japan does not mention is that neither Beijing nor Taipei were invited as signatories of the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951, from which the U.S. derived administrative rights.

When Japan annexed the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands in 1895, it detached them from Taiwan and placed them under Okinawa Prefecture. Moreover, the Japanese name “Senkaku Islands” itself was first introduced in 1900 by academic Kuroiwa Hisashi and adopted by the Japanese government thereafter. Half a century later when Japan returned Taiwan to China, both sides adopted the 1945 administrative arrangement of Taiwan, with the Chinese unaware that the uninhabited “Senkaku Islands” were in fact the former Diaoyu Islands. This explains the belated protest from Taipei and Beijing over U.S. administration of the islands after the war.

The Japanese government frequently cites two documents as evidence that China did not consider the islands to be Chinese. The first is an official letter from a Chinese consul in Nagasaki dated May 20, 1920 that listed the islands as Japanese territory.

Neither Beijing nor Taipei dispute that the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands — along with the entire island of Taiwan — were formally under Japanese occupation at the time. However, per post-WW II arrangements, Japan was required to surrender territories obtained from aggression and revert them to their pre-1895 legal status.

The second piece evidence is a Chinese map from 1958 that excludes the Senkaku Islands from Chinese territory. But the Japanese government’s partial unveiling leaves out important information from the map’s colophon: “certain national boundaries are based on maps compiled prior to the Second Sino-Japanese War(1937-1945).”

Qing period (1644-1911) records substantiate Chinese ownership of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands prior to 1895. Envoy documents indicate that the islands reside inside the “border that separates Chinese and foreign lands.” And according to Taiwan gazetteers, “Diaoyu Island accommodates ten or more large ships” under the jurisdiction of Kavalan, Taiwan.

The right to know is the bedrock of every democracy. The Japanese public deserves to know the other side of the story. It is the politicians who flame public sentiments under the name of national interests who pose the greatest risk, not the islands themselves.