Beijing's muscle flexing and territorial claims in the South China Sea, along with its mushrooming military budget and gloomy human rights record, are ringing alarm bells in the region
China is now engaged in bitter disputes with the
Philippines over Scarborough Shoal and Japan over the Senkaku Islands,
both located far beyond China's 320km-wide territorial waters in the
South China Sea. Indeed, so expansive are China's claims nowadays that
many Asians are wondering what will satisfy China's desire to secure its
''core interests''. Are there no limits, or does today's China conceive
of itself as a restored Middle Kingdom, to whom the entire world must
kowtow?
So far, China has formally referred to Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang
province as ''core interests'', a phrase that connotes an assertion of
national sovereignty and territorial integrity that will brook no
compromise. Now China is attempting to apply the same term to the
Senkaku Islands in its dispute with Japan, and is perilously close to
making the same claim for the entire South China Sea; indeed, some
Chinese military officers already have.
The Senkaku Islands, located to the west of Okinawa in the East China
Sea and currently uninhabited, were incorporated into Japan by the
Meiji government in 1895. At one time, there were regular residents
working at a bonito-drying facility. In 1969, the United Nations
Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East completed a seabed survey
of the East China Sea, and reported the possible presence of vast
underground mineral resources, including abundant oil and natural gas
reserves near the Senkakus. Two years passed before Taiwan and China
claimed sovereignty over the islands, in 1971, but the Japanese
government's stance has always been that Japan's sovereignty is not in
question.
In April, Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, a famous and articulate
patriot, announced that the metropolitan government that he leads plans
to acquire four of the Senkaku Islands, which are currently privately
owned by Japanese citizens. Donations for the purchase from the people
of Japan now exceed 700 million yen (278.6 million baht).
China reacted to Mr Ishihara's proposal with its usual sensitivity:
it refused to receive the scheduled visit of his son, who is
secretary-general of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party, the country's
main opposition party.
Moreover, at a meeting in Beijing earlier this month between Japanese
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao during a
trilateral summit with South Korea, Mr Wen mentioned the independence
movement in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and the Senkaku
Islands in the same breath. ''It is important to respect China's core
interests and issues of major concern,'' he emphasised.
Until that moment, the Chinese government had never applied the term
''core interest'' to the Senkaku Islands. Following Mr Wen's statement,
the trilateral summit deteriorated. While South Korean President Lee
Myung-bak held bilateral talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao, talks
between Mr Noda and Mr Hu, and a scheduled meeting between Keidanren
Chairman Hiromasa Yonekura and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi,
were also cancelled. The joint declaration issued at the summit was
delayed a day, and omitted all references to North Korea _ a prime
concern of both Japan and South Korea.
China's brusque treatment of Japan's leaders probably was intended as
a rebuke not only over the Senkaku Islands issue, but also for hosting
the Fourth General Meeting of the World Uyghur Congress in Tokyo in May.
Previously, such meetings had been held in Germany and the United
States, and this one, which stressed the importance of protecting human
rights and preserving the traditions, culture, and language of the
Uyghur people, received no official sanction or endorsement from the
Japanese government.
If gruff diplomacy was the only manifestation of China's expansive
territorial claims, Asian leaders could sleep more peacefully. But the
fact is that China's navy is becoming increasingly active in the South
China Sea, at the Senkaku Islands and Scarborough Shoal in particular,
but also around the Spratly Islands claimed by Vietnam. Given China's
mushrooming military budget, that assertiveness has set off alarm bells
among the other countries bordering the South China Sea.
Moreover, China's bullying of the Philippines included not only the
dispatch of warships to Scarborough Shoals, but also the sudden
imposition of import restrictions on Filipino produce. And China's
reactions toward Japan are far more paranoid since a non-LDP government
took power.
The struggles for power within China's ruling Communist Party over
the purge of Bo Xilai, and the blind activist Chen Guangcheng's escape
from detention during economic talks with the US, have made Chinese
leaders nationalist assertions even more strident than usual. No
official wants to appear soft where China's supposed ''core interests''
are concerned.
So far, China has not unleashed the sort of mass demonstrations
against Japan and others that it has used in the past, but that probably
reflects the fact that China's leaders cannot guarantee such a
demonstration would not turn into an anti-government protest.
China's real core interests are not in territorial expansion and
hegemony over its neighbours, but in upholding human rights and
improving the welfare of its own citizens, which is the world's core
interest in China. But until China accepts that its territorial claims
in the South China Sea must be discussed multilaterally, so that smaller
countries like the Philippines and Vietnam do not feel threatened,
China's ever expanding ''core interests'' will be the root of
instability in East Asia.
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Yuriko Koike | Bangkok Post | May 27, 2012 | Article Link
Yuriko Koike is Japan's former minister of defence and national security adviser.
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