Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A view of the islands in the
East China Sea that are known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.
Control of them would give China unobserved access to the Pacific,
something it lacks.
BEIJING — The action in the skies over the East China Sea started simply enough.
Last week, the Chinese government sent a civilian surveillance plane, a
twin propeller aircraft, to fly near the uninhabited islands at the
heart of a growing feud between China and Japan.
Tokyo, in response, ordered F-15 fighter jets to take a look at what it
considered Chinese meddling. The Chinese then sent their own fighters.
It was the first time that supersonic Chinese and Japanese military
fighters were in the air together since the dispute over the islands
erupted last year, significantly increasing the risk of a mistake that
could lead to armed conflict at a time when both countries, despite
their mutual economic interests, are going through a period of
heightened nationalism that recalls their longstanding regional rivalry.
The escalation comes amid a blast of belligerent discourse in China and
as the Obama administration has delayed a visit to Washington requested
by Shinzo Abe,
the new prime minister of Japan, the United States’ main ally in Asia.
After the rebuff, Mr. Abe announced that he would embark on a tour of
Southeast Asia intended to counter China’s influence in the region. On
Friday, as Mr. Abe cut short his trip to return to Tokyo to deal with
the hostage crisis in Algeria, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
said in Washington that Mr. Abe would meet with President Obama in the
second half of February.
For Japan and China, what began as a seemingly minor dispute is quickly
turning into a gathering storm, military analysts and Western diplomatic
officials warn, as each country appears determined to force the other
to give ground.
“What is really driving things is raw nationalism and fragmented
political systems, both on the Japanese and even more so the Chinese
sides, that is preventing smart people from making rational decisions,”
said Thomas Berger, an associate professor of international relations at
Boston University. “No Chinese or Japanese leader wants or can afford
to be accused of selling out their country.”
The backdrop for the dispute is the changing military and economic
dynamic in the region. In Japan, which rose from utter defeat in World
War II to become a prosperous global economic power, many experts talk
of a nation preparing for an “elegant” decline. But Mr. Abe has made
clear that he does not subscribe to that idea and hopes to stake out a
tough posture on the islands as a way of engineering a Japanese
comeback.
In contrast, Beijing brims with confidence, reveling in the belief that
the 21st century belongs to China — with the return of the islands the
Chinese call the Diaoyu and the Japanese refer to as the Senkaku as a
starting point.
Though Japan is far richer than China on a per-person basis, its economy
has been stagnant for years and contracted once again in the second
half of 2012. It was hit hard by a slowdown in exports to China after
the island dispute erupted in August; Chinese protesters disrupted
Japanese plants in China and boycotted Japanese products during the
autumn. The value of Japanese exports to China fell by 17 percent
between June and November, the World Bank said this week.
China’s fast-growing military still lags behind the Japanese
Self-Defense Forces in sophistication of weaponry and training, but
Japan’s edge is diminishing, according to Dr. Berger, an expert on the
Japanese military, and other Western defense analysts.
For now the Chinese military wants to avoid armed conflict over the
islands, Dr. Berger said, but its longer-term goal is to pressure Japan
to give up its administration of the islands. That would give China a
break in what is known in China as the “first island chain,” a string
including the Diaoyu, that prevents China’s growing ballistic submarine
fleet from having unobserved access to the Pacific Ocean. Taiwan is part
of the “first island chain,” as are smaller islands controlled by
Vietnam and the Philippines.
“The Chinese leadership seems to think that the cards are in their
favor, and if they push long and hard enough, the Japanese have to
cave,” Dr. Berger said.
A senior American military official said that Washington considered
China’s decision to send its fighter jets in response to Japan’s to be
“imprudent” but not a violation of international law. The Chinese jets
had entered what is known as Japan’s Air Defense Identity Zone, but had
not infringed Japan’s airspace, the official said.
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