Tokyo and Washington seem to want nothing better than to prolong the current sovereignty row between Japan and China, which may touch off an accidental military skirmish off the disputed islands called Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese. In Taiwan the eight uninhabited islets are known as Tiaoyutai, which it claims are its inherent territory.
Beijing and Tokyo have locked horns since Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda nationalized three of the Senkaku Islands in September last year to prevent ultra-nationalist Governor Shintaro Ishihara of Tokyo from buying them. Shintaro's intentions were to defend them against a possible Chinese takeover.
Chinese maritime surveillance ships have regularly patrolled what they say are their territorial waters and the Japanese have scrambled warplanes from time to time to warn the Chinese vessels against coming too near to the islands, which are under Japan's administrative control. Tokyo alleged that a Chinee frigate locked its radar on a Japanese destroyer in January.
Japanese fighter pilots may fire warning tracer shots. They may be mistaken for an attack, which may lead to an exchange of fire, kicking off a war by accident.
But Beijing appeared to call for a respite a week or so ago. --i Jinping, general-secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and president of the People's Republic of China, reshuffled his State Council. Yang Jiechi, foreign minister, was made a State Council member or minister without portfolio in charge of foreign affairs, and succeeded by Wang Yi, director of the State Council Office of Taiwan Affairs.
--i's appointment of the two top diplomats displays a Chinese desire to repair relations with Japan after months of disruption, while keeping the United States and its strategic pivot to Asia at bay.
A former ambassador to Tokyo, Wang knows Japan well and is expected to repair relations between the two neighbors damaged by the ongoing row in the East China Sea.
Yang is a former ambassador in Washington, who firmly believes the United States should stay out of regional Asian affairs. The military, often an influential voice in China's foreign policy, is also making conciliatory commentaries about Japan to indicate Beijing's intention to thaw the frozen relations between the two countries.
Then came the alarming news of a joint U.S.-Japan military plan to counter any Chinese invasion of the disputed islands.
Japan's Nikkei newspaper, citing an unidentified Pentagon source, reported that Japanese and U.S. officials had drawn up a joint plan for retaking the Senkakus should the People's Liberation Army seize them.
Last Thursday and Friday, General Shigeru Iwasaki, Japan's chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with Admiral Samuel Locklear, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, in Hawaii to finalize the joint plan.
The joint preparations, scheduled to be finished by the summer, will be the first by the two allies to address the threat of attack on a specific area held by Japan, according to the Nikkei.
The Pentagon confirmed the Iwasaki-Locklear meeting in Hawaii, but described it as part of their regular consultations to update joint defense plans. A Department of Defense official said the United States is “unhappy” about the Nikkei leak.
Washington has long acknowledged that the security treaty between the U.S. and Japan covers the disputed islands, while at the same time making clear privately that a military conflict over the uninhabited territory would be a grave mistake.
While pledging to defend Japan, the United States does not take a position on territorial disputes between China and Japan.
But the reported updating of the defense plan seems to reveal an American strategy of using Japan to help contain China, just as it did during the Cold War in the containment of the Soviet Union. The United States wants the Senkakus to remain in Japanese hands to make sure Chinese submarines don't break through this first island chain of defense and into the West Pacific.
The respite was cut short. China vowed a “steadfast” military defense of its territorial integrity.
There won't be any possible talk on the disputed islands between Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the forthcoming China-Japan-South Korea trilateral summit scheduled for May 11-12 at Seoul. Abe is looking forward to the summit where he wishes to straighten out differences with China over the Senkakus and with South Korea over the Liancourt Rocks.
The Liancourt Rocks, which Japan claims, are known as Takeshima in Japanese and Dokto in Korean. The islands are effectively controlled by South Korea. President Park isn't likely to be persuaded by Mr. Abe.
Perhaps Mr. Abe wants to prolong the row with China until Japan's Upper House election scheduled for July, about two months after the trilateral summit. He needs the help of rising anti-Chinese sentiment in Japan to win control of the upper chamber of the Diet.
But the United States has invited China to take part for the first time in next year's Rim of the Pacific Exercise off Hawaii.
The People's Liberation Army has accepted the invitation to join in the biennial sea maneuver in which Japan is a regular participant. Beijing, nonetheless, still regards the RIMPAC as Washington's “China containment” ploy.
Isn't it better now for Mr. Abe to admit there exists a Senkaku sovereignty issue and get China to the negotiating table to start tapping the oil and natural gas reserves under the waters of the disputed islands?
〈本文僅供參考，不代表本會立場〉
（本文刊載於102.03.26, The China Post）
胡思聰
(
2007年6月12日 09:50
)
林祖嘉
(
2018年4月17日 16:11
)
王順民
(
12月6日 16:45
)
張瑞雄
