The envoy, Vice Marshal Choe Ryong-hae, who serves as director of the general political bureau of the North Korean People’s Army, met in Beijing with Wang Jiarui, the head of the international department of the Chinese Communist Party, said Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency, in a report that gave no details of the talks.

His trip is North Korea’s first serious dabbling in diplomacy after months of bellicose pronouncements, including threats to launch nuclear strikes at the United States and its allies. It also comes as Japanese officials set off fears of a policy discord with allies by signaling a willingness to open a greater dialogue, including possible summit talks, with North Korea.

Marshal Choe, 63, is the first senior North Korean official to visit China since August and the first to go there in the capacity of special envoy. He is most likely the highest-profile envoy Mr. Kim could have chosen to visit China, having risen to the top military leadership under Mr. Kim, who has tried to consolidate his power at home while intensifying a standoff with Washington and its allies over his country’s nuclear and missile programs.

“The fact that Kim Jong-un sent a special envoy means that he has something quite urgent to discuss with China, and the fact that his special envoy was his top military officer suggests that China wants to talk about the North’s nuclear and missile programs,” said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior analyst at the Sejong Institute in South Korea. [Source]

Earlier this week, a group of Chinese fishermen were held for ransom in North Korea, further heightening tensions between the two countries, which have increased since Kim Jong-un took over power in 2011.The Guardian has more on the complicated relationship between the two neighbors:

China provides North Korea with the vast majority of its fuel and trade – reportedly accounting for almost nine-tenths of its imports and exports in 2011 – and its support has become even more important as Pyongyang’s relations with Seoul have deteriorated.

But it has shown increasing signs of frustration with the regime over its weapons programmes and angry rhetoric.

“Since North Korea had the third nuclear test [in February], the relationship between China and North Korea has been pretty tense. To ease the relationship, the visit is very normal and necessary. It helps to stop the bilateral relationship deteriorating,” said Cai Jian of the Centre for Korean Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. “This visit shows China is also willing to improve the relationship with North Korea.”

China’s state news agency, Xinhua, said Choe, 63, met Wang Jiarui, head of the international department of the Communist party. It gave no further details. [Source]

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In his meeting with Singh, Premier Li said China and India are important neighbors and partners by nature.

He noted that remarkable advancement has been made in bilateral ties, political mutual trust deepened, fruitful results made in the cooperation of every field, and people-to-people exchanges constantly expanded.p China and India have made satisfactory coordination and cooperation on major regional and international affairs, and achieved positive progress on border negotiations, Li added.

[...]Li said choosing India as the first leg of his maiden overseas tour as Chinese premier demonstrated the sincerity of China’s new leadership and the great importance that it attaches to developing ties with India.

China is willing to join efforts with India to seize the opportunities to deepen cooperation and let the two peoples benefit from the development of the China-India ties, Li said.

[Source]

After their talks, the two leaders signed numerous agreements on trade and resources. The Times of India reports:

To enhance trade, both the sides decided to set up three working groups under the Joint Economic Group. The three groups are Services Trade Promotion Working Group, Economic And Trade Planning Cooperation Group and Trade Statistical Analysis Group.

[...]In 2012, bilateral trade between the two countries was $66 billion, a decline from over the $74 billion mark in 2011. The two countries have set a target of $100 billion by 2015 for bilateral trade.

[...]Another pact was signed between the two sides under which China will provide information of water level, discharge and rainfall twice a day from June 1st to October 15th each year in respect of three hydrological stations on the mainstream Brahmaputra river.

[...]An agreement was also signed between Export Inspection Council of India (EIC) and AQSIQ on trade and safety of feed and feed ingredients.

[Source]

Last month, the long disputed and heavily militarized border between Tibet and the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh came into attention as Chinese soldiers set up camp in northern India, hundreds of miles from the disputed region. During today’s talks, the border dispute was identified as an impediment to a healthy and productive bilateral relationship. From Reuters:

The number two in the Chinese leadership offered New Delhi a “handshake across the Himalayas” and said the world’s most populous nations could become a new engine for the global economy if they could avoid friction on the militarized border.

“Both sides believe that we need to improve the various border-related mechanisms that we have put into place and make them more efficient. We need to appropriately manage and resolve our differences,” Li said at a joint news conference with India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

[...]Among the measures being looked at to reduce the risk of confrontation is allowing higher level meetings between regional military commanders, an Indian official said.

[Source]

Despite Li’s extension of a pan-Himalayan “handshake,” the New York Times reports on Indian concerns that China may have gained more from the talks, and mentions unease over China’s damming plans for the Brahmaputra River:

[...]Srikanth Kondapalli, a professor of Chinese studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, said that India had so far gotten little of value out of the visit, including no reassurance about the border.

“My assessment is that China has gained more from these meetings than India,” he said. “The Chinese side conceded nothing.”

[...]The two sides discussed India’s growing alarm over China’s plans to build a series of dams on the Brahmaputra River, which flows into India’s northeast provinces.

India has repeatedly asked China to provide more information about its plans and the effects they will have on India, but China has so far resisted. In a statement, Mr. Li said China was willing to “strengthen communication” with India over its dam developments.

[Source]

Meanwhile, Australian think-tank the Lowy Institue for International Policy recently released a study surveying the Indian public on their global outlook. China and Pakistan — whose longtime strategic partnership has been warming over recent years — were both identified as security threats by large portions of respondents. The Hindu reports:

Not surprisingly, Indians see Pakistan and China as the biggest foreign threats to their nation. Only nine per cent of Indians believe China does not pose a threat, while 84 per cent believe it does, with 60 per cent identifying it as a major threat. Seventy per cent of the respondents agreed that China’s aim is to dominate Asia. The responses were roughly equal, however, between those who believed that India should join with other countries to limit China’s influence (65 per cent), and those who believed India should cooperate with China to play a leading role in the world together (64 per cent). In fact, some Indians clearly hold both views at once, an interesting sign of the tensions or indeed duality within Indian foreign policy expectations.

From all those who had identified China as a threat, over 80 per cent agreed that threat was for the following reasons: China possesses nuclear weapons, it was competing with India for resources in other countries, it was strengthening its relations with other countries in the Indian Ocean Region, and it was claiming sovereignty on parts of India’s territory. Only a slightly smaller number believed that the threat was because of China’s stronger military, its bigger economy, its military assistance to Pakistan, and because it does not “show respect” to India.

[Source]

The Wall Street Journal’s look at the Lowy report shows the same anxieties, but also mentions a public desire for India to increase cooperation with China:

The survey revealed that – like its government – Indians are perhaps unclear about how to respond to China’s growing power. About two-thirds of respondents said India should ally with other nations to limit China’s influence.

A similar portion of those interviewed also said India should cooperate with China to play a leading role in the world. Two-thirds of respondents said they would like relations with China to strengthen.

And there was some admiration for the way China does things. Just under half of those surveyed thought that India could learn from the way the Chinese government functions.

[Source]

Another point of contention in the Sino-Indian relationship deals with the Tibet question. India has provided refuge for the exiled Central Tibetan Administration since the Dalai Lama fled Chinese-controlled Tibet in 1959. While Tibet protests were suppressed in the lead-up to the New Delhi talks, The Hindu reports on the bilaterally strategic decision to leave the “T-word” out of the joint Li-Singh statement:

India’s decision to once again avoid reaffirming its commitment to a ‘One China policy’ has raised eyebrows in Beijing but Indian officials are playing down the omission of “Tibet” from the joint statement issued after talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

[...]The first time India dropped the reference to ‘One China policy’ was during Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit in 2010. India made the point then that Kashmir was as much a core concern of India’s as Tibet was to China, and that China’s policies of issuing stapled visas and carrying out projects in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir violated this core concern.

This is the point that Indian officials sought to make again. “If they had insisted on Tibet, then [we] would have asked for something else [Kashmir] to be included,” an official said, pointing out that there were enough indirect references in the joint statement to make good the exclusion of the T-word.

[Source]

China is currently India’s largest trading partner. Premier Li is set to depart India for Pakistan on Wednesday, followed by visits to Switzerland and Germany.

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Cui emphasized that China’s integration into international organizations must be met with a reform of outdated rules:

So we are ready to integrate ourselves into the global system, and we are ready to follow the international rules. Of course, these rules were set without much participation by China, and the world is changing. You cannot say that the rules that were set up half a century ago can be applied without any change today. But what we want is not a revolution. We stand for necessary reform of the international system, but we have no intention of overthrowing it or setting up an entirely new one.

[Source]

When Tepperman questioned China’s engagement on an international scale, Cui explained that interfering in other country’s matters is not China’s responsibility or the U.S.’s responsibility.  Tepperman said, “Americans sometimes wonder whether China is really willing to help solve key international problems” and pointed out that China “has not been very cooperative” in Syria. Cui explained:

If we are really serious about building a new type of relationship, we have to have mutual accommodation and mutual understanding. It’s not that we are just helping the United States, or that the United States is just helping us. We have to help each other. We must make efforts to see issues from the other guy’s point of view.  We certainly don’t want chaos and civil war in Syria or anywhere in the world. We understand there are political differences in the country. But we always follow the principle that the affairs of a particular country should be determined by its own people, not by us, not by outsiders. It’s not up to China or the United States to decide the future of the country. [Source]

When asked about Chinese cybersecurity threats launched at the U.S., particularly the case of threats against The New York Times, Cui pointed out there is no hard evidence against China, that the United States is the more powerful country in this regard, and that international rules need to be determined:

Cybersecurity is a new issue for the international community at large. First of all, the technologies are new, and the attacks are invisible. Traditionally, if you perceived a threat, it could be seen. It was physical. But not in cyberspace.  Second, very few international rules have been designed for these kind of problems. So we have to work out a new set of international rules for everybody to follow.

[...] if we look at the development of IT and at the industry itself, the United States is much more advanced than China. So logically, I think the weaker should be more concerned about the stronger. The stronger is in a better position both to defend itself and to maybe go on the offensive against others.  [...] I don’t think anybody has so far presented any hard evidence, evidence that could stand up in court, to prove that there is really somebody in China, Chinese nationals, that are doing these things. [Source]

On whether or not the U.S should take a stance on issues facing China and Japan, Cui echoed his previous stance on China’s willingness to interfere in foreign conflicts.  He said: “The most helpful thing the U.S. could do is to remain truly neutral, to take no side.”

In a recent conference held in New York City, the Committee of 100 Annual Conference, Cui also expressed his hope that the media would provide more “objective, accurate, and balance reports on China and China-US relations” to create “more positive energy for a stable and healthy China-US relationship.”

Cui Tiankai is the current Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. and previously served as the Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs.

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The People’s Daily newspaper on page nine of Wednesday’s edition ran a lengthy and winding commentary by scholars at a prominent state-run think tank that called for a “reconsideration” of the historical status of Japan’s southernmost Ryukyu island chain, which includes Okinawa. The researchers argued foreign aggression toward China during its final Qing dynasty (1644-1911) weakened it to the point where it couldn’t sufficiently oppose aggressive Japanese inroads in the broader region.

“History’s unresolved questions relating to the Ryukyu have reached a time for reconsideration,” the commentary read.

[...]The Japanese government dismissed the commentary. “There’s no doubt that [Okinawa] belongs to Japan historically and internationally,” said Japanese government spokesman Yoshihide Suga, describing the views expressed in the commentary as “completely out of the question.”

[Source]

Japan protested the suggestion that Okinawa may rightfully be Beijing’s territory, an act that was chastised in reiterative English-language commentary from the Global Times on May 11:

The article stirred strong protest from Japan, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe saying Tokyo “must voice its position to the world” by rejecting China’s “inappropriate claim.” The US Department of State expressed support for Japan’s sovereignty over Okinawa.

Japan’s overreaction toward the suggestion made by two Chinese scholars in State media mirrors its lack of confidence. In 1971, the US unilaterally handed over control of the Ryukyu Islands to Tokyo. There has always been a legal basis to challenge this illegal act.

[...]If Japan ultimately chooses antagonism with China, Beijing should consider changing its current stance and revisit the Ryukyu issue as an unsolved historical problem.

[Source]

As Li Guoqiang and Zhang Haipeng, the scholars who penned the People’s Daily article, were studying historical documents to strengthen the case against Japan’s soveriengty over the Ryukyu chain, Japanese politicians enraged many in China by defending certain Japanese war atrocities, and evoking the occurrence of others. Malcolm Moore reports for The Telegraph:

[...O]n Monday, a regional Japanese politician [Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto] reignited a long-running dispute by suggesting that the hundreds of thousands of women abducted from China, Korea and the Philippines and forced to work as sex slaves for the Japanese army - known as “comfort” women – was a “necessary” measure during the Second World War.

Subsequently, footage emerged on Tuesday of Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, posing with his thumbs up inside the cockpit of a T4 training jet used by the Blue Impulse flying squad, Japan’s equivalent of the Red Arrows.

On the outside of the jet, however, the number 731 was painted prominently. Largely forgotten in Japan, the number still stirs painful memories in China.

Unit 731 of the Imperial Japanese Army was the covert chemical and biological weapons team that gathered Chinese men, women and subjected them to vivisection without anaesthesia.

[Source]

Twenty-five Okinawan women’s groups issued a joint statement demanding an apology for Hashimoto’s comments on the necessity of “comfort women”.

Following the galling comments from Japan, a hawkish Chinese military official weighed in on Okinawa’s sovereignty, echoing the view earlier expressed in the People’s Daily. The South China Morning Post reports:

Luo Yuan, a People’s Liberation Army two-star general, has said that Japan could not rightfully claim sovereignty over the islands, because they had started paying tribute to China half a millenium before they had done so to Japan.

The islands had started paying tribute to China in 1372, the general said in an interview with China News Service on Tuesday. Only in 1872, 500 years later, did Japan exploit China’s weakness to force the Ryukuyu Islands into submission, he said.

[...] The general, known for his outspoken nationalism, reasoned that the Ryukyuan people had closer ethnic and cultural ties to coastal China than they had to Japan. Their rulers were vassals of the Chinese court, he argued.

[Source]

An article on this most recent flare in Sino-Japanese diplomacy from The Guardian notes that China’s move to dispute the sovereignty of Okinawa may work against any desire to hold formal talks on the Diaoyu/Senkakus:

Analysts said China was mistaken if it believed that provoking Japan over Okinawa would add momentum to its claims to the Senkaku islands. “If China’s goal is to hold talks with Japan over the Senkakus, articles like these are counterproductive,” M Taylor Fravel, a Chinese foreign policy expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Associated Press.

“As a result, Japan has an even stronger incentive now to stand firm with China and not hold talks.”

[Source]

For more on China’s relationship with Japan, the recent re-ignition of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute, or other territorial and maritime disputes, see prior CDT coverage.

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With little fanfare, in the space of 20 years, China has steadily increased its commitment to UN peacekeeping missions. Today, the country contributes more peacekeeping troops than any other permanent member of the UN Security Council [though far fewer than many other countries (PDF)], with 1,860 “blue beret” peacekeepers deployed across nine different UN missions. By contrast, the United Kingdom has 298 peacekeepers in the field, the United States a mere 118.

[…] But reconciling China’s growing commitment to peacekeeping with the country’s stated policy of non-interventionism is problematic. The inviolability of state sovereignty has served as the rhetorical backbone of Chinese foreign policy since the “century of humiliation” — a period of Western and Japanese intervention and imperialism in China — came to an end in 1949. This commitment extends to the present day. In his first press conference as prime minister on March 17 Li Keqiang asserted that despite willingness to “shoulder our international obligations”, China’s leadership maintains an “unshakable commitment” to state sovereignty.

Richardson refers to lessons learned from the “embarrassment” of China’s 2011 evacuation of Libya, in which it “had to rent, beg or borrow planes and ships in order to evacuate 36,000 of its citizens” (as well as 900 other workers from Bangladesh, Nepal and Vietnam). Many assessments at the time were more positive, however: the evacuation was hailed as “a genuine foreign policy success, and an example of some nimble Chinese diplomacy,” “a reflection of the country’s growing comprehensive national power and rising naval capabilities,” and a source of national pride.

See also a recent interview with Major General Chao Liu, the Chinese leader of the peacekeeping force in Cyprus, via CDT.

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Western powers have often attempted to settle the impasse but their efforts seem to be of no avail.

The volatile Mideast situation calls for China’s extra leverage and other increased international efforts.

China has sent its special envoy to the Middle East for several times to mediate between various parties. Its follow-up efforts – the invitation of the two leaders to China – take on a deeper significance for a better Palestinian-Israeli relationship.

As a friend with the Palestinians and Israeli alike, China boasts unique advantages in mediating between the two sides.

[...]The world needs China’s real and positive efforts.

More from the Global Times on China’s interest in mediating peace in the Middle East:

According to Hua Liming, the visits reflect the new Chinese leadership’s focus on the situations in the Middle East as well as the growing expectations of countries in the region for China to have a clearer voice and a more constructive influence.

“Both Palestinian and Israeli leaders attach great importance to China’s active and significant influence on the peace progress, ” Hua said.

[...]“The peace situation in the Middle East is of key importance to China,” said An Huihou, former Chinese Ambassador to Egypt.

Despite the balance presented above, another piece from the Global Times notes that popular opinion in China is increasingly turning against Israel.

While state-run publications are focusing largely on China’s lack of bias and desire for peace, The New York Times notes the measured strategy of Beijing’s two-pronged olive branch:

[...T]his was not exactly Camp David by the Forbidden City.

The fact that the visits were timed so the two leaders would not meet — Mr. Abbas left Beijing on Tuesday, and Mr. Netanyahu arrived Wednesday after a swing through Shanghai — signaled that neither they nor Xi Jinping, China’s leader, were ready for actual talks.

[...]China has been careful to take a clear and consistent but not strong stand on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. China has growing trade ties with Israel — the value of their trade relationship has been estimated in official Chinese news reports to be nearly $10 billion a year — but it supports Palestinian statehood and relies on crude oil imports from Iran and Arab nations to meet its energy needs. About half of China’s oil imports come from the Middle East, and that dependency is expected to deepen.

[...]Despite the spotlight on the visits by Mr. Abbas and Mr. Netanyahu, China is likely to remain a muted political actor in the Middle East, analysts of the region said. Beijing sees little to gain from being entangled in distant and often seemingly intractable disputes, said Yin Gang, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.

TIME’s Jerusalem bureau chief surveys experts on the four-point peace proposal that Xi Jinping unveiled on Monday  to argue that Beijing’s efforts are about posturing, and will have little effect on peace in the Middle East:

“The Chinese are trying to be Europeans. They want to be global actors, and the way to be global actors is to claim that you have something to offer. They have good trade relations with Israel, but there’s a huge gap in terms of understanding the perceptions of the region,” [says Gerald Steinberg, professor of political studies at Bar Ilan University in Israel.]

The reality, Steinberg says, is that no country except the U.S. is trusted enough by both sides to serve as broker to peace talks — especially by Israel, which sees itself as persecuted and misunderstood by a world that does not understand its situation the way Americans do. [...]What Xi heralded in Beijing was a four-point prospectus that repeated in broad, general terms the outline of what has already been discussed for nearly a generation: two states, based on 1967 boundaries, achieved through negotiations.

[...]“My own view, and of many of us who deal with China, is China is basically completely mercenary on this,” says Steinberg. “They’re interested in China and what’s good for China.”[...]

As Beijing amps involvement in the Mideast peace process – whether out of sincere concern or political posturing –  Bloomberg reports that the Obama administration is also intensifying its efforts to mediate in the region.

Also see a chapter on Middle Eastern views of China’s rise and Beijing’s historical diplomatic interaction with the Middle East, written by Israeli political science and Asian studies professor Yitzhak Schichor and available via The University of Nottingham’s China Policy Blog. For more on China’s diplomatic interactions and aspirations in the Middle East, see “Is China Pivoting to the Middle East,” or “China Faces Shifting Dynamic in Middle East,” both via CDT.

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China has tried to maintain firm ties with both Israel and the Palestinian Authority while supporting Palestinian demands for statehood and occasionally chiding the Israeli government for its policies toward the Palestinians. But it has shown little appetite for taking on a role as a broker in that and other conflicts in the Middle East.

Still, Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, told reporters in Beijing last week that “if the Palestinian and Israeli leaders want to meet each other in China, we will happily provide the necessary assistance.”

China “supports the Palestinian and Israeli sides in resolving their differences and disputes through peace talks,” Ms. Hua said on Thursday. “China’s reception of the Palestinian and Israeli leaders for visits is also a part of these efforts.”

Mr. Netanyahu will arrive in Beijing on Wednesday, and Mr. Abbas is to leave on Tuesday night, according to Israeli government officials, who said there would be no encounter between the two in China.

An article in Xinhua expanded on the government position on the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks:

The planned visits to China by Israeli and Palestinian leaders indicate that the new Chinese leadership devotes much attention to the Middle East issues and the development of the relations between China, Israel and the Palestinians, said Wu, who arrived here Sunday for a two-day visit.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo Accords, yet the Middle East peace process has stalled for quite some time, with the Middle East region witnessing some significant changes, he said.

China has always stood for resolving the Palestinian issue through negotiations and has been much concerned over the prolonged stalemate in the peace process, Wu said, adding that China is willing to push Israel and the Palestinians to take some practical moves in order to create a good atmosphere for the resumption of the peace process.

The Washington Post blog looks at what a potential role for China in the peace talks may tell us about China’s shifting foreign policy:

It’s a promising sign. Probably not for the Israel-Palestine peace process, which has demonstrated a remarkable ability to resist mediating efforts by more experienced and invested powers, but for China’s foreign policy. The offer, whatever comes of it, could indicate that China sees its role in world affairs evolving from that of an insecure outsider to the kind of responsible global power it wants to be.

China has made some previous efforts to project power in the Middle East, by low-bidding on high-profile development projects in Algeria and Saudi Arabia, for example, or by helping to support the regime in Sudan when it was otherwise isolated. China continues to oppose international action on Syria or Iran, and buys large amounts of oil from the latter. Those efforts have mostly positioned China as a sort of spoiler to Western powers, exploiting holes in the U.S.- and Europe-dominated international system.

A gesture to mediate in Israel-Palestine, though, suggests that Beijing may be getting more serious about upholding that international system rather than free-riding off of it. Beijing has long opposed the Western power projection it says is imperialistic, from the NATO-led Balkans interventions to U.S. overseas bases in East Asia to Western sanctions on rogue states. But the truth is that China also deeply relies on the international system of free trade and global security, enforced in large part by Western power, without which China’s export-led growth would never have been possible.

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On Tuesday, that dispute appeared to heat up even further when the Japanese Coast Guard reported that eight Chinese patrol ships had entered waters near the islands, the largest number to appear at one time since the dispute flared up last summer. The Coast Guard said the Chinese ships converged from several different directions into waters near the uninhabited islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in Chinese.

The Chinese ships appeared at the same time as 10 boats carrying members of a Japanese fringe ultranationalist group also arrived off the islands. The boats were followed by Japanese Coast Guard ships apparently seeking to ensure that they did not attempt a landing, as some nationalists did last summer.

Beijing lodged a formal protest with Tokyo over the activists’ visit. From Reuters:

Beijing protested over the voyage by 10 boats carrying about 80 Japanese activists into waters near the islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China.

“Regarding the Japanese right-wing activists’ illegal entry into the waters of the Diaoyu islands that is causing trouble, the Chinese foreign ministry has lodged stern representations with Japan, and has strongly protested,” Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a news conference.

Japan also protested at what it called an intrusion by eight Chinese patrol vessels into its waters near the uninhabited Japanese-controlled islands, which are near rich fishing grounds and potentially lucrative maritime gas fields.

Global Times fanned the flames of outrage at Japan’s actions in an editorial condemning the Yasukuni visit:

These visits represented the most conspicuous efforts to glorify Japanese war dead since former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi stepped down in 2006.

Abe is skirting the edge of a red line. He didn’t make a pilgrimage himself, but offered equipment for ceremonies and sent his deputy prime minister. This marks a significant step, which has left Beijing and Seoul little room for diplomatic maneuvers and little choice but to show their firm resolve.

The controversial visits once again prove that Japan is the troublemaker and provocateur in East Asia. Japan has once again been the one that broke the uneasy regional balance.

By Tuesday evening, it appeared that the Japanese activists had left the immediate area:

Japanese activists have told @rickwallaceoz they have left waters around disputed islands (also claimed by China) without attempting to land

— Mark MacKinnon/马凯 (@markmackinnon) April 23, 2013

For its part, the Japanese government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called in the Chinese ambassador to lodge a complaint about the movement of the patrol boats and threatened the use of force if Chinese boats landed on the islands. From Japan Today:

Tokyo summoned the Chinese ambassador to Japan on Tuesday after the eight state-owned Chinese ships sailed into its territorial waters. The flotilla is the biggest to sail into the disputed waters in a single day since Tokyo nationalised part of the archipelago in September.

Abe vowed to “expel by force” any Chinese landing on the archipelago in the East China Sea.

“We would take decisive action against any attempt to enter territorial waters and to land” on the islands, Abe told parliament in response to questions from lawmakers, adding: “We would never allow” a landing.

“It would be natural for us to expel by force if (the Chinese) were to make a landing,” he said.

Prime Minister Abe, who came to office in a landslide in 2012 on a right-wing nationalist platform, is now trying to balance his nationalist agenda with popular demands for him to fix the faltering economy and with the need to engage with China. From the South China Morning Post:

The prime minister, who has said he regretted not visiting Yasukuni during his 2006-2007 term in office, has been walking a fine line between talking tough in the territorial row over the chain of rocky islets and leaving the door open for dialogue with Beijing.

Voters want Abe to put priority on fixing the economy rather than other issues close to Abe’s heart, such as revising Japan’s pacifist constitution, an opinion poll showed this week.

Repercussions from the current dispute are being felt throughout the region. From the Wall Street Journal:

On Monday, South Korea responded to the war-shrine visits by canceling a planned visit to Tokyo by its foreign minister, where the two nations were to discuss cooperation over the North Korea crisis. This followed the news last week that China had decided to skip an annual trilateral summit with Japan and South Korea scheduled in late May, damping hopes for renewed regional dialogue.

Last year, violent protests flared up in several Chinese cities after the Japanese government announced its plan to purchase some of the disputed islands from their private owners.

Read more about the Diaoyu Islands and China-Japan relations, via CDT.

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Iceland’s Foreign Minister Ossur Skarphedinsson signed the deal with Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng in Beijing yesterday, bringing to a close six years of talks, according to Iceland’s Foreign Ministry. Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir started a three-day visit to China yesterday, meeting her Chinese counterpart Premier Li Keqiang and President Xi Jinping.

Iceland is working on deepening ties with China that could help speed up efforts to emerge from its 2008 economic collapse, when its three-largest banks defaulted on $85 billion in debt. The north Atlantic nation is seeking to resuscitate its $14.4 billion economy by returning to the industries it once relied on for growth, such as tourism, fishing and energy.

“It’s important for Iceland to conclude pacts like this to strengthen trade following the economic collapse,” Sigurdardottir said in an interview. The free trade agreement will “increase the soundness of business transactions and presumably the interest among Chinese and Icelandic companies that are cooperating” in geothermal power.

At the same time, the President of Iceland advocated for China to play a larger role in determining the future of the Arctic, as regional governments set up the Arctic Circle, a new global forum to discuss the future of the region as it is impacted by global warming. From the Guardian:

“It is a wrong scenario to think that this will only be of concern to those people living in the Arctic. It will be a concern to every nation,” Grimsson said in an interview. “There is no country that will escape the consequences, either through rising sea levels or extreme weather patterns.”

With that in mind, Grimsson argued that oil companies and countries as far away as China, India, Singapore and South Korea should have a voice in the future of the region. At present, only the eight countries of the Arctic Council [U.S., Canada, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and Iceland] have a say in setting policy in the region. “We realise that there are other nations in Asia and Europe that have legitimate concerns and enterprises in the Arctic and it’s important to involve them in a co-operative effort,” Grimsson said.

He made his visit to Washington as Chinese and Icelandic leaders signed a free trade agreement in Beijing that will give China a bigger foothold in the emerging region.

Grimsson said Arctic Circle would aim for a more inclusive debate about the future of the Arctic.

Nunatsiaq Online has more details on the set-up of the new Arctic Circle organization:

On April 15, the same day that Iceland threw its support to China’s bid to become an observer at the Arctic Council, Iceland’s president Olafur Ragnar Grimsson also announced the creation of a new assembly on Arctic issues.

It’s called the “Arctic Circle,” which is intended to promote “collaboration among Arctic and international partners” — these could even include “Google,” Grimsson suggested at the organization’s launch in Washington D.C.

The Arctic Circle will hold an annual talk-fest “to facilitate dialogue and build relationships to confront the Arctic’s greatest challenges,” said a news release on the new non-profit organization.

The Arctic Circle will be a place for institutions, organizations, forums, think-tanks, corporations and public associations to hold their meetings or events “without surrendering their independence or decision-making abilities.”

Before the announcement about the formation of the Arctic Circle, China has been lobbying to get observer status to the Arctic Council, and had gained the support of Norway, even after a simmering dispute over the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. As the Guardian reported in March:

China has been cosying up to Arctic countries as part of its effort to secure “permanent observer” status on the Arctic Council, an eight-country political body that decides regional policy. Norway was initially sniffy at the approaches because of the Nobel row, but appears to have changed its tune before a formal decision in May.

“There are not many areas where Norway is important to China at all, but the Arctic is one of them,” said Leiv Lunde, director of the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Lysaker, Norway. China, he added, was beginning to realise that its diplomatic boycott “is not good PR in sort of bolstering the positive image that China wants to bolster as an Arctic player”.

Currently, 80% of China’s imported energy passes through the Strait of Malacca – a crowded, heavily pirated waterway that squeezes past Singapore. Yet over the past few years, melting Arctic ice, a casualty of climate change, has turned the frigid north into a viable shipping route. The newly navigable northern sea route above Russia would cut the distance between Shanghai and northern Europe by 4,000 miles, saving medium-sized bulk carriers about two weeks and £260,000 on each journey. Three years ago, no ships made the voyage. Last year, there were 46.

Chinese ships already fish in waters surrounding the Arctic region and would easily be able to move into Arctic waters, which has become an issue for environmentalists working on protecting the region.* As global warming hits and previously frozen areas of the Arctic become accessible, preservationists are trying to establish pre-emptive rules to regulate fishing activity. From the New York Times:

Advocates of a conservation agreement say that until the new ice-free area created by global warming is fully studied, it should be preserved. Diplomats agree that the region should be protected from fishing fleets until scientists have had a chance to assess its marine populations.

“We want any fishing that takes place there to be properly managed, to maintain it for commercial purposes,” one diplomat from an Arctic nation involved in the talks said. “Are there fisheries in the future that are moving north as the waters are warming and the ice is receding? The scientists cannot say with certainty now.”

The part of the doughnut hole that is thawing most quickly in the eastern Arctic, above Alaska and the Russian region of Chukotka, is well within the range of industrial fishing fleets in Asia.

Chinese trawlers fish for krill in Antarctic waters, about 7,500 miles from China. The Arctic Ocean international zone is only about 5,000 miles from the Chinese coast, according to maps prepared by a Russian fisheries journal, Rybnye Resorsi.

Read more about China’s relations with the Arctic, Iceland and Norway, via CDT.

*Correction: This post was edited to correct the statement that Chinese boats are already fishing in the Arctic waters. No countries currently conduct commercial fishing in the Arctic Ocean. Thank you to a reader for notifying us of this fact.

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Post tags: Arctic, diplomacy, fishing, iceland, natural resources, norway
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Responding to regional worries over North Korea’s bellicose threats, China on Sunday expressed concern and what appeared to be veiled criticism of its longtime ally.

“No one should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gains,” said Chinese President Xi Jinping at an economic forum in Hainan province. Avoiding mentioning North Korea by name, Xi said, “While pursuing its own interests, a country should accommodate the legitimate interests of others.”

[...]China — long seen as a key factor propping up the regime in Pyongyang — recently has shown signs of frustration after North Korea ignored its pleas not to carry out a recent nuclear test.

Bloomberg explains why Xi’s comments should be interpreted as directed at North Korea, despite the fact that he didn’t mention the country by name:

“While President Xi didn’t refer to North Korea, it is fair” to interpret his comments as directed toward the Korean situation, said Fang Xiuyu, a professor of Korean studies at Fudan University. “Xi’s remarks are the most decisive comments so far from the Chinese side of the issue.”

Xi’s speech was covered from a similar angle elsewhere in the western press. However, Xi’s indirect reference to North Korea appears to be a footnote in a larger discourse dealing more directly with China’s peaceful development and its role in maintaining rapport with its neighbors in the region. Coverage from the Global Times seems to show Xi’s emphasis on continuity in regional diplomacy:

President Xi Jinping said China will make contributions toward peace and development in Asia and the world at an international forum that opened on Sunday.

China will vigorously promote development and prosperity in both Asia and the world, Xi said when delivering a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) Annual Conference 2013 in Boao, a coastal town in south China’s Hainan Province.

“Countries, whether big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor, should all contribute their share in maintaining and enhancing peace,” Xi said.

[...]Xi also said China will continue to properly handle differences and frictions with relevant nations.

While upholding its sovereignty, security and territorial integrity, China will maintain good relations with its neighbors, as well as maintain overall peace and stability in the region, he said.

A post from All Things Nuclear looks at recent foreign and domestic coverage of China’s stance on North Korea to argue that the U.S. media is exaggerating a possible shift in Chinese foreign policy:

There is no visible sense that China’s propaganda machinery is preparing the Chinese public for major events on the peninsula or for a change in Chinese policy. There is little sense of emergency or crisis. [...]

The main Chinese themes on North Korea have not changed as a result of the current situation. China would like to see a relaxation of tensions, renewed regional dialog and economic reform. They do not appear to believe there is a high risk of armed conflict. They argue sanctions are counterproductive and the United States should engage directly with the leaders of North Korea at a high level in order to provide the sense of security they now seek through nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. The one change repeated to me by several Chinese colleagues this week is China now believes North Korea is determined to build a functional nuclear deterrent. They blame the United States for that development. It is, as the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said, “regrettable.” But there is no apparent justification for assuming it will be a turning point for Chinese foreign policy.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: diplomacy, media, North Korea, North Korea relations, western media coverage, Xi Jinping
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As rantings from North Korea become ever more belligerent and bizarre, there are signs that China, its only outside friend in the world, is beginning to distance itself, too.

Normally reluctant to voice any sign of despair whenever tensions deepen on the Korean Peninsula, the Chinese are now talking about their “serious concern” over escalating developments there.

[...C]riticism of North Korea’s extreme behaviour is becoming relatively commonplace in the Chinese media, although one editor was suspended last month for calling on the People’s Republic to abandon Mr. Kim and his military cohorts.

If there is a shift in China’s policy toward North Korea, it follows years of growing frustration by Chinese leaders at the headaches caused by their strange, unpredictable ally. For China, it’s been all give and very little reward, and the country’s new helmsmen may have had it.

The Telegraph points to small changes in Chinese foreign policy as evidence that China, a country preoccupied with a domestic anti-corruptuption campaign and much tension in the South China Sea, is indeed losing patience with its old friend:

[...]Kurt Campbell, the former head of the State department in Asia, said there are signs that a relationship once described by Chairman Mao to be “as close as lips and teeth” is wearing thin.

“There is a subtle shift in Chinese foreign policy. Over the short to medium term, that has the potential to affect the calculus in north east Asia,” Mr Campbell said at a forum at John Hopkins university.

[...]“I do not think that subtle shift can be lost on Pyongyang,” he said. “They need a close relationship with China for every conceivable reason. It’s not in their strategic interest to alienate every country that surrounds them.

“The most important new ingredient has been a recognition in China that their previous approach to North Korea is not bearing fruit.”

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: diplomacy, North Korea, North Korea relations
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Regardless of the future government policy, Chinese citizens and their employers continue to seek out westward connections on their own. Song Jian, a 25-year-old from Henan province in central China, is one of thousands of Chinese engineers who work in the Gulf countries. He helps companies gain access to facilities built by the major Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei, and his clients, he said, include not only local companies but also American businesses and even a U.S. military base.

In 2011, Huawei’s sales across the Middle East rose 20 percent to $3.22 billion, beating the $2.27 billion generated by Ericsson, the world’s largest maker of telecommunications services by revenue. The Middle East, according to Huawei’s website, is one of the company’s fastest growing markets.

Thanks to the expansion of Chinese companies like Huawei, Song said his firm ranks among the most profitable telecom service companies in Saudi Arabia. His quality of life seems to confirm that; he makes $2,000 a month, a much higher salary than his friends at home, and enjoys the use of a company-rented villa in Dammam where he and a colleague fish on the weekends.

[...]Chinese workers, like the companies they serve, found the opportunities they sought in moving west. But it is still uncertain if they have inspired their government to follow.

For more on Chinese influence in the Middle East, see “Can China Win in Afghanistan,” or “China Faces Shifting Dynamic in the Middle East,” via CDT.

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Post tags: Afghanistan, diplomacy, foreign investment, huawei, international relations, middle east, soft power
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While the publicity given to China’s alleged hacking of U.S. companies has put the spotlight on the issue, Mr. Cohen said in an interview, it’s now time for private negotiations between the U.S. and China. “If you continue to simply shout in public, we’re likely to get a negative reaction” from Beijing, he said

At issue, he added, is drafting “rules of the road and rules of engagement” concerning cyber activity, particularly what “threshold” of cyber activity should prompt a home government to crack down on perpetrators. “What level of activity can be tolerated by any country?” Mr. Cohen asked.

[…] The former defense secretary, who now runs a consulting firm [with some dealings in China], said multilateral negotiations on cybersecurity could play a role, but could take years to yield results. The U.S. needs to figure out before then “how to take measures to suppress activity that threatens our industry and critical infrastructure,” he said.

“My hope,” he added, “is that we can undertake this process in a fashion that prevents megaphone diplomacy from taking root and the adverse consequences that can flow from it.”

Such consequences might ultimately include self-fulfilling prophecies of cyberconflict. From Kim Zetter at Wired:

Referring to [the] announcement by the U.S. director of national intelligence that cyberattacks were the biggest threat the nation faced, Martin Libicki, senior management scientist at the RAND Corporation, told the House Homeland Security Committee that making strong statements about cyberattacks “tends to compel the United States to respond vigorously should any such cyberattack occur, or even merely when the possible precursors to a potential cyberattack have been identified. Having created a demand among the public to do something, the government is then committed to doing something even when doing little or nothing is called for.”

Put in perspective, cyber attacks might disrupt life, but they cannot be used to occupy another nation’s capital or force regime change. No one has yet died from a cyberattack either, he noted. Therefore, a cyberattack in and of itself, “does not demand an immediate response to safeguard national security,” Libicki said during a hearing on cyberthreats against critical infrastructure from China, Russia and Iran.

[…] “[W]e are right to be worried about a ’9/11 in cyberspace,’ but we also ought to worry about what a ’9/12 in cyberspace’ would look like,” he said.

Security guru Bruce Schneier has also struck a note of caution about the tone of rhetoric on cybersecurity:

Our nationalist worries have recently been fueled by a media frenzy surrounding attacks from China. These attacks aren’t new-cyber-security experts have been writing about them for at least a decade, and the popular media reported about similar attacks in 2009 and again in 2010-and the current allegations aren’t even very different than what came before. This isn’t to say that the Chinese attacks aren’t serious. The country’s espionage campaign is sophisticated, and ongoing. And because they’re in the news, people are understandably worried about them.

[…] Unfortunately, both the reality and the rhetoric play right into the hands of the military and corporate interests that are behind the cyberwar arms race in the first place. There is an enormous amount of power at stake here: not only power within governments and militaries, but power and profit amongst the corporations that supply the tools and infrastructure for cyber-attack and cyber-defense. The more we believe we are “at war” and believe the jingoistic rhetoric, the more willing we are to give up our privacy, freedoms, and control over how the Internet is run.

Nationalism is rife on the Internet, and it’s getting worse. We need to damp down the rhetoric and-more importantly-stop believing the propaganda from those who profit from this Internet nationalism. Those who are beating the drums of cyberwar don’t have the best interests of society, or the Internet, at heart.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: cyberattacks, cybersecurity, cyberwar, diplomacy, hackers, hacking, United States
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“Now is the end of our quest for a graceful first lady,” wrote the deputy editor of the Hong Kong Commercial Daily newspaper on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter.

The Beijing News ran a full page of stories about Mrs Peng’s itinerary in Moscow, alongside a photograph of her arriving at a speech dressed in an elegant Chinese-style silk tunic and skirt.

“In her role as first lady on this visit abroad, Peng Liyuan is exhibiting China’s soft power,” Wang Fan, head of the Institute of International Relations at China Foreign Affairs University, told the newspaper.

The footage of her in Moscow quickly caused something akin to the “Kate Middleton effect”, with copies of her coat instantly appearing on Taobao, an online shopping site, for 499 yuan (£53) – and advertised as “in the same style as the first lady’s”.

Already a celebrity in her own right as a famous singer, Peng has taken center stage as the Chinese Communist Party looks to polish its image. She could be a valuable diplomatic asset as China struggles to effectively project its soft power abroad, according to Jane Perlez and Bree Feng of The New York Times:

It could be that Ms. Peng’s star power will push the diplomats into the background. Although Mr. Xi may not like the comparison, some see her as a figure akin to Raisa Gorbachev, the wife of Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who helped humanize the Soviet leader as the Soviet Union fell apart. Mr. Xi has singled out Mr. Gorbachev as a man who let down the cause of Communism.

Others see her as roughly equivalent to Michelle Obama: modern, outgoing, intrigued by fashion. They await the moment when Ms. Peng and Mrs. Obama stand with their husbands at a state visit, either in Washington or Beijing, a lineup that is likely to happen in the next four years. The couples share some common ground. The Obamas have two daughters; Mr. Xi and Ms. Peng have one daughter, Xi Mingze, who is registered under a pseudonym as an undergraduate at Harvard.

While China’s censors sprung into action to block searches for the overcoat Peng wore in Moscow, The Wall Street Journal reports that her clothing selection may have boosted the prospects of several domestic clothing companies rumored to have made them.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: censorship, diplomacy, fashion, Michelle Obama, Moscow, Peng Liyuan, soft power, Xi Jinping
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But as he trumpeted the shared interests in promoting peace and stability, Mr. Xi also emphasized a need to “oppose interference in the internal affairs of other countries,” embracing a favorite theme of his Russian counterpart, Vladimir V. Putin, one that both countries have used to resist calls for improvements on the issues of human rights and the rule of law.

“China and Russia, as the biggest neighbors of each other, share many commonalities in their blueprints of national development,” Mr. Xi said in his speech at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.

“Currently, China and Russia are both in important periods of national revival, and bilateral relations have entered a new stage in which each provides the other with important development opportunities and treats the other as a major partner,” he said.

Energy cooperation, particularly in Russia’s supplies of oil and natural gas to China, has become one of the most important aspects of the relationship between the countries, a point Mr. Xi noted during his speech. “Oil and gas pipelines have become the veins connecting the two countries in a new century,” he said, calling for even greater partnership.

But at the same time, China’s leaders are preoccupied with avoiding mistakes from Russia’s history, as was made evident in a speech Xi Jinping made in December. From the Washington Post:

The shadow of the U.S.S.R. still hangs over many parts of Chinese society. What is considered bygone Cold War history by much of the rest of the world, even by many in Russia, lives on in China. You see it in the hulking Soviet-style buildings that dominate Beijing and in songs such as “Moscow Nights,” which remain favorites among party leaders and choir clubs in Chinese parks.

But its presence is most vivid in China’s political system, where the collapse of the Soviet Union continues to be analyzed with a paranoia and urgency that some compare to the United States and its fight against terrorism.

[...]

“It’s hard to overstate how obsessed they are with the Soviet Union,” said David Shambaugh, a George Washington University expert who spent years meeting Chinese officials and reading internal party documents for a book on the subject. “They wake up in the morning and go to sleep at night thinking about it. It hangs over every major decision.”

The obsession is fueled by the fear that, with a few wrong steps, China’s Communist Party would face a similar fate. Because of that, many in the party say, some of the biggest clues about how the new generation of Chinese leaders will pursue reform in the next few years lies in their interpretation of the Soviet collapse.

With Xi’s visit, however, China did score on soft power victory with the unusually public appearance of First Lady Peng Liyuan.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: diplomacy, Russia relations, Soviet Union, Xi Russia visit 2013
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