The Seething and Simmering War

As the People’s Republic of China continues to grow towards being the largest economy on earth, she is definitely creating a parallel growth in her military capacity. While the PRC is a very, very long way from remotely challenging American combat superiority, China also seems to be willing to embrace a policy that would – at least so far – keep her forces out of wars in distant lands. There’s no Iraq or Afghanistan path in China’s “foreign policy with military dimensions.” The PRC defines its military aspirations as defensive and focused on preserving its own territorial claims. But innocuous and justified as this sounds, it is a deep threat to many regional countries, where claims by China over islands in many places in Asia are really about fishing, oil and mineral rights necessary for its rising internal consumer demand. But there is one more issue that has even more power to disrupt.

One set of islands seems to be a political dispute as well, a matter of national pride based on a long festering wound: China’s intense mid-twentieth century nightmare of Japanese conquest, prison camps, medical experimentation, rape, torture and murder. To the youth of Japan, this embarrassing moment in Japanese history happened so long ago that it is not remotely a part of their national consciousness. Japan’s proclivity to shove embarrassment under the rug has amplified this “forgotten” period of Japanese history, and recent leaders seem to have been backing away from the apologies that China believes are the least they can do. A December visit to a controversial Japanese war shrine by its Prime Minister Shinzo Abe seemed like waving a red flag before a raging bull.

Wikipedia lays out the issues: The Senkaku Islands dispute concerns a territorial dispute over a group of uninhabited islands known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan, the Diaoyu in China, and Tiaoyutai Islands in Taiwan. Aside from a 1945 to 1972 period of administration by the United States, the archipelago has been controlled by Japan since 1895. The People's Republic of China (PRC) disputed the proposed US handover of authority to Japan in 1971 and has asserted its claims to the islands since that time. Taiwan (Republic of China) also claims the islands. The territory is close to key shipping lanes and rich fishing grounds, and there may be oil reserves in the area.

Japan argues that it surveyed the islands in the late 19th century and found them to be Terra nullius (Latin: land belonging to no one); subsequently, China acquiesced to Japanese sovereignty until the 1970s. The PRC and the ROC argue that documentary evidence prior to the First Sino-Japanese War indicates Chinese possession and that the territory is accordingly a Japanese seizure that should be returned as the rest of Imperial Japan's conquests were returned in 1945.

Although the United States does not have an official position on the merits of the competing sovereignty claims, the islands are included within the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan, meaning that a defense of the islands by Japan would require the United States to come to Japan's aid.

In September 2012, the Japanese government purchased three of the disputed islands from their ‘private owner', prompting large-scale protests in China. As of early February 2013, the situation has been regarded as ‘the most serious for Sino-Japanese relations in the post-war period in terms of the risk of militarised conflict.’

China has embraced rhetoric, education, and making political statements to remind its citizens of the underlying importance of their political system. “On November 23, 2013, the PRC set up the ‘East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone’ which includes the Senkaku Islands, and announced that it would require all aircraft entering the zone to file a flight plan and submit radio frequency or transponder information.” Wikipedia. This one is not going away China’s leaders have made a decision to escalate the dispute and to sustain a long-term commitment to reminding its population of the WWII era and Japanese deep mistreatment of China and its people. Recently, for example, in the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin, another “reminder” rolled out under the guise of a museum-like exhibit at a local rail station: “The exhibit cataloged the life of Ahn Jung-geun, a young Korean nationalist, who more than 100 years ago, assassinated an aging Japanese politician, the first overseer of Japan’s colony in Korea…

“The Chinese government’s recently opened tribute to Mr. Ahn is more than just a historical exercise. In the escalating feud between China and Japan, the Chinese leadership is running an anti-Japanese public relations campaign at home and abroad that amplifies its case against Japan, once its colonizer — starting right here in Manchuria in 1931 — and now a lesser economic power anxious about China’s increasingly muscular maritime claims… China’s public relations push has focused on what it says are Japan’s false claims to those islands…

“Dozens of Chinese ambassadors have criticized Japan in letters written to newspapers around the world. In one, the Chinese ambassador in London compared Japan to the evil Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter series. At home, a cartoon in The Global Times, a Chinese government-run populist newspaper, compared the Japanese to the Nazis, and relentless negative coverage of Japan has dominated the news programs of CCTV, the government channel.

“The Foreign Ministry has also intensified its criticisms of the Japanese occupation of China during World War II. At a recent daily briefing for the press, the spokesman reminded everyone about Unit 731, the biological and chemical warfare research facility on the outskirts of Harbin used by the Japanese to conduct human experiments.

“The complex is now a Harbin tourist attraction, a museum filled with crude medical equipment used by the Japanese… The memorial to Mr. Ahn, unveiled at the rail station in the heart of the city last month, has struck a special chord.” New York Times, February 8th. Make no mistake, this is a serious dispute, one that could easily slip into some form of armed conflict. That The United States has a treaty obligation, that Japan is reconsidering its Constitutional limitation on non-offensive military forces and its ban on nuclear weapons and that China is only escalating her adamant position that these islands are PRC territory could easily draw us into a conflict just when we need our relations in Asia to smooth out, allowing us to address global climate change and trade issues. It is time for us to escalate as well… the application of diplomatic force, the reach of the United Nations and the pressure from regional powers who do not want conflict as a solution to any of these issues.

I’m Peter Dekom, and not dealing with these escalating tensions will only make matters worse.