{"id":3933,"date":"2013-02-12T12:30:28","date_gmt":"2013-02-12T02:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=3933"},"modified":"2013-02-13T13:09:02","modified_gmt":"2013-02-13T03:09:02","slug":"reader-response-china-and-japan-lets-take-a-step-back-from-the-brink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/reader-response-china-and-japan-lets-take-a-step-back-from-the-brink\/","title":{"rendered":"Reader response: China and Japan \u2013 let\u2019s take a step back from the brink"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Let's<\/a><\/figure>\n

Ben Schreer takes a hard-nosed approach to his analysis of the Senkaku\/Diaoyu Islands dispute in his recent post<\/a>, but I don\u2019t think I can agree with him.<\/p>\n

First and foremost, despite his criticism of China I think Ben\u2019s assessment actually gives too much credit to Beijing. He portrays a China that\u2019s methodically \u2018probing\u2019 its way towards ruling the waves of the Western Pacific. He sees China implementing a coherent and sophisticated strategy involving the coordinated use of maritime surveillance, coast guard vessels and more conventional naval assets.<\/p>\n

Ben might well be right. But for an alternative perspective, readers might also be interested in an excellent new report just released by Linda Jakobsen at the Lowy Institute<\/a>. A seasoned China watcher, Linda characterises the new Xi Jinping leadership as one plagued by domestic pressures and internally focused as a consequence. This interpretation stands in marked contrast to Ben\u2019s assessment, which\u2014while acknowledging in passing the possibility of internal fissures\u2014sees China as an externally focused, largely unitary actor that is pursuing a coherent grand strategic vision.<\/p>\n

Linda\u2019s analysis resonates with an oft-cited International Crisis Group report<\/a><\/em>, published in 2012, that exposes conflicting mandates and a lack of coordination amongst Chinese government agencies\u2014the so-called \u2018nine dragons\u2019\u2014involved in the South China Sea. Yet Ben anticipates that the current, coherent pattern of Chinese maritime behaviour in the Senkaku\/Diaoyu dispute will play out similarly in the South China Sea. What\u2019s interesting, however, is just how different China\u2019s approach to these two friction points has been. Where in the East China Sea exchanges between Beijing and Tokyo have quickly escalated to involve the use of military ships and aircraft, Chinese tactics in the South China Sea have by and large remained confined to the use of maritime patrol vessels.<\/p>\n

Second, Ben is quick to blame Beijing for rising tensions in the East China Sea. Such analysis will certainly play well in Tokyo, and perhaps also in some Washington and Canberra quarters. But the view from China is a very different one. Beijing could reasonably claim, for instance, that current tensions in the East China Sea stem from Tokyo\u2019s September 2012 decision<\/a>\u2014albeit seemingly well intentioned\u2014to purchase the Senkaku\/Diaoyu Islands from a private Japanese owner. Or they could trace these tensions back to an even earlier September 2010 episode<\/a>, when Tokyo chose to make an international incident of a collision between a Chinese fishing trawler and a Japanese Coast Guard vessel.<\/p>\n

The point here is not to play \u2018panda hugger\u2019 by apportioning blame to Tokyo for mounting tensions in Sino-Japanese relations. Rather, it\u2019s to emphasise that strategy is interactive and that there are always two sides to every story.<\/p>\n

Third, and most important from Canberra\u2019s perspective, isn\u2019t how this story began but how it\u2019ll ultimately end. Ben\u2019s answer is for the US and its allies to deny Chinese designs on the Western Pacific by beefing up their offensive maritime capabilities. Yet if Linda Jakobsen is right and China is deep down a reactive rising power\u2014and not the aspiring \u2018hegemon on the horizon\u2019 that Ben sees it to be\u2014then such an approach seems destined, over time, only to elicit a response in kind from Beijing. In other words, Ben\u2019s prescription leads us down the path of an ever deepening and increasingly dangerous security dilemma between China and Japan.<\/p>\n

Ben is absolutely right that China increasingly sees its disagreements with Japan in much the same way as it views the Taiwan issue. That\u2019s precisely what makes the Senkaku\/Diaoyu Islands flashpoint so dangerous and what makes Ben\u2019s policy prescription so ill-advised. The nationalist sentiment underpinning Chinese perceptions of Japan and Taiwan are quite unlike those informing Beijing\u2019s views of any other country or issue, including the South China Sea. According to one recent poll<\/a>, for instance, a staggering 87% of the Chinese public now hold a negative view of Japan.<\/p>\n

In her classic history of the opening days of World War I, The Guns of August<\/a><\/em>, Barbara Tuchman laments how miscalculation and a lack of imagination sent the European powers tumbling into the abyss of war. Ben is to be commended for putting his cards on the table and advocating one response to deepening tensions between Beijing and Tokyo. Yet it\u2019s an approach which raises the risks of miscalculation and runs counter to the careful and creative diplomacy that will ultimately be required to bring China and Japan back from the brink. In the search for alternative solutions, we might do well to take a leaf out of Tuchman\u2019s book.<\/p>\n

Brendan Taylor is head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University. Image courtesy of Flickr user jon smith<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ben Schreer takes a hard-nosed approach to his analysis of the Senkaku\/Diaoyu Islands dispute in his recent post, but I don\u2019t think I can agree with him. 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