China and Japan just finished their fourth round of consultation on the East China Sea issue. No substantial result was reached so far. Shi Yongming, a researcher at the China Institute of International Relations, believes the bilateral relations are facing new tests in the wake of their longstanding dispute over the demarcation of the East China Sea.
Below is his view on the issue.
PROLONGED TALKS: Chinese and Japanese diplomats meet in Beijing in early March to discuss the East China Sea territorial disputes, the fourth consultations held on the issue since 2004
In the fourth round of consultation on the East China Sea issue between China and Japan in early March, China reaffirmed its position of jointly exploring the contentious areas near Diaoyudao Island by putting aside territorial disputes. According to Japanese media reports, Tokyo has basically rejected this proposal.
Nevertheless, two distinct voices were heard in the Japanese Government on how to work toward a future solution to the issue. Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso showed a stern face. He told the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Japanese House of Representatives that it was impossible to agree to China’s proposal of jointly exploring the resources in the East China Sea. He added that Japan might resort to confrontational measures if China goes ahead with gas exploitation in the area. Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Toshihiro Nikai, however, demonstrated a less radical stance. It is his belief that a positive attitude should be adopted to resolve the dispute through consultation.
The divergence of views in Tokyo speaks of the explicit challenges posed by the East China Sea issue to China-Japan relations. The two neighbors have arrived at a crossroad: either to forge broader and deeper cooperative ties by ending their disputes through consultation, or to allow their relations to degenerate to a state of confrontation because of conflicting interests.
In the limelight
The territorial dispute in the East China Sea was thrust into the spotlight in late May 2004, when Japanese political figures and media showed concern about China’s Chunxiao gas project. Although the gas field is not in the disputed area, the Japanese Government said it could suck away Japan’s share of the natural gas reserves “as with a straw,” since the project is only 5 km from what it unilaterally recognizes as the “median line.”
The Japanese Government created a special organ responsible for formulating comprehensive measures to protect its marine rights and interests, jumpstarting marine resource investigation programs on the Japanese side of the “median line” and offering guidance to Japanese private companies in natural gas exploitation in the area.
Regarding these moves, the Chinese Government suggested that the two countries should seek to resolve the dispute through dialogue and consultation. Talks began in October 2004. During the first two rounds of consultation, Japan disregarded China’s idea of joint development, and demanded that China stop the project and provide technical data to Japan.
In the third round of talks last October, Japan ostensibly accepted the notion of “joint development,” but it listed gas fields located in areas over which China has incontestable territorial rights, like Chunxiao, as projects to be jointly developed. Obviously, Japan intends to narrow the disagreement over the demarcation of the East China Sea down to natural resource disputes in Chunxiao gas field region, so as to prompt China to accept or acquiesce to its “median line” theory.
In the fourth round, China reasserted that joint exploration should be conducted in areas under dispute, as only in these areas does the possibility exist of cooperation on the issue of territorial rights between the two governments.
Prominent dispute
China’s proposal of “shelving disputes to engage in joint exploration” is based on the historical and practical considerations over the East China Sea territorial dispute, and serves the long-term interests of both China and Japan.
The two countries have been embroiled in disputes over the natural resources in the East China Sea and the territorial sovereignty of Diaoyudao since the 1960s, when rich oil deposits were discovered in that area. Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea adopted in 1982, coastal states can claim an exclusive economic zone extending 200 nautical miles from their shores, where they have special rights over the exploration and use of marine resources.
Given these provisions, China and Japan have run into increasingly prominent disputes over the demarcation of the continental shelf and the exclusive economic zones in the East China Sea.
The disputes can mainly be summed up into two aspects. The first one is the criterion of East China Sea demarcation. According to Articles 66 and 67 of the UN convention, China holds that the seabed of the East China Sea is a natural extension of China’s continental shelf, which extends to the median line of the Okinawa Trough. It is therefore entitled to the territorial right of exploring the continental shelf and the natural resources there. Japan does not share the continental shelf with China, it says.
Japan, however, first cited the exclusive economic zone concept and then claimed that it shared the continental shelf with China. As far as the current standoff is concerned, what matters is not Japan’s justification for its claims, but the fact that it has been found to lack the willingness to be consultative from the very beginning. It drew a “median line” in 1982 and has been attempting to make the line an established fact ever since. It refuses China’s proposal precisely because it insists that the areas east of the so-called “median line” are part of Japanese territory.
The second aspect of the disputes is the sovereign status of Diaoyudao. A serious problem with Japan’s unilateral “median line” is that it not only marks Diaoyudao as a Japanese territory but also uses the islands as the baseline of territorial sea demarcation. The clash over the sovereignty of the islands is the most relevant historical issue between China and Japan at present. Japan’s claim of sovereignty over them began in 1895 and was closely linked with other historical events at the time such as Japan’s foreign expansion after the Meiji Reform, the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 and its seizure of Taiwan and Penghu Liedao Archipelago.
A deeper probe into the Diaoyudao problem could involve the history of the ancient Ryukyu Kingdom, or today’s Okinawa. However, Japan’s actual control of the islands today derives from the Japan-U.S. San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951, which wrongly put the islands under the trusteeship of the United States as part of the Ryukyu Islands. Not a signatory party, China does not recognize the treaty. When it returned the Ryukyu Islands to Japan in May 1972, Washington transferred the administrative rights of Diaoyudao to Tokyo as well because of its Cold War strategic considerations, a move that the Chinese Government strongly condemned.
Given the complexity and sensitivity of the issue, Chinese and Japanese leaders agreed that they would set aside the territorial disputes when they signed the Sino-Japanese Treaty of Peace and Friendship in 1978. The Chinese leader then pointed out that the next generation would be wise enough to find a solution to the problem.
Today, the Chinese Government has put forward detailed suggestions on joint development based on the vision of previous leaders. In effect, this is the only valid choice for the two countries to achieve win-win results. Regrettably, what we have seen so far is Japan’s persistent reluctance to cooperate and frequent vows to take the disputed areas as its own and resort to confrontational measures. These have added to the uncertainty of the East China Sea territorial disputes.
Worrisome trend
The situation in the East China Sea seems to be a touchy one in 2006, mainly because the joint military exercise of Japan and the United States at the beginning of the year was squarely targeted at the Diaoyudao issue. Japan has been going out of its way to create an illusion that China wants to solve the problem by force. As a matter of fact, it is what Japan has done that risks putting the situation in jeopardy.
In the last couple of years, Japan has adopted the following basic policies toward China regarding the East China Sea issue: ignoring China’s suggestions on the joint development of contentious areas; demanding that China stop exploring areas that are not under dispute such as Chunxiao gas field; encouraging Japanese companies to explore gas fields in the disputed areas by taking administrative measures and beefing up legislation; establishing a legal framework that allows armed forces to protect the companies’ operations; and attempting to prohibit other countries from carrying out gas exploration in disputed areas by law.
Before the second China-Japan consultation last May, Japan began to review applications filed by Japanese companies to launch gas exploitation on a trial basis in the East China Sea. It formally granted the right to Teikoku Oil last July. Apparently, the Japanese Government is taking systematic steps to monopolize the disputed areas.
Putting the East China Sea issue in a wider context, we may conclude that Japan’s response to the issue is actually part of a larger campaign to seek an overall expansion of its marine rights. Two characteristics have stood out in this respect. First, Japan has taken an unyielding stance, not only toward China, but also toward South Korea and Russia on territory disputes.
Second, it has turned a blind eye to international law and basic international codes of conduct. A telling example is its attitude toward Okino Torishima, reefs in the Pacific Ocean that rise less than 1 meter above high tide and cover an area of less than 10 square meters. Okino Torishima cannot meet the requirements of a baseline of its territorial sea set in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, nor can it have an exclusive economic zone according to the convention.
However, Japan invested billions of yen on consolidating the two reefs by using sophisticated technology. Embankments have been built around the rocks, turning them into manmade large reefs. At the same time, it used them as the baseline of its territorial sea and demanded a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone around it. It then asked China to keep it informed before carrying out scientific explorations near the reefs.
In order to justify this claim, it cited the provisions in the UN convention only partially. While asserting the first sub-article of Article 121 of the convention that “an island is a naturally formed area of land, surrounded by water, which is above water at high tide,” it gives short shrift to the third sub-article, which stipulates that “rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf.”
Many international observers are confounded by Japan’s unfriendliness to its neighbors. Some say that the tough stance it has taken over the East China Sea issue is intended to hold back China’s development or to distract people’s attention from Prime Minster Junichiro Koizumi’s visits to the Yasukuni Shrine. In fact, the problem is not as simple as that. Koizumi’s shrine visits are not individual cases. They reflect the spiritual pursuit of the conservative forces and extreme nationalists in Japanese society.
The pursuit is materialized by seeking a revision to the country’s pacifist Constitution to end the ban on possessing a military and to give its armed forces a more assertive international role, which is expected to bring direct material benefits. Japan’s hard-line position speaks of this social mentality. It also serves as a tool for some politicians to fish for political capital and a means for the few extremists to manipulate public opinion.
From territorial disputes with neighbors to the attitude toward its aggressive history and the Constitution amendment, we can see that Japan is increasingly diverting from the track of a peaceful nation, as it walks out of the shadow of its defeat in World War II to become a so-called “normal country.”
There is a need for the international community to observe the development of the East China Sea issue in the context of Japan’s political tendency. The East China Sea issue may be a touchstone for the future development of Japan. Meanwhile, China-Japan relations are also expected to go through grave tests.