JAPAN AND THE SENKAKUS

SENKAKU ISSUE FALLS HARD FROM THE SHELF

Philip Brasor

The Japan Times, September 30, 2012

Tanaage, which means to put something on the shelf, is a term that pops up often in the coverage of the current imbroglio over the islands that Japan calls the Senkakus. There is disagreement over when China, which calls the islands Diaoyu, started insisting they were its territory, but in any case the two countries didn't confront each other with their respective claims until the 1970s. Japanese hardliners say the Chinese became possessive about the rocks in the East China Sea only when they determined there were valuable resources under them, while the Chinese say they've been visiting them before Japan was a twinkle in the goddess Amaterasu's eye.

But around 1978 the matter was "put on the shelf" in accordance with an unspoken understanding that China would continue claiming the islands for itself while tacitly acknowledging that Japan "realistically controlled them," to quote China-based freelance journalist Yoshiko Furumae in the Tokyo Shimbun. Japan could then assert to the void that there is no territorial problem.

Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara effectively knocked the matter off the shelf when he offered to buy the islands from its Japanese owners on behalf of Tokyo, a move that prodded the national government to make its own offer, thus not only inflating the price of the rocks from ¥500 million to a staggering ¥2 billion, but also causing China to lose face, since the deal was sealed the day after Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Chinese President Hu Jintao held a secret meeting at the APEC conference in Vladivostok, where Noda didn't even mention the pending purchase. Hu was furious.

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BASELINES AROUND THE ISLANDS

CHINA'S LINES AROUND ISLANDS SUGGEST MORE CONFLICT

Louise Watt (Associated Press)

Newsday, September 29, 2012

BEIJING - (AP) -- One of the hottest items in bookstores across China is a map for a place that is closed to visitors, home only to animals such as goats and crabs, and the reason China's relations with Japan are at their lowest point in years.

China calls them the Diaoyus; Japan, the Senkakus. The new map shows a satellite image of a kidney-shaped main island with splotches of green, and a list of 70 affiliated "islands" that are really half-submerged rocks.

China hastily published the map to help maintain public outrage over the Japanese government's purchase of some of the islands from their private Japanese owners. Beijing also has engaged in another type of mapmaking that may end up escalating the conflict.

It has drawn new territorial markers, or baselines, around the islands, and submitted them to the United Nations. That could lead to a more serious attempt to claim the islands, and broad swaths of valuable ocean around them.

"The status quo has been broken in the last month by Japan's purchase and China's publishing of the baselines," said Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt of the International Crisis Group. She said friction is likely to reach its worst level since the 1980s when China and Japan tacitly agreed to set aside the dispute in pursuit of better overall relations.

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NATIONALISM IN CHINA AND JAPAN

NATIONALISM FEEDING FIRES OF TENSION IN EAST ASIA

China and Japan both reverting to ideology instead of addressing their real problems

Park Min-hee

The Hankyoreh, September 28, 2012

Portraits of Mao Zedong seemed to be dancing in every direction. It was Sept. 18, the peak of the protests in China against Japan’s nationalization of the Senkaku Islands (the Diaoyu Islands in China), and a huge stage had been erected in front of the Japanese Embassy in Beijing. Toting big portaits of the "Great Helmsman" and placards with such bloodthirsty slogans as "Open fire on Japan" and "Kill the Japanese bastards," demonstrators marched in teams a few hundred strong, while security police "directed" them at the front of the ranks. It was an unusual spectacle to say the least.

The ones holding pictures of Mao praised him as a "powerful leader" and a "hero in the resistance against Japan." It was baffling to see the same man whose Great Leap Forward and Culture Revolution took tens of millions of lives making this sort of comeback in the hearts of the Chinese.

Maoism may indeed be the single most powerful religion in China today. As rage against widespread corruption, income inequality, and injustice combines with anxieties over an economy that is losing steam by the day, people in China have been turning to their old leader. In his book "China in Ten Words," Yu Hua writes that the many problems that emerged after development may be "precisely why Mao keeps being brought back to life." A dangerous combination, fed by discontent with reality, is taking shape between China's left wing and patriots, who are presenting nostalgia for the Mao days as some kind of alternative.

In Japan, we can also find shadows reminiscent of this growing Sinocentrism. The latest round of friction was touched off by Japan's far right, which irresponsibly exploited a territorial issue in the hopes of winning political points. Having lost their way amid a Fukushima nuclear crisis, an economy mired in quicksand, an aging society, and the disgruntlement of young people robbed of opportunity, these right-wingers have derided the Peace Constitution and any kind of reflection on history, and are working to promote a sense of nostalgia for the glories of the militarist [imperial] era.

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ISLANDS AND ECONOMIES

CONFRONTATION MAY HURT ECONOMY

The Japan Times, September 27, 2012

As tension between Japan and China escalates over the ownership of the Senkaku Islands following the Japanese government's decision to purchase three of the five islets in the island group, there is the possibility that China will step up its confrontational attitude toward Japan.

This could cause difficulty on both political and economic fronts. Japan needs to carefully monitor Beijing's moves, ascertain the meaning behind those moves, and quickly take necessary steps to change the situation for the better.

It is important for Japan to take concrete action to resume constructive dialogue with China and thus it needs to mobilize all available means to that end. Neither repeating hawkish rhetoric toward its Asian neighbor nor taking a do-nothing attitude with unwarranted optimism will help end this difficult situation.

Symbolic of China's hard stance toward Japan is its decision to cancel celebrations scheduled to be held in Beijing marking the 40th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Tokyo and Beijing. In view of the tense situation, the Japan-China Economic Association this week decided to postpone sending a delegation to China. The Japan-China Green Expo, which was to have begun last week in Shanghai, was also canceled.

China has tightened customs inspections of Japanese goods and slowed down the processing of visa applications by Japanese citizens. Chinese citizens are cancelling trips to Japan impacting the Japanese tourist industry such as hotels and inns. Grass-roots exchange events between Japan and China are also being canceled one after another.

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CHINA SEEN FROM TAIWAN

CHINA’S COLLAPSE IS UNLIKELY: FORUM

Taipei Times, September 26, 2012

China’s economic growth is slowing down, but the country’s economy is unlikely to collapse in the near future, nor is the rising power likely to impose economic sanctions against Taiwan or Japan, experts said at a forum yesterday.

China’s economy would not collapse in the near future, because Chinese officials are very much aware of the problems they are facing and have sufficient policy tools and resources on hand to handle a possible crisis, the experts concluded.

For the third consecutive week, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) held a symposium on China affairs to improve its understanding of the country. Yesterday’s forum focused on China’s economy, following previous topics on social and political development.

Beijing understands very well that its rapid economic growth in the past decade could not be sustainable and it would have to tackle the three major issues of “imbalance, inconsistency and unsustainability,” National Chengchi University professor Tung Cheng-yuan (童振源) said.

In an analysis of China’s economic transformation to the audience, among them DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and Policy Research Committee executive director Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), Tung said China has been trying to slow down its export and domestic investment to transform its export-oriented economy to one with emphasis on domestic consumption.

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SENKAKU OR DIAOYU?

JAPAN AND CHINA FAIL TO EASE TENSIONS OVER ISLAND DISPUTE

Bloomberg News

Bloomberg, September 25, 2012

Diplomats from China and Japan failed to ease tensions over a territorial dispute as the Japanese Coast Guard used water cannons to drive off Taiwanese vessels near the islands at the center of the spat.

Japan’s move this month to buy the islands was “blatantly illegal,” China’s Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun told Japanese counterpart Chikao Kawai today in Beijing, according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement. While the two sides agreed to more discussions, Kawai said no consensus was reached to hold a foreign ministers’ meeting this week at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Kyodo News reported.

The meeting was the first since protests in China last week damaged operations for Japanese companies such as Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) and Aeon Co. Japan’s purchase of the islands, known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese, exacerbated the worst diplomatic crisis since 2005, which has threatened a $340 billion trade relationship between Asia’s two biggest economies.

About 50 Taiwanese fishing boats and patrol vessels left waters administered by Japan after the Japanese Coast Guard fired water cannons at them this morning, the Coast Guard said in a statement. Five Chinese government boats were also spotted in or near what Japan calls its “contiguous zone,” according to a separate statement.

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FORECASTS FOR GDP GROWTH

S&P CUTS GDP GROWTH FORECAST FOR CHINA, INDIA AND OTHER ASIA PACIFIC COUNTRIES

International Business Times, September 24, 2012

Global rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Monday cut the economic growth forecast for the Asia Pacific countries, including China and India, citing the slowdown in China, euro zone troubles and a slower-than-expected recovery in the U.S.

The rating agency lowered the base case forecasts of 2012 real GDP growth by about one percentage point each for Hong Kong (to 1.8 percent) and India (to 5.5 percent). It reduced about half a percentage point each for China (to 7.5 percent), Japan (to 2.0 percent), Republic of Korea (to 2.5 percent), Singapore (to 2.1 percent) and Taiwan (to 1.9 percent).

In its report titled "Asia Pacific Feels the Pressure of Ongoing Global Economic Uncertainty,” S&P’s credit analyst Andrew Palmer said: "The China slowdown has a flow-on effect to the export-oriented Asian economies of Japan, Korea and Taiwan, and the trading port cities of Hong Kong (in particular) and Singapore. The slowdown in China and the economies in the euro zone and U.S. have also resulted in lower commodity prices.”

"Our lower forecast for China recognizes that the central government had elected not to inject an economic stimulus of a size and speed necessary for an 8% growth rate. It appears that the approach by the Chinese authorities remains influenced by the unpleasant experience of the inflationary effect, particularly on real estate prices, of the stimulus they initiated in late 2008-2009," Palmer added.

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