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- Feb 14, 2013
- Updated: 8:29am
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Sino-Japanese relations
The relationship between the two largest economies in Asia has been marred throughout the 20th century due to territorial and political disputes including Taiwanese sovereignty; the invasion of China by Japan in the second world war and Japan’s subsequent refusal to acknowledge the extent of its war crimes; territorial disputes surrounding the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands and associated fishing rights and energy resources; and Japanese-American security co-operation.
Japan's Abe condemns China radar-lock as ‘provocative’
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The radar-lock that a Chinese frigate put on a Japanese warship was “dangerous” and “provocative”, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Wednesday, as tensions in a territorial row ratcheted up.
“It was a dangerous act that could have led to an unpredictable situation,” Abe told parliament. “It is extremely regrettable. We strongly ask for their self-restraint in order to avoid an unnecessary escalation.”
The hawkish prime minister, who took office late December following a landslide win in elections, described the radar-locking as “unilateral provocative action by the Chinese side”.
Abe’s comments come a day after Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera announced weapon-targeting radar had been directed at the Japanese vessel in international waters of the East China Sea last week.
The move marks the first time the two nations’ navies have locked horns in a dispute that has some commentators warning about a possible armed conflict.
US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Washington was “concerned” over the incident.
“With regard to the reports of this particular lock-on incident, actions such as this escalate tensions and increase the risk of an incident or a miscalculation, and they could undermine peace, stability and economic growth in this vital region,” she said.
Onodera said a Japanese military helicopter was also locked with a similar radar on January 19.
Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told a news conference that Tokyo lodged a protest against Beijing over the radar-locking on Tuesday and asked for an explanation, but was yet to receive any reply.
Radar is used to precisely determine a target’s distance, direction, speed and altitude. Weapon systems linked to the radar can be fired immediately, Japan’s government said.
The move is a ratcheting-up of an already tense situation in the East China Sea, where Asia’s two largest economies are at loggerheads over the sovereignty of an uninhabited island chain.
On Tuesday Tokyo summoned China’s envoy in protest at the presence a day earlier of Chinese government – but not military – ships in the waters around the Tokyo-controlled Senkakus, which Beijing claims as the Diaoyus.
Beijing has repeatedly sent ships to the area since Japan nationalised some islands in the chain in September. The move triggered a diplomatic dispute and huge anti-Japan demonstrations across China.
Beijing has also sent air patrols to the archipelago and recently both Beijing and Tokyo have scrambled fighter jets, though there have been no clashes.
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2:53am
If I were on the Standing Committee, I would steer carefully.
China is in territorial disputes with almost all its immediate neighbors. It has come to blows or actually invaded several of them over the past 50 years.
All those neighbors are well aware that the PLA is more than merely the "armed forces under control of the Party" because the Party has needed to rely in one way or another on the PLA, repeatedly, since Cultural Revolution in order to maintain power. Political IOU's about how China would be governed were written in return for that help.
These neighbors are already nervous about the PLA arms buildup. They feel that the PLA leadership and the officer corps reporting into it are a bit linear, collectively ignorant of the outside world, solely focused on China and, to put it graciously, "feeling their oats." Put less graciously: They have more balls than brains.
If this disagreement over a few islands is pushed into a hot military incident, everyone but the Chinese will conclude the obvious -- that the Standing Committee of the Politburo cannot control the PLA when hotshots in the PLA want to test their new toys.
If and when those conclusions are drawn, the political weather pattern surrounding China will become far frostier. Japanese troops were forced home in 1946.
WHAT is the PLA thinking?
