Xi, then, has ultimately chosen to defend the Communist Party against internal political threats rather than prepare it to face external military threats. There is little doubt the Communist Party has been sharpening its identity in a post-communist world by defining itself against the West, fanning nationalist fervor, and promising a restoration of China’s ancient grandeur. Xi thus has little choice but to keep pumping enormous resources into a war machine if he is to justify his party’s continuing monopoly on power. “This dream can be said to be the dream of a strong nation,” Xi told sailors on board the destroyer Haikou. “And for the military, it is a dream of a strong military.”

To many observers, however, his speech seemed to confirm that China’s provocations against Japan were in fact “evidence of profound domestic insecurity rather than rational policy,” a Beijing diplomat who closely studies China’s military machinations told me. “It is the fact of party control,” he says, “that makes the PLA weak. Everything else — the corruption, the risk aversion, the hierarchy — is a symptom of that.”

Then, too, there is the very real risk that if China or Japan miscalculates over the Senkaku Islands and actually does spark a war, China may lose. That, at least, is the assessment of several military analysts with whom I spoke, who believe Japan’s disciplined, professional forces would prevail even without direct U.S. intervention. More broadly, I have heard growing doubts about China’s actual fighting capabilities in some sections of the Chinese military, foreign diplomatic corps, and U.S. academia, many of whose members are revising their views on the PLA. “Our assessment is they are nowhere near as effective as they think they are,” a Beijing-based defense attaché from a NATO country told me.

What if the recent drums of war are a sign of China’s weakness and not its impressive new strength? “When Xi tells his troops to be ready for war, it’s really an admission that they’re in disarray,” says the defense attaché. “He’s saying, ‘You guys are drunk, fat, and happy, siphoning off all the money into private accounts, and you need to get real.’”

Garnaut has previously suggested that the Diaoyu stand-off marks a bid to cement Xi’s standing within the military at The Sydney Morning Herald (via CDT).

Xi’s new directives include a requirement for top military commanders to serve a stint among junior soldiers every few years, a move intended to reduce impropriety, improve discipline and boost morale among the troops. And while Xi’s predecessors also took their own symbolic actions when assuming power, The Diplomat’s Zachary Keck questions whether Xi can actually affect real change within the PLA:

Unlike Jiang and Hu, though, Xi Jinping is a princeling whose father was a commander in the Red Army during the wars that brought the Communist Party to power. This gives Xi a certain amount of respect with the military brass, many of whom he has known for years. Notably, Xi also differs from his two immediate predecessors in that he inherited the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission, the country’s top military decision-making body, at the same time that he became head of the Party in November.

All of these factors better position Xi to bring change to the military than were Hu and Jiang. Still, the order Xi issued over the weekend is unlikely to have much impact, the Rand Corporation’s Harold predicts.

“I don’t see much reason to think that 15 days out of 365 spent cleaning latrines or eating grunt rations will systematically reshape the thinking of military leaders whose perquisites are almost certainly beyond the imaginings of most enlistees,” Harold says.

“And moreover the nature of Chinese political culture, as well as the mere practical realities of how hierarchically-structured organizations like the armed forces [operate], will make it extremely difficult for the common soldier to treat the generals as genuine colleagues given that they will shortly thereafter go back to being their superior officers.”

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Post tags: austerity, corruption, diaoyu islands, Japan, People's Liberation Army, United States, Xi Jinping
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A mysterious pestilence has befallen this island’s primeval forests, leaving behind the bleached, skeletal remains of dead trees that now dot the dark green mountainsides. Osamu Nagafuchi, an environmental engineer with a passion for the island and its rugged terrain, believes he knows the culprit: airborne pollutants from smog-belching China, hundreds of miles upwind.

[…] These fears have reached a new level recently as China itself has issued more public warnings about the growing health risks from its cities’ gray, soupy air. While Mr. Nagafuchi and a small number of collaborators say their research is not politically motivated, they admit that they may be finding more receptivity among a public that already resents China for supplanting Japan as Asia’s largest economy, and for what is seen as its haughty attitude in a territorial dispute over islands both countries claim.

[…] Residents who believe the pollution is caused by China described feeling helpless, saying they doubt there is any action their government can take even if it becomes convinced Mr. Nagafuchi is right.

“There is not much we can do about this, except ask the Chinese to spend more money on environmental cleanup,” said Mr. Tetsuka, Mr. Nagafuchi’s research assistant. “I’m afraid it will only get worse and worse.”

Others feel that Japan can achieve more than just appealing to China and selling air purifiers to its wealthier residents. Global Times’ Lin Meilian reports that scholars and officials from the two countries gathered in Beijing last month to discuss environmental cooperation. (Lin also briefly explores the limited effectiveness of unpruned nose hair as a pollution filter.)

Hideaki Koyanagi, director of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES)’s Beijing office, sees the air pollution issue as an opportunity to improve Sino-Japanese relations.

“Pollution knows no borders,” Koyanagi told the Global Times. “What the Japanese people don’t understand is if we help to improve the air quality in China, it will eventually benefit Japan.”

[…] Koyanagi wrote an op-ed piece for the Kyodo News, outlying China’s efforts to control air pollution such as shutting down polluting and unsafe factories and promoting clean energies.

“Blaming China can’t solve the air pollution problem,” Koyanagi said. “It is very important for Japan to use its experience to help China with its policymaking and understand that helping China is helping itself.”

At The New York Times’ Latitude blog in February, the Council on Foreign Relations’ Alexandra Harney described how political self-preservation overcame vested interests and short-term economic imperatives, enabling Japan to address its own pollution problems:

Five decades ago, people were asking similar questions about Japan. Even as the world marveled at the country’s 10 percent annual growth, alarm was growing over air pollution in several cities. Emissions of nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide tripled during the 1960s. Japan became known for pollution-related illnesses: Yokkaichi asthma, Minamata disease (mercury poisoning) — both named after the cities where they first appeared — and cadmium poisoning, known as itai-itai, or “ouch-ouch,” because of the excruciating bone pain it caused.

[…] It was only when citizens’ movements, which grew out of protests against the 1960 U.S.-Japan Security Treaty and the Vietnam War, got the attention of opposition parties in the 1960s and early 1970s that the government was forced to confront pollution. “I saw the government and L.D.P. as responding just enough, just in time, when the pressure got strong enough that they could defuse the opposition and stay in power,” said Timothy George, a professor at the University of Rhode Island and the author of a book on Minamata disease.

The first result was a blizzard of laws — 14 passed at once — in what became known as the Pollution Diet of 1970. Air pollution fell dramatically in the years that followed.

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Post tags: air pollution, forests, industrial pollution, Japan, Japan relations, PM2.5
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As our own Naval Diplomat noted, several months back:

“Carriers steam in company with a coterie of escorts and support vessels. The PLA Navy, however, has not yet filled out the remainder of a carrier task force. The navy’s newest guided-missile destroyers appear adequate for air-defense purposes, but anti-submarine warfare remains a puzzling shortfall—particularly since China’s likely adversaries, the United States and Japan, excel at undersea operations. Combat logistics—oilers, ammunition ships, refrigerated stores ships—remains another glaring shortcoming for the PLA Navy. These unglamorous but crucial vessels can replenish men-of-war, allowing them to stay at sea for long intervals without returning to port. Chinese task forces will remain vulnerable and tethered to shore logistical support until shipbuilders plug these gaps in the inventory.” [See more on the Chinese military's developing support capacity from David Lague at Reuters, via CDT.]

So while China’s new carrier has certainly made huge strides in its development from being a partially completed dream of the Soviet Navy to the Liaoning, the ship must be considered part of the development of a larger goal — the creation of a Chinese carrier strike group. The development of such a potent and complex asset takes time. Flight crews need countless hours of training to start. Kinks in carrier operations need to be sorted out. The list could go on and on.

PLA Navy deputy chief of staff Song Xue gave some details of China’s future carrier plans the following day, announcing that the Liaoning will be joined by an escort of destroyers, frigates, submarines and supply ships, and ultimately by a new generation of larger, domestically built carriers. From Michael Forsythe at Bloomberg News:

Future aircraft carriers will carry more fighter jets than the Liaoning, Rear Admiral Song Xue told foreign military attaches yesterday in Beijing, according to the official Xinhua New Agency. The carrier was built around a Soviet-era hull and began trials at sea last year.

The remarks signal that the People’s Liberation Army will push ahead with a modernization plan under which defense spending has more than doubled since 2006. China has been more assertive in pressing sovereignty claims against Japan as well as Vietnam and the Philippines in the South China Sea.

“This only adds publicly to what many believed to be the case: that the Liaoning is a training or ‘starter’ carrier and eventually China would build larger and more capable ones,” Taylor Fravel, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who focuses on China’s relations with its neighbors, said by e-mail. “It suggests that today’s PLA is much more confident than in the past regarding its willingness to talk about future military programs.”

Things might have gone rather differently for the Liaoning, née Riga, and later Varyag. Macau gambling tycoon Stanley Ho reportedly had plans to turn it into a floating casino, a fate also proposed for Britain’s retired HMS Ark Royal.

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Post tags: aircraft carriers, Chinese Navy, Japan, Liaoning, military modernization, military technology, navy, philippines, South China Sea, Vietnam
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The separate visits by at least four cabinet members, including the deputy prime minister, Taro Aso, were the first to the Yasukuni Shrine by members of the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, an outspoken nationalist who took power in December. The large shrine of Japan’s native Shinto religion honors the nation’s war dead, including several who were executed as war criminals after World War II. This has made it a target of condemnation in China and South Korea, both of which suffered greatly as a result of Japan’s empire-building efforts in the early 20th century.

The Japanese news media said that while Mr. Abe refrained from visiting the shrine to avoid provoking China and South Korea, he did send a ritual offering of the branch of a cypress tree, used in traditional Shinto ceremonies. Sunday was the start of a three-day spring festival at the shrine when conservative politicians frequently visit and offer prayers.

[…] Before Mr. Abe took office, there had been widespread concern that he might say or do something to outrage victims of Japanese wartime aggression. But Mr. Abe has so far acted with restraint, apparently eager to avoid isolating Japan in the region. He has responded calmly to almost daily intrusions by Chinese ships into waters claimed by Japan around disputed islands in the East China Sea.

In response, South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se cancelled what would have been the two countries’ first ministerial meetings under their new governments, while Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that Japan must face its history and respect its neighbors’ feelings. Her comments echoed those of ministry spokesman Hong Lei, who said last month in anticipation of a possible shrine visit by Abe himself that “only when Japan faces up to the past can it embrace the future.”

At Bloomberg last week, author Pankaj Mishra grappled with Japan’s “extreme case of forgetfulness, ignorance and self-absorption,” while acknowledging the “absurdity” and “hypocrisy” of the Allies’ post-war Tokyo Trials.

[…] Yushukan [the museum at the Yasukuni Shrine] takes too many liberties with historical accuracy. It presents the invasion of Manchuria in 1931, which inaugurated a particularly deranged phase of Japanese militarism, as an act of “legitimate self-defense.” The Rape of Nanjing in 1937 is referred to as the Nanjing Incident in which “Chinese soldiers in civilian clothes” were “severely prosecuted.”

[…] Nothing undermines this litany of half-truths, omissions, suppressions and outright falsehoods than the simple failure to acknowledge that Japan’s pan-Asianist crusade, which claimed more than 10 million lives in China alone, came as a calamity to most Asians.

But it is a bit unfair to expect Japan’s conservative rulers today to periodically denounce their country’s short-lived empire and produce apologies on demand to its former enemies while British Tories propose to celebrate their imperial past in revised history textbooks.

[…] As Japan searches, still confusedly, for a new identity within Asia, it may come to appreciate, as Jeff Kingston, a close observer of contemporary Japan, writes, “the potential benefits of reassuring past enemies.” But how will the effort at reconciliation with victims of Japanese aggression shape official memories of Japan’s war in Asia?

A Hefei restaurateur named Xu recently confronted Japan’s war history in his own way by naming his restaurant’s toilets ‘Yasukuni Shrine’. From Amy Li at South China Morning Post:

A diner who recently ate at the restaurant ended up taking photos of the newly named restroom and posting them on Weibo, where they went viral and triggered mixed reactions.

“All restrooms in China should adopt this name,” wrote a blogger.

Some others deemed the “patriotic” act too extreme.

Wang Kaiyu, a researcher at Anhui’s Academy of Social Sciences, said Xu’s actions were understandable, but not “appropriate.”

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Post tags: 2013 Sichuan earthquake, earthquakes, Japan, Japan relations, natural disasters, rape of nanking, Shinzo Abe, south korea, World War II, Yasukuni Shrine
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China says the policy has emboldened Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam in longstanding territorial disputes with Beijing.

China faces “multiple and complicated security threats” despite its growing influence, the Ministry of Defense said in its annual white paper, adding that the U.S. strategy meant “profound changes” for Asia.

“There are some countries which are strengthening their Asia Pacific military alliances, expanding their military presence in the region and frequently make the situation there tenser,” the ministry said in the 40-page document, in a clear reference to the United States.

Such moves “do not accord with the developments of the times and are not conducive towards maintaining regional peace and stability”, ministry spokesman Yang Yujun told reporters.

The white paper also revealed the size and structure of China’s armed forces, the first time the People’s Liberation Army had ever made such a disclosure, according to Xinhua News:

China now has about 850,000 army servicemen in 18 combined corps and additional independent combined operational divisions (brigades), according to the paper.

The combined corps, composed of divisions and brigades, are respectively under seven military area commands.

Currently, the PLA Navy has a total strength of 235,000 officers and men, and commands three fleets — the Beihai Fleet, the Donghai Fleet and the Nanhai Fleet.

The PLA Air Force now has about 398,000 officers and men and an air command in each of the seven military area commands of Shenyang, Beijing, Lanzhou, Jinan, Nanjing, Guangzhou and Chengdu. In addition, it boasts one airborne corps.

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Post tags: Japan, Ministry of Defense, philippines, United States, Vietnam, white paper
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Shigeru Iwasaki, head of the Japanese Self-Defence Forces’ joint staff, and Samuel Locklear, commander of U.S. forces in the Asia-Pacific, are expected to agree that the allies will accelerate the drafting of the plans when they meet in Hawaii on Thursday and Friday, Kyodo news agency said.

They will likely review several scenarios including one under which Japanese and U.S. armed forces conduct joint operations in case China invades the islands, Kyodo said. The Nikkei business daily carried a similar report on Wednesday.

“China is extremely concerned by these reports … The Chinese government has the determination and ability to maintain the nation’s territorial sovereignty,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.

“No outside pressure will affect the resolve and determination of the Chinese government and people to maintain territorial sovereignty.”

Tensions between China and Japan over the Diaoyu Islands, known in Japan as the Senkaku Islands, spiked last September when Japan’s central government agreed to purchase three of the islets from their private Japanese owners. A string of anti-Japanese demonstrations ensued across China, even turning violent as angry protesters targeted Japanese-owned businesses and products. Both sides have continued to run sea and air patrols near the territory, with Japan even scrambling fighter jets on two occasions after claiming that Chinese surveillance planes violated its airspace. Reuters reported earlier this month that China’s goal in the area is to overwhelm or wear out the Japanese forces tasked with monitoring their movements.

One U.S. defense official claimed that the plans between Japan and the United States are routine and consistent with the U.S. policy of finding a peaceful resolution to the issue, according to The Wall Street Journal:

U.S. defense officials noted that the Pentagon routinely updates its military plans for a variety of potential conflicts. The official declined to give details of the plan, or say how it was being changed. But such plans generally include a variety of scenarios, from trying to repel an enemy force from taking an island to retaking islands after a conflict.

“It shouldn’t be a surprise we have a plan to defend our ally against aggression in a tense situation,” said a U.S. defense official.

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Post tags: diaoyu islands, east china sea, Japan, territorial disputes, United States
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There are any number of immediate steps China could take. It should work to halt its hacking. It should open its markets and reduce its trade surpluses, while restricting subsidies to its foreign investment and exports. It should protect intellectual property rights and ratify and adhere to the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which commits its members to protect individual liberties.

In foreign policy, it should involve itself in multinational negotiations under the Law of the Sea Treaty to resolve its disputes in the South China Sea, negotiate a settlement with Japan over its disputed islands and pressure North Korea and Iran to end their nuclear programs. It should also be transparent in its overseas aid programs and military budgets, and it should better respect sensitivities in developing countries over China’s extraction of natural resources.

Taking such steps would go much further toward enhancing China’s international image than the billions of dollars the country is currently pumping into its overseas propaganda efforts.

See also previous CDT coverage of China’s soft power.

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Post tags: Europe, Japan, middle east, Russia, soft power, South China Sea, United States
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The officials, including “flag officers” — those at the rank of admiral — told Kyodo it was an “emergency decision”, not a planned action, and was taken by the commander of the frigate, the report said.

[…] The Chinese officials told Kyodo that on January 30 the frigate and the Japanese destroyer were three kilometres (two miles) apart in international waters some 110 to 130 kilometres north of the outcrops, the report said.

The commander of the frigate directed his vessel’s weapons-targeting radar, based on the Chinese military’s rules of engagement, without seeking instructions from the fleet command or navy headquarters, Kyodo cited the Chinese officers as saying.

It was not known if the commander had been reprimanded, Kyodo said.

According to Kyodo, Japanese defense officials see the about-turn as a sign “that China is either playing mind games or is softening its stance toward Japan.” The latter interpretation would conform to recent suggestions that, from Beijing’s point of view, the Diaoyu stand-off was largely a tool to consolidate Xi Jinping’s new leadership.

Updated: China has dismissed the Kyodo report. From Zhang Yunbi at China Daily:

The Ministry of National Defense has rejected the Japanese media’s latest “hype” over the alleged naval “radar lock-on” incident and warned of a hidden agenda behind Tokyo’s recent reports.

In the latest chapter of the radar “drama”, the Tokyo-based Kyodo News Agency released an article on Sunday quoting unnamed Chinese officials who reportedly admitted to “locking radar on Japanese ships”.

Beijing previously dismissed the allegation as groundless, while the ministry denied the Kyodo report, reiterating on Monday that “the facts are clear”.

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Post tags: diaoyu islands, east china sea, Japan, Japan relations, military affairs, navy, PLA, Xi Jinping
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Mr. Yang is likely to succeed Dai Bingguo as state councilor responsible for foreign affairs—the country’s top diplomatic position—according to Chinese foreign-policy scholars and diplomats in Beijing. Among his most pressing challenges will be managing relations with Washington and coordinating the behavior of interest groups such as the military and state-owned enterprises, which have become important foreign-policy actors but at times drive conflicting agendas.

Mr. Yang’s expected appointment suggests to many analysts and diplomats a continuation of recent trends in China’s diplomacy, characterized by a more assertive approach, especially to territorial issues, that has raised tensions with several of its neighbors and the U.S. That approach has been attributed partly to the lack of a foreign policy specialist on the Party’s Politburo—the country’s top 25 leaders—for the last decade. That body includes two generals, several local government leaders, and many people from state industry backgrounds, all of whom have vested interests in foreign policy.

…

Mr. Yang is likely to be replaced as foreign minister by Wang Yi, a former ambassador to Japan, according to diplomats and Chinese foreign-policy experts.

While the promoted officials include former ambassadors to the U.S. and Japan, do the appointments signal a change in Beijing’s approach to relations with its key rivals? For Foreign Policy, Willy Lam ponders what we can expect from Xi Jinping’s personnel changes:

In China, major policies on diplomacy and national security are made not by the Foreign Ministry but by the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Leading Group on Foreign Affairs, which General Secretary Xi Jinping heads. Members of this top-level interdepartmental organ include representatives from the Foreign Ministry, the army, and the Ministry of State Security, as well as departments handling energy and foreign trade. But two Beijing sources close to the foreign-policy establishment say that Xi, who doubles as commander-in-chief of the military, has given the generals — many of them fellow princelings, the offspring of party elders — a bigger say in national-security issues than his predecessor Hu Jintao.

At least in terms of symbolism and atmospherics, however, the new diplomatic trio could take a more flexible approach to tackling the most worrying flashpoint in Asia: China and Japan’s ferocious wrangling over the sovereignty of a group of islets called the Diaoyu in China and the Senkakus in Japan.

Given widespread perception within the party leadership that the intensification of the U.S.-Japan defense alliance — which applies to the Senkakus — is a centerpiece of Washington’s pivot to Asia, the personnel changes in Beijing could also affect the style, if not the substance, of how the party will pursue relations with the United States.

…

It is important to note, however, that whatever changes in style and orientation the trio’s appointment may portend do not necessarily signal a de-escalation of Beijing’s increasingly ferocious saber rattling. The generals appear to overwhelmingly favor bellicosity — they have enthusiastically echoed Xi’s repeated calls over the past two months for China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to “get ready to fight well and to win wars.” Gen. Wei Fenghe, who is commander of China’s missile forces, said in February that the PLA must “improve its war-fighting skills” and “it must fulfill the task of winning wars.” And recent commentary in People’s Liberation Army Daily, a military newspaper, argued that the Chinese military must rid itself of “peacetime inertia and other [bad] habits accumulated over a prolonged period of peace.” Popular military commentator Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan, who in April 2012 called for a limited war to “punish” the Philippines for allegedly occupying Chinese territories in the South China Sea, even suggested in a January 2013 interview with Chinese state media that China “must raise its guard against stealthy [military] attacks launched by other countries.” Even as diplomats such as Fu Ying, the vice foreign minister in charge of Asia, have reiterated Beijing’s commitment to “peaceful development” in global affairs, China has increased the frequency of its “patrol” of the Diaoyu-Senkakus by marine surveillance and other quasi-military vessels.

In a contribution to CNN, Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt dismisses the notion that “the new team will ease up” in its approach to foreign policy and regional territorial disputes:

As the National People’s Congress opened in Beijing, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Fu Ying warned that the country had sent an “important signal” to the region that it would respond “decisively” to provocations on territorial disputes.

That means we can expect Beijing to continue with its “reactive assertiveness” foreign policy tactic. China has perfected this approach in its ongoing maritime disputes in the South and East China Seas.

The approach allows Beijing to use perceived provocations as a chance to change the status quo in its favor — all the while insisting the other party started the trouble.

In Beijing’s eyes, it is a means of satisfying domestic pressure for a tougher foreign policy to match its economic might, all while trying to cling to the mantra of peaceful development. But this juggling act does not always work, and a number of countries in the region are giving up on the notion of a peacefully rising China.

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Post tags: diplomacy, Japan, leadership transition, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, territorial disputes, United States, wang yi, Xi Jinping, Yang Jiechi
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According to the plan, the Ministry of Railways, which has long been at the center of controversy for being both a railway service provider and a railway industry watchdog, will be broken up into administrative and commercial arms.

[…] Other ministries and commissions to see a reshuffle are the Health Ministry and the National Population and Family Planning Commission, which will be merged into a new National Health and Family Planning Commission.

The status of the existing State Food and Drug Administration will be elevated to a general administration in order to improve food and drug safety.

The country’s top oceanic administration will be restructured to bring its maritime law enforcement forces, currently scattered throughout different ministries and departments, under the unified management of a single administration.

The National Energy Administration will be restructured to streamline the administrative and regulatory systems of the energy sector.

Two media regulators, the General Administration of Press and Publication and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, will be merged into a single entity to oversee the country’s press, publication, radio, film and television sectors.

At the Associated Press, Louise Watt outlined the reasoning behind the changes:

This time, the streamlining plan includes guidelines to restrict and better define the central government’s responsibilities, limiting its issuing of permits for projects, the setting of standards and other policies that have slowed decision-making.

“Departments of the State Council are now focusing too much on micro issues. We should attend to our duties and must not meddle in what is not in our business,” Ma Kai, secretary-general of the State Council, or Cabinet, told the legislators. He said that overlapping government functions has often led to buck-passing.

[…] The public has been complaining about government inefficiency and for that reason “we should dare to push ahead with cracking the tough nut of structural reform,” the state-run Jinghua Daily quoted Wang Feng, an official in the Communist Party office involved in drafting the reform program.

But Wang Xiangwei cautioned at the South China Morning Post last week that the rearrangements could bring their own problems:

Some analysts, including Wang Yukai , a professor with the Chinese Academy of Governance under the State Council, told state media that five super ministries created under reform measures in 2008 produced mixed results. Indeed, how to force the bigger ministries to deregulate and decentralise may prove to be an even more arduous task for Li in years to come.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) is the earliest example of a super ministry. It was formed in 2003 and evolved from the State Planning Commission, a key ministry in the days of the planned economy.

Its purpose is to draft national economic and social development plans and undertake various economic reforms. But in reality, it has become a super powerful ministry with broad regulatory powers covering all the major industries.

Some cynics argue that it has been the biggest stumbling block to structural reforms.

The Economist (via CDT) also argued recently that “super-sized” ministries might fail to deliver promised benefits.

Bloomberg News examined the restructuring of responsibility for China’s maritime security, which comes after an alleged radar-lock incident raised questions about Beijing and Tokyo’s grip on events around the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands.

The State Oceanic Administration will oversee the coast guard, fisheries law-enforcement and the smuggling police, which now fall under separate ministries, a report to the National People’s Congress, the country’s legislature, said yesterday. The administration also has a law enforcement arm.

The decision signals that China wants to better organize its maritime assets as it wrangles with Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam in territorial disputes. The U.S. has expressed concern that an accident or miscommunication could lead that sparring to escalate further.

“The recent tension has convinced the central authorities to better coordinate those agencies,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, head of the department of government and international studies at Hong Kong Baptist University. “There’s been growing concern among observes including foreign governments about whether those agencies were coordinated or not. We have evidence that they are not.”

At The Wall Street Journal, Colum Murphy described the break-up of the colossal railway ministry, which currently employs over two million people, runs its own police force and courts, and oversees spending greater than China’s official military budget.

Currently, the ministry both regulates and operates China’s rail system, which has made for a murky structure and impeded both competition and financing.

[…] Under the new blueprint, the Ministry of Transport will absorb administrative duties including overseeing technology and safety standards and service and railway-project quality. A new entity, China Railway Corp., will focus on operational and commercial areas such as management of freight and passenger business as well as railway construction. Given the ministry’s problems, such a move was widely expected.

[…] “The large railway system is critical to China’s economy—and will become even more so with the economy’s shift from coastal areas inland,” said Gerald Ollivier, senior transport specialist with the World Bank, adding that the current multiplicity of roles at the ministry creates “some conflicting objectives.”

Assessments of the restructuring’s likely implications for family planning were somewhat divided. One source quoted by Michael Martina and Sui-Lee Wee at Reuters stressed continuity:

A recently retired official from the Family Planning Commission who maintains close ties with the agency, said the merger does not mean the commission’s power will be reduced.

“For such a long time, hundreds of millions of people had to have contraception and birth control, this kind of work is necessary. But it’s possible that there will be fewer things done by force,” the retired official said.

But some other observers argued that the changes herald the end of China’s ‘One Child Policy’, whose harsh enforcement and demographic effects have grown increasingly contentious. From Laurie Burkitt at The Wall Street Journal:

While the family planning agency will still exist, merging with the Ministry of Health, leaders have preserved it merely as a face-saving measure, said Wang Feng, a population expert and director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy in Beijing. “The way to interpret this is that the laws are in effect, but the judges and the policemen have all been fired,” Mr. Wang said.

Cheng Li, a political expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., said, “This is a signal to an end of a policy that in reality isn’t in line with China’s other reforms.”

[… But] “The family planning and one-child policy has been running for so many years, and it is in the constitution as state policy,” said Li Jianxin, a population expert from Peking University. “So I guess it might not be this easy for the new leaders to just simply put an end to it.”

Though their anticipated absorption by the Ministry of Culture did not materialize, two major media regulators are to merge. But the China Copyright and Media blog cautioned that halving the number of organs was unlikely to mean less intervention:

[…] As had been anticipated, the General Administration of Press and Publications and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television will merge into a new body, the State Administration of Press, Publications, Radio, Film and Television (guojia xinwen chuban guangbo dianying dianshi zongju 国家新闻出版广播电影电视总局). The National Copyright Administration, a subordinate department of GAPP, will also be brought into the SAPPRFT, an unfortunate moniker if ever there was one. […]

It should not be expected, however, that this merger will lead to any form of liberalization or deregulation. It is likely that cultural and media policy will remain in line with the Central Committee Decision on Cultural Reform of late 2011, which aimed to combine commercial success with enhanced political control. Also, problems of administrative overlap and dual licensing remain, particularly in the field of Internet management, as the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology maintain their respective Internet portfolios.

Or, more succinctly:

China’s new ministry: State Administration of Press Publication Radio Film and Television.Netizen: too long, but we know you’ll cut it!

— Kai-Fu Lee (@kaifulee) March 10, 2013

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: coast guard, corruption, diaoyu islands, drug safety, family planning, food safety, GAPP, Japan, kai-fu lee, Ma Kai, maritime security, media regulation, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Railways, National Development and Reform Commission, National People's Congress, NDRC, one-child policy, philippines, railway safety, railways, SARFT, State Council, State Family Planning Commission, State Food and Drug Administration, super-ministries
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Tension behind China and Japan may currently be high amid some speculation of armed conflict between the nations, but Qian Lihua, a member of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, said in an interview with Xinhua, “It is not rational or true that China and Japan are doomed to fight a war.

“A military solution is the last resort to settle problems. We should not talk about war and military actions in such a careless way when the two countries just have problems.”

China values its relations with Japan and has always targeted settling disputes peacefully through dialogue, said Qian, who used to head the foreign affairs office under the Ministry of National Defense.

“Once we sit down and talk, there will always be a way out,” the official added.

Despite these claims, tensions continue as Japanese automakers post lower sales in China. Another Xinhua article reports that National People’s Congress spokesperson, Fu Ying, blames Japan for the current dispute:

However, “one hand alone can’t clap,” Fu said, quoting a Chinese proverb to indicate that Japan has failed to engage in negotiations.
She said the Japanese government’s move to “purchase” part of the Diaoyu Islands last year went against the consensus reached by the two countries, which in turn shook China’s basis for maintaining restraint.

“If the other party chooses to take tougher measures and abandon consensus, ‘it is impolite not to reciprocate,’ as another Chinese proverb says,” she said.

“We wish Japanese society and all sides could listen attentively to the voice of the Chinese people and put what happened in the past and what is happening now in perspective, so the two countries find a basis for the dialogue,” said Fu.

While the dispute remains unsolved, China’s envoy to Japan, Cheng Yonghua, said that a high-level summit between the top leaders of the two nations is unlikely. From The South China Morning Post:

“The atmosphere facing bilateral ties between the two countries is at a very critical point now,” Cheng said on the sidelines of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference annual session on Sunday.

“There are no plans now to hold a high-level bilateral summit between leaders of the two nations.”

Mainland observers said the island dispute’s impact on bilateral exchanges was wide-ranging, so a high-level summit was unlikely in the coming months. “Some academics have also refused to attend conferences hosted by Japan,” said Professor Da Zhigang , an expert in Japanese affairs at the Heilongjiang Academy of Social Sciences.

“There is no official order banning us from participating in the events, but the atmosphere between the two nations has made it difficult for us. It is embarrassing if we criticise Japan, but it is also out of the question for us to support Japan.”

Anti-Japanese sentiment has also escalated due to the territorial dispute. According to the China Policy Institute Blog, China has handled these outbursts of anti-Japanese sentiment through appeasement and repression:

Based on its foreign policy and domestic considerations, Beijing has adopted three different types of approach to public expressions of anti-Japanese sentiment and opinion: 1) tolerance or leniency, 2) tight control or suppression and 3) a two-pronged approach. When the political leadership had more incentive to burnish its nationalist credentials and appeared to lack internal consensus concerning the conduct of its relations with Japan, the authorities displayed a greater tolerance of or a more lenient attitude towards public anti-Japanese outbursts. However, when the leadership pursued a moderate and cooperative approach to Japan and had greater concerns about social stability, it sought to suppress or control anti-Japan public sentiment, voices and actions to avoid jeopardizing its efforts to maintain good relations with Japan as well as social stability. By contrast, when the leadership sought a tougher stance in the handling of dispute with Japan, it adopted a two-pronged approach to nationalist outpourings by selectively allowing (or tolerating) some mass anti-Japanese protests to increase pressure on Japan whilst simultaneously making efforts to avoid such outbursts from spiraling out of control.

The authorities’ suppression and tight control of nationalist sentiment has led to a narrowing of political opportunity for the nationalistic public to make their voices heard. However, Beijing’s tolerance or selective allowance of anti-Japanese popular protests for its domestic and/or international gains caused the Chinese government itself to face a dilemma by leading to a widening of political opportunity for the public to affect the government’s policy towards Japan. Anti-Japanese popular nationalism was able to play a greater role in China’s approach towards Japan when the public took advantage of the political opportunity created by the authorities’ tolerance to express their nationalist feelings and opinions in a collective way and to push Beijing into displaying a more assertive stance in the handling of relations with Japan.

Dispite efforts by the Chinese authorities to ease them, anti-Japanese sentiment in China still remains quite strong, which significantly limits Beijing’s available options to ease tensions over the territorial row. By appearing too keen to re-engage with Japan, Beijing may suffer a backlash from an angry public. There are few signs of the mounting tensions being defused so far. The diplomatic tit-for-tat between Beijing and Tokyo seems likely to continue until the two sides find a mutually acceptable resolution of the dispute which would save their faces in front of their peoples.

Read more about the Diaoyu Islands dispute, via CDT.

© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: cheng yonghua, diaoyu islands, Fu Ying, Japan, maritime disputes, territorial disputes
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It is not that China believes it would lose such a spat; the country increasingly enjoys strategic superiority over the entire region, and it is difficult to imagine that its forces would be beaten in a direct engagement over the islands, in the South China Sea or in the disputed regions along the Sino-Indian border. However, Chinese officials see that even the most pronounced victory would be outweighed by the collateral damage that such a use of force would cause to Beijing’s two most fundamental national interests — economic growth and preventing the escalation of radical nationalist sentiment at home. These constraints, rather than any external deterrent, will keep Xi Jinping, China’s new leader, from authorizing the use of deadly force in the Diaoyu Islands theater.

But Xi does not seem blind to the principles that have served Beijing so well over the last few decades. Indeed, although he recently warned unnamed others about infringing upon China’s “national core interests” during a foreign policy speech to members of the Politburo, he also underscored China’s commitment to “never pursue development at the cost of sacrificing other country’s interests” and to never “benefit ourselves at others’ expense or do harm to any neighbor.”

Of course, wars do happen — and still could in the East China Sea. Should either side draw first blood through accident or an unexpected move, Sino-Japanese relations would be pushed into terrain that has not been charted since the middle of the last century.

However, understanding that war would be a no-win situation, China has avoided rushing over the brink. This relative restraint seems to have surprised everyone. But it shouldn’t. Beijing will continue to disagree with Tokyo over the sovereign status of the islands, and will not budge in its negotiating position over disputed territory. However, it cannot take the risk of going to war over a few rocks in the sea. On the contrary, in the coming months it will quietly seek a way to shelve the dispute in return for securing regional stability, facilitating economic development, and keeping a lid on the Pandora’s box of rising nationalist sentiment. The ensuing peace, while unlikely to be deep, or especially conducive to improving Sino-Japanese relations, will be enduring.

Chinese state media reports China’s ambassador to Japan is still ‘optimistic’ about ties, Xinhua reports:

 Chinese Ambassador to Japan Cheng Yonghua said Sunday that he is optimistic for the future of China-Japan relations, despite the lingering tension between the two nations.

“What the two countries need to do now is to improve crisis control and avoid accidents getting out of hand,” said Cheng, who is in Beijing for the annual session of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the country’s top political advisory body.

He said the disputes over the Diaoyu Islands, which were triggered by Japan last year and have not been well handled by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration, “is the biggest challenge in improving China-Japan relations.”

“As the saying goes, whoever started the trouble should end it,” the ambassador said.

Despite attempts to cool down the Diaoyu Islands dispute, AP reports China has issued another attack on Japan over the disputed region. This statement comes days ahead of the opening of the Chinese national legislature’s annual session:

The spokesman for the legislature’s chief advisory body, Lu Xinhua, told reporters at a Saturday news conference that if any unintended clash occurred as a result of their patrol boats and planes operating close to one another, Japan would “be held solely responsible for all consequences.”

Read more about Diaoyu Islands dispute, via CDT.

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Post tags: diaoyu islands, east china sea, Japan, maritime disputes, territorial disputes
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Naw Kham’s wry smile belied his macabre circumstances. “I haven’t been able to sleep for two days. I have been thinking too much. I miss my mum. I don’t want my children to be like me,” the 44-year-old Burmese druglord, chained to a chair, told a Chinese TV interviewer.

On Friday – two days after the interview – the Burmese freshwater pirate was executed for allegedly murdering a crew of Chinese sailors on the Mekong river in October, 2011. His last moments were aired on state television.

In the two-hour live broadcast, black-clad police officers hauled Naw Kham from a detention centre in southern China, bound him with ropes and chains, and bundled him on to a bus bound for the execution site. Three of his alleged henchmen followed in similar fashion. They were each killed – off camera – by lethal injection.

Though a rumored live broadcast of the actual executions failed to materialize, the TV coverage attracted heavy criticism. “It’s hard to see how that spectacle doesn’t violate [the] prohibition on parading condemned in the streets,” tweeted human rights researcher Joshua Rosenzweig, referring to a 1984 ban introduced to avoid unfavorable foreign media coverage. Human Rights Watch’s Nicholas Bequelin commented that China had “just wiped away any perception that it was making progress on the death penalty issue.” Within China, reactions to the broadcast were deeply polarized. From Andrew Jacobs at The New York Times:

“Rather than showcasing rule of law, the program displayed state control over human life in a manner designed to attract gawkers,” Han Youyi, a criminal law professor, wrote via microblog. “State-administered violence is no loftier than criminal violence.”

[…] In one segment, Liu Yuejin, director general of the central government’s Narcotics Control Bureau, cast the executions as a pivotal moment for a newly confident China and for ethnic Chinese across the globe. “In the past, overseas Chinese dared not say they were of Chinese origin,” said Mr. Liu, who led the task force that spent six months hunting the culprits. “Now they can hold their heads high and be themselves.”

Supporters of the program were many, and enthusiastic. One blogger suggested that death by lethal injection was too lenient, adding “These beasts should be pulled apart by vehicles.”

Some critics said the broadcast, and the subsequent public gloating, displayed an ugly side of China and would hurt its image abroad. To Murong Xuecun, a well-known Chinese author, the program revealed a national psyche, fed by decades of Communist Party propaganda, that craves vengeance for the years of humiliation by foreigners. “It proves that hatred-education still has a market in China,” he said in an interview.

At Bloomberg World View, Adam Minter described the spectacle as a “graphic extension” of a broader political strategy:

[…] Over the last two years the Chinese government has found itself embroiled in increasingly dangerous sovereignty disputes with its Southeast Asian and Japanese neighbors. So far, diplomacy has been the preferred course of action. Yet on China’s decidedly nationalistic and highly influential microblogging platforms, diplomacy — especially on sovereignty issues — is unpopular and viewed as a sign of weakness.

In response, the Chinese government and its official media tribunals have carefully ratcheted up the aggressive rhetoric, especially toward Japan, since the fall of 2012, reminding Chinese that they will not be bullied by outside forces. Rather, if there will be any bullying, China will be doing it.

A 2012 Reuters investigation into the Mekong murders described the web of trafficking in drugs, humans and endangered animals in Southeast Asia’s “Golden Triangle”, and Naw Kham’s legendary or perhaps mythical place in it. The report also highlighted the possible involvement of an elite Thai anti-drugs unit in the killings.

China’s Global Times recently revealed that authorities had considered killing Naw Kham with a drone strike instead of capturing him. See more on China’s drone programs, and more on the death penalty in China, via CDT.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: CCTV, death penalty, diplomacy, drug trafficking, execution, Golden Triangle, human rights watch, Japan, legal system, Mao era, Mekong river, murders, Murong Xuecun, Myanmar, Southeast Asia, territorial disputes, thailand
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Protesting North Korea’s nuclear tests in Harbin, China.

After North Korea’s nuclear test yesterday, Chinese netizens have voiced concern that radiation could reach across the border. Rumors about nuclear pollution in the northeast continue to surface, but to date the government has issued no formal report. Today, the People’s Daily tried to quell fears on Weibo by reporting the results of Japan’s radiation tests:

@PeoplesDaily: [North Korean Nuclear Test: Japan Has Not Detected Radioactivity] The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology reported on the 13th that following North Korea’s nuclear test, levels of radioactivity measured throughout Japan were the same as before the test. Additionally, Self-Defense Forces aircraft flew in Japanese airspace on the 12th, collecting large amounts of airborne particles, which they delivered to the Japan Chemical Analysis Center, the organization under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology that is entrusted with analyzing the samples. No radioactivity from the nuclear test was detected. via @TopNewsInternational

@人民日报：【朝核试：日本没有监测到放射性物质】日本文部科学省13日宣布，朝鲜进行核试验后，日本全国监测的放射线量数据与核试验前相比没有变化。此外，自卫队飞机12日在日本上空采集大气尘埃，交由文部科学省下属的财团法人日本分析中心进行分析，也没有检测出来自核试验的放射性物质。via@新国际

Instead of calming the public, the People’s Daily only provoked more anger and uncertainty among netizens. People left comments on Weibo asking what Chinese government scientists had to hide:

@UnconventionalChildKing: Excuse me, what about China’s test results? Are they stalling on tests? Or do they not dare to release the results?

@非主流孩子王：请问中国政府的监测结果呢？它就在挨着我们，是没监测？还是不敢公布？

@laodan2010: The People’s Daily is overlooking the common concerns of the Chinese people and isn’t reporting on the state of China’s test results. Meanwhile, it’s announcing Japan’s test results. It really is asking for a tongue-lashing!

@laodan2010：人民日报避开中国人的普遍忧虑，不公布中国监测情况，而左顾言他发布日本的检测，真是找骂！

@SecretlyLaughingPiglet: An explosion occurs on China’s border, but we still have to learn whether or not there is radioactivity from foreign media. Our society and government are truly tragic.

@偷笑的小猪：中国边上爆炸，还得通过外媒获得是否有辐射，这个社会政府悲哀啊

@TheThirdEarl: CCTV journalists reported live from the scene during the U.S. snowstorm, while this is happening right on our national border. I don’t know what high-level or national media think about this, but comparing the two incidents, how can average people tolerate this?

@伯爵-三世：美国暴风雪央视记者现场直播，而这事就在国境边，不知道高层或国家级媒体咋想的，二相比较，叫百姓情何已堪啊

@WangChuan: The People’s Daily cares so much for the Japanese people! It’s Japan’s conscience-in-media.

@王川: 人民日报对日本人民十分关心！是日本的良心报

@SanHeTech: The Chinese government should publicly announce how radiation from North Korea’s nuclear explosion has impacted China. It’s enough that they won’t announce anything themselves, but now they are even deleting online information from the Japanese government. Isn’t that low of them?

@三合技术：朝鲜核爆，对中国核污染如何，中国政府应当公告。自已不公告也就罢了，网上还删除日本政府的消息，这不是缺德吗？

@SuYaoshirley: I demand that detection tests take place in Jilin. We are in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, very close to North Korea, and an unnatural earthquake shook us. If there is nuclear radiation and radioactive pollution, we will have no way of ensuring our physical health!

@苏瑶shirley：强烈要求对吉林进行监测，我们身处延边州地区距离朝鲜最近，非自然地震波及到了我们，如果有核辐射及放射性物质，我们的身体健康将无法得到保证！

@SanHeTech: When we have no enemies, we create them and say that external hostile forces are trying to overthrow the government. When we have enemies, even when they set off nuclear explosions on our doorstep, we still say they’re targeting enemies 80,000 kilometers away and that it doesn’t have a d**n thing to do with us.

@三合技术：没有敌人，制造敌人也要说有境外势力要搞颠覆；有了敌人，即使他们在家门口搞核爆也要说他们是针对八万里以外的敌人，跟自己没鸟事。

Despite chastising North Korea, China’s lukewarm response to the nuclear tests is seen by western analysts as nothing more than a Cold War-style feint.

Via CDT Chinese. Translation by Liz Carter.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Japan, Netizen Voices, North Korea, nuclear testing, people's daily, radiation, weibo
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Xi Jinping on Friday said China and Japan should address “sensitive” issues between the two countries effectively and in a timely manner.

Xi, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made the remarks as he met with Natsuo Yamaguchi, leader of the New Komeito party, on Friday morning. The New Komeito party is the smaller of Japan’s two ruling parties.

Yamaguchi, who arrived in Beijing on Tuesday, is the first senior member of Japan’s ruling bloc to travel to China since the Japanese government announced it would “purchase” part of the Diaoyu Islands in September, a move that soured bilateral relations.

“China’s stance on the Diaoyu Islands is consistent and clear,” Xi said, urging the Japanese side to respect history as well as reality and make joint efforts with China to seek effective methods for appropriately controlling and resolving problems through dialogue and consultation.

While the China Daily report chose to quote Xi emphasizing consistency in China’s stance on the islands, New York Times coverage notes that the leader’s comments were soft when compared to previous official statements:

China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, offered Japan a conciliatory tone during a meeting with a senior Japanese politician on Friday in an apparent effort to reduce the escalating tensions between the two countries over islands in the East China Sea.

In some of his first remarks on China’s foreign policy since becoming secretary general of the Communist Party, Mr. Xi told the Japanese lawmaker, Natsuo Yamaguchi, “The Chinese government remains committed to China-Japan relations,” according to an account provided by China’s Foreign Ministry.

Mr. Xi urged both sides to “look at the larger picture” and “push relations forward,” the Foreign Ministry said, language markedly more restrained than the combative exhortations from military officials and state-run media since the dispute over the islands erupted four months ago.

Natsuo Yamaguchi, the envoy who met with Xi, represented Japan’s new coalition government led by Prime Minister Shinzō Abe, a man whose “hawkish” campaign statements concerning the Diaoyu Islands were a cause for concern in China. Japanese coverage of the meeting notes that Yamaguchi delivered a letter on Abe’s behalf requesting a face-to-face meeting between the two leaders, and that Xi responded agreeably. From The Asahi Shimbun:

During their hour-long discussion, Yamaguchi handed Xi a letter from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe requesting a summit meeting between the two new heads of government.

“I will seriously consider a high-level dialogue,” Xi responded. “To do so, arranging the proper environment is of vital importance.”

Upon returning to Tokyo, Yamaguchi expressed optimism about an eventual resolution to the territorial dispute. Reuters reports:

Japan takes a broad view of the issue and believes tensions can be resolved between the two countries, he told reporters before returning to Tokyo after a four-day visit.

“Japan wishes to pursue ties with China while looking at the big picture,” Yamaguchi said he told Xi, who is set to take over as China’s president in March.

“I firmly believe our differences with China can be resolved,” Yamaguchi said, adding that he did not directly discuss the islands issue with Xi.

“We agreed that it is important to continue dialogue with the aim of holding a Japan-China summit between the two leaders,” he added, though no specific details were given. “Secretary Xi said he will seriously consider a high-level dialogue with Japan.”

Another report from Reuters tells of an imminent U.N. investigation into the validity of China’s claims on the group of islands:

The United Nations is planning to consider later this year the scientific validity of a claim by China that a group of disputed islands in the East China Sea are part of its territory, although Japan says the world body should not be involved.

It was not immediately clear if the U.N. involvement would increase the likelihood the China-Japan dispute would be resolved peacefully. But launching an international legal process that should yield a neutral scientific opinion could reduce the temperature for now in Beijing’s spat with Tokyo.

In a submission to the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, China says the continental shelf in the East China Sea is a natural prolongation of China’s land territory and that it includes the disputed islands.

As China and Japan appear to be softening their rhetoric, Taiwan – another claimant to sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands – is reasserting its claims. The Asahi Shimbun reports on confrontation between the Japanese Coast Guard and a fishing boat full of Taiwanese activists on January 24:

The fishing boat, accompanied by four Taiwanese cutters, entered the contiguous zone off Japan’s territorial waters around the islands, but was chased off by the Japan Coast Guard using a water cannon. The uninhabited islands, called Diaoyutai in Taiwan, are effectively administered by Japan but are claimed by both Taiwan and China.

[...]The “Chinese Association for Protecting the Diaoyutais,” which sent the fishing boat, is a group of political activists, four of whom hold fishery certificates. Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration said there was no reason to block the boat from leaving port, because the action was lawful.

[...]A Taiwanese Foreign Ministry source indicated the authorities approved the latest departure because the Ma administration was eager to assert Taiwan’s role and presence at a time when the United States, Japan’s ally, and China have come to loggerheads over the Senkakus issue.

“We have to assert ourselves whenever China takes a strong stand,” the ministry source said.

But Taipei has also been careful not to give the impression, either at home or abroad, that China and Taiwan are joining hands over the Senkakus dispute.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: cross-strait relatioins, diaoyu islands, Japan, Japan relations, maritime disputes, maritime security, Taiwan, territorial disputes
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