China pushes back against Japan
China's strategy on the Diaoyu Islands, or Senkakus as Japan calls them, appears to reflect careful calculation of risk and reward by the Beijing leadership, rather than the spasm of counterproductive nationalism sometimes described in the Western press. As a matter of equity, China has a pretty strong claim on the Senkakus. As a matter of geopolitics, the People's Republic of China (PRC) is not holding as weak a hand as one might think.
China's strategy on the Diaoyu Islands, or Senkakus as Japan calls them, appears to reflect careful calculation of risk and reward by the Beijing leadership, rather than the spasm of counterproductive nationalism sometimes described in the Western press. As a matter of equity, China has a pretty strong claim on the Senkakus. As a matter of geopolitics, the People's Republic of China (PRC) is not holding as weak a hand as one might think.
This is something that the administration of US President Barack Obama, to its chagrin, knows well.
Careful readers of The Japan Times (presumably includingstrategists in Beijing) may remember this passage from August 17, 2010:
The Obama administration has decided not to state explicitly that the Senkaku Islands, which are under Japan's control but claimed by China, are subject to the Japan-US security treaty, in a shift from the position of George W Bush, sources said Monday. The administration of Barack Obama has already notified Japan of the change in policy, but Tokyo may have to take countermeasures in light of China's increasing activities in the East China Sea, according to the sources.
However, US enthusiasm for using the Senkaku dispute as a useful diplomatic lever appears to be reaching its limit.
Two major US dailies, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, recently weighed in with reviews of the history of the islands that may cause the Japanese government some heartburn. Nicholas Kristof turned his NYT column over to a Taiwanese scholar, Han Yishaw, to lay out China's historical claims to the islands. [4]
The LA Times' Barbara Demick also looked skeptically at the Japanese provenance of the Senkakus with a piece describing the research of scholar Unryu Suganuma, who found several references in Japanese government documents describing the Chinese character of the islands. [5]
A glance at a map confirms the impression that the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands are in Taiwan's backyard, and Japanese efforts to claim them are almost as risible as China's infamous South China Sea-swallowing nine-dash line.
Japan's claim to incontestable sovereignty over the islands goes back no further than its seizure, together with Taiwan and the Ryukyu Islands, from the Qing empire in the 1895 Sino-Japanese War, and not being forced to give them back in the post-World War II muddle.
The "spoils of war" argument, aka we got 'em and by golly we're gonna keep 'em approach, is an awkward one for Japan. It would dearly like to get back four islands on the southern end of an archipelago stretching between the Kamchatka Peninsula and Hokkaido, which are now occupied by Russia as heir to the Soviet Union's spoils of war.
Given this unfavorable position, Japan must contest the "spoils of war" argument and rely on emotive, historical claims to the islands - the exact opposite of its position on the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands.
The "exercised sovereignty" argument also provides no comfort to Japan in its dispute with South Korea over the Dokdo Islands (Takeshima to the Japanese). After the conclusion of World War II, the United States supported the historical Japanese claims to the islands but declined to put their defense within the scope of the US-Japan Joint Security Treaty.
In July 2008, the administration of then-US president George W Bush acknowledged South Korean control over the islands by designating them as ROK territory.
Therefore, Japan's attempts to hold on to the Senkakus on the principle that their effective de facto control, by itself, constitutes de jure sovereignty undermines its arguments on Dokdo and the Kuriles. This inconsistency, one might assume, does not make an ironclad case to the United States to encourage a regional confrontation over Japanese dismay over Chinese pretensions to the rocks.
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Asia Times Online :: China pushes back against Japan
separately: a sign of appeasement
Japanese PM adds Beijing-friendly education head in cabinet reshuffle
TOKYO -- Japan's unpopular prime minister reshuffled his cabinet Monday, picking a woman with Beijing-friendly credentials in what commentators said signaled his hope to move past a damaging territorial row.
Yoshihiko Noda named a relative unknown as finance minister, but kept several key positions unchanged as he seeks a balance of continuity and change ahead of an expected general election.
Photogenic Goshi Hosono, 41, left his post as environment minister to become party policy chief.
Noda, whose Democratic Party of Japan governs in coalition with a smaller grouping told reporters the changes would boost his government.
“This is a reshuffle that will help the government and the ruling parties cooperate to address a number of issues we are facing domestically and diplomatically and further strengthen the function of the cabinet.”
Later in the day, his newly appointed ministers were formally sworn in by Emperor Akihito in a palace ceremony.
Makiko Tanaka becomes education minister. The job is relatively powerless and has little directly to do with China, but commentators say her appointment is an attempt to telegraph Noda's willingness to heal diplomatic wounds.
Japan and China have clashed repeatedly over the last few months about the Tokyo-administered Senkaku islands, which China claims as the Diaoyus.
Tanaka is the daughter of former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, who normalized diplomatic ties with Beijing 40 years ago last Saturday, and has warm links with China, where her family is held in high regard.
She was in Beijing last week as part of a cross-party parliamentary delegation.
Her short stint as foreign minister under popular Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was marked by rows with bureaucrats. It is chiefly remembered for the tearful speech she gave after being sacked in 2002.
Noda denied her appointment was anything to do with the island spat, citing her experience in science and technology matters as vital to her new role.
“I didn't select her for foreign minister,” he told reporters. “There is no way I decide on who will be education and science minister because of Japan-China issues.”
However Takehiko Yamamoto, professor of international politics at Waseda University, said there was no doubt that her appointment was intended as diplomatic balm.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/asia/japan/2012/10/02/356259/Japanese-PM.htm
The selection of the photogenic Miss Goshi Hosono raise the approval rating of PM Noda from 26.3% to 29.2%
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20121003a1.html