A curious event occurred last week, and continues into this week, in the area which the Western powers (and we ourselves following them), have traditionally referred to as the Far East. There, what has become a customary contretemps in the East China Sea between China and Japan involving the competing claims of both countries to sovereignty over a number of islands in their vicinity, was suddenly transformed into a major diplomatic dispute between the two countries.
In response to the Japanese arrest of a Chinese captain accused of ramming two Japanese coast guard ships while the Chinese boat was traversing areas around islands controlled by the Japanese but claimed by the Chinese, the Chinese assumed an unusually aggressive posture. They demanded the immediate release of the captain, and in response to Japanese claims that due process should take place, immediately introduced economic sanctions against Japan, including the curtailment of tourism visits and the suspension of shipments of rare earth materials crucial to the production of certain Japanese industrial products.
No doubt the Japanese believed that this incident would be solved like previous others involving the contested islands. They seemed to assume that there would be a somewhat prolonged diplomatic back and forth, and that there would then be arrival at a solution in which each party could claim that it had saved face. But what the Japanese assumed would be a continuation of traditional practices, turned into a form of Chinese diplomatic aggressiveness which they had hardly contemplated. When the Chinese proceeded to arrest four Japanese citizens in China, the Japanese government proceeded to take the course that a concession to China, by way of immediate return of the captain, was the most appropriate thing to do. But, no doubt as the Japanese government, already seen at home as politically weak, expected, its response has been seen as a backing down and a ‘loss of face,’ a grievous error in Far Eastern diplomacy.
Much comment in the Western world, and particularly in the United States, has revolved around seeing this Japanese ‘defeat’ as yet another sign of a Chinese determination to flex its muscles in world affairs, and to demonstrate its new right to be considered a major power in today’s world. United States commentators have linked Chinese behaviour – that is, its diplomatic escalation of what would normally have been perceived as a minor incident – to a series of other actions by the Chinese government, indicating that it would set rules for itself, and not necessarily be bound by the rules observed by the traditional great powers of the twentieth century. In that context, they refer to Chinese unwillingness to play by what the US takes to be the normal rules of the international financial order, and to adjust its currency to a level that does not give its production and trade an unfair advantage. And some already see constant entreaties by President Obama and his chief financial officers to proceed in that direction, as adopting an undue posture of pleading. The Chinese, on the other hand, in spite of various threats from the American Congress to take retaliatory action, seem to take the view that such is the level of American investment in China, that the US can go so far and no further without doing harm to itself in this relationship of increasing interdependence.
So as with the Japanese who also have substantial investments in China. The United States would appear to be treading gently in a number of diplomatic arenas involving China in the wider world. American commentators, viewing President Obama’s stance in relation to China at the present Special Session of the UN General Assembly, in which the President seemed more concerned about the US currency than in furthering the aims of the Millennium Development Goals, have gone back to refer to what many Americans deemed to be undiplomatic treatment of their President, and therefore the United States, at the Conference on Climate Change held in Copenhagen in December last year. There, the Chinese were seen to be seeking to come to an arrangement on climate change with other major powers, including emerging powers like India, to the exclusion of the United States.
Recent commentary has also made reference to an apparent Chinese unwillingness to align themselves with other Western powers and Russia, on the sanctions against Iran on the nuclear proliferation issue. They claim that Chinese realpolitik on this matter really involves its large purchases of oil from Iran, to the extent that they would not wish to prejudice this by joining the sanctions. The Chinese themselves seem to be playing a ‘now we join you, now we don’t’ with the other powers which, no doubt, they have perceived those powers to play at various times in deference to their own national interests.
The chagrin of some Western powers has also increased in response to what they see as China’s unwillingness to abide by rules, particularly in respect of some African states, upon whom they are trying to enforce acceptance of particular rules of behaviour in respect of human rights. The Western powers at the Security Council are particularly concerned with China’s uncooperative attitude to their attempts to bring the President of Sudan to heel as a protagonist of genocide against the southern regions of his country. Western commentators claim that China’s increasing investment in oil and other raw materials in East and Southern Africa makes them turn a blind eye to attempts to reduce human rights abuses.
So the Western powers are likely to see China’s recent attitude and behaviour towards Japan as one of a piece with her behaviour in the international community in general. But they will also know, that in spite of the extensive Japanese investment in China in recent years, there is a history in China-Japan relations which gives their current dispute a certain particularity. This is the background of relations between the two countries between the First and the Second World Wars culminating in the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, considered to the present as a major humiliation of China. The Chinese tend to see, or to claim to see, minor slights as a continuation of this era of humiliation, and to be aggressive in their responses.
This is a matter that only the two countries themselves can come to terms with. But even their neighbours in South and Southeast Asia, including India, whose borders China once crossed, will tend to resent China’s posturing as the major geopolitical entity in that part of the world. And the signs are that the United States is suggesting to them that in that unsettled diplomatic climate, likely to persist for some time, it is best to retain an American presence in the area as a necessary counterweight in what the Americans see as an emerging, but traditional game of Great Power balance of politics taking a new form in the nuclear era, in a revived Far East.
