Even in a world already rife with vexing geo-political challenges, we can never underestimate the ability of Great Powers to invent an avoidable crisis. Such is the case involving disputed claims by China and Japan over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, which took a serious turn toward volatility over the past week.
Decades of simmering tensions escalated substantially when China unilaterally declared an “Aerial Defense Identification Zone” (ADIF) well into the East China Sea, covering over one million square miles, including the disputed islands, tangibly announcing Chinese primacy in the area. Planes entering the ADIF must identify themselves to Chinese authorities, implicitly requiring Chinese permission to be in the area.
The announcement brought quick condemnation from the US, Japan and South Korea, among others. In addition, the United States took the fairly extraordinary step of flying a pair of (unarmed) B-52s through the ADIF without providing notice to Chinese officials, to signal Washington’s displeasure. Both American and Japanese reconnaissance have continued to fly into the zone over the past week, prompting the Chinese to scramble jets on November 30th.
The very rapid escalation of tensions over the ADIF creates a volatile uncertainty in the region where miscalculation or bluff could cause an actual exchange of hostile fire, and a possible cascade of negative geo-political implications.
At Issue:
The Diaoyu (Chinese)/Senkaku (Japanese) islands are located near the southern end of the Ryukyu Island chain – an area of Japanese sovereignty including over 100 islands which runs from Japan’s Kyushu, in a bow-shaped arc toward Taiwan. The disputed islands cover less than three square miles of uninhabited, rocky land, comprise five islets and three rocks. By way of comparison, Nantucket is 47 square miles. The islands are 252 miles from the coast of China, 114 miles from Japanese Okinawa and 102 miles from Taiwan, which also has a claim on the islands.
History:
Both the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Republic of China (ROC/Taiwan) claim the islands dating back to sometime between the 14th to 16th centuries. After Japan won the Sino-Japanese war in 1895, it took control of the Islands. After WWII, the entire Ryukyu chain fell under US military administration until 1972, when an agreement between the US and Japan returned the entire area to Japanese civil administration. In 1971, just before the transfer, both the PRC and ROC lodged protests, claiming the islands as their sovereign territory. Agreements between the US and the PRC and Japan and the PRC since then have side-stepped the issue of the island’s proper owner in favor of resolving more immediate political and economic issues.
While the islands offer little intrinsic value on their own, their position – and thus sovereignty over them – has enormous consequences for the natural resources that are locked in the ocean bed around them. Oil was discovered near the islands in 1968. More recently, China and Japan have been locked in heated competition for natural gas that is abundant in the area. Ultimate control of the islands would bolster the economic claims of the winning power.
Discussion:
China is an emerging Great Power. In only 35 years, Chinese GDP has grown from $216 billion to $8.2 trillion, taking the PRC from a Maoist agricultural state to the second largest economy in the world. It is a rise without precedent in sheer size.
The massive creation of wealth has allowed the Chinese to invest in a first class defense, purchasing advanced ships and planes from the Russians as they have concurrently launched a sustained effort to create an advanced arms manufacturing industrial base domestically, that would sustain China into the future. Today, China’s three-decade investment in advanced weapons makes the PRC a very sophisticated and powerful military force in the “near abroad” – the ocean areas off its coast upon which a substantial percentage of the world’s trade is shipped.
China today embodies two historic threads that create a potentially unstable mix; the rise of China as a wealthy and powerful country in its own right, and a keen memory for historical grievance. A proud people, with a history and culture that pre-dates the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, China was a weak and divided country through most modern history where the center of power was in Europe and the United States. The nation was pushed around, stifled and forced to suffer the indignities inflicted by Western powers and particular war-time brutality inflicted by Japan.
No one is pushing China around today. Indeed, the rise of China’s economy has been matched by a rising nationalism among its people. Some of this is authentic and well deserved. Chinese accomplishments are breathtaking. But disturbingly, some of the nationalism is state-sponsored, a product of an unelected Communist party bureaucracy that must grasp at alternate narratives to justify its legitimacy among the people, now that – ironically – communism itself is no longer the guiding light of the communist party. That has stirred up a population that remembers past indignities and is hyper aware of any potential slight to China’s honor and new international standing.
In practical terms, China now has the power co-opt when possible and coerce when necessary when it comes to geostrategic relations, particularly in the economic realm. With a population over one billion people, the Chinese leadership has been actively – but quietly – locking up natural resources around the globe.
But China’s new power, its history of unfair treatment at the hands of other nations, and an attitude that it can now assert itself as it wishes in areas closer to home, have collided with the interests of a host of other Asian nations. We have seen an example of this for years in the South China Sea, where China has sought to intimidate ASEAN nations to assert sovereignty over large swaths of water (where large natural gas and mineral deposits lie) and islands for China’s exclusive use. We are seeing it today with the rise in tensions over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands.
It is important to note that China’s evolution over the past 35 years has not occurred in a vacuum. Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines and Indonesia have become authentic democracies with vibrant, growing economies since 1978. Vietnam has taken a page from the Chinese model with a communist government introducing market reforms to spur economic growth to provide a better life for its people.
In Japan, while the “economic miracle” of the 20th century has been mired in nearly 20 years of economic stagnation, the nation still has a GDP of nearly $6 trillion,making Japan the third largest economy on earth. The recent election of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reflects a more Japanese-centered and nationalistic approach to Asia-Pacific affairs, which adds a measure of uncertainty to new Chinese aggressiveness in the Pacific.
What we have today are the early makings of a showdown. On the one side, China. Enormously powerful and growing more so each year, despite internal, domestic weaknesses. A country deeply aware of historic insults and committed to its own greatness, even if that should come at the expense of others.
On the other side, you have a collection of Asian democracies, powerful in their own right (with a collective GDP larger than China), diverse in their make up and with their own domestic weaknesses and intra-national challenges and historical hostilities.
Now, China, by its own assertiveness, is driving this disparate collection of nations together to oppose China’s expansion of political and economic sphere’s of influence. It cannot be the result that the Beijing Politburo was hoping for. Indeed, China shows the growing pains of a great nation that is not completely familiar with the exercise of great power.
No doubt Chinese leaders felt that the ADIF seemed like a prudent, interim step that would gradually allow China to flex its influence in the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands in a manner not dissimilar from China’s forced-humbling of the Philippines last year. To bend international law without breaking it.
But it was a colossal and rash miscalculation. The Philippines is not Japan. By challenging Japan, China is now challenging the United States.
The foundation of US security in Asia is built upon the US-Japan defense treaty which commits the US to defend Japanese sovereignty. That would necessarily (if impractically) include the sovereignty of islands that the US itself administered on Japan’s behalf for 27 years, even if the Chinese take exception. While it seems surreal that the US and China could ever find themselves at odds over such a meaningless parcel of real estate, the implications of either side backing down are clear. In this regard, the creation of the ADIF was an epic strategic mistake by the PRC and one that may be hard if not impossible for China to roll back without losing face.
Conclusion:
China today is not unlike the US at the turn of the 20th century. Young, powerful, feeling its oats as well as a strong sense of entitlement and even destiny. That the future belongs to them. Perhaps unlike the early 20th century, there are also a number of Asian countries that, while much smaller, have also made great strides and have a similar sense of national destiny that bumps up against China’s ambition. This has already caused problems in the South China Sea.
But the ADIF – which by all accounts looks like a kinder and gentler version of Kennedy’s “quarantine” of Cuba in 1962, is a foolhardy and reckless action by a very new (perhaps unsteady) leadership team in Beijing that has needlessly raised tensions without an end game.
No one wants conflict. But by taking this action, China makes miscalculation or conflict more likely. Leadership is not simply about seizing opportunity but also about responsibility. China created this mess and it is ultimately up to Beijing to fix it. Far from being an instigator here, US actions in support of Japan are only those of a nation honoring long time – and well-known – treaty obligations. Vice President Biden is due in Beijing this week, and we can only hope that rational heads prevail.
In the meantime, we now have another eminently avoidable flash point of uncertainty in a world that hardly suffers for a lack of real problems.