Author: Taylor Fravel

Xi Jinping and the PLA

In recent weeks, Western media has characterized Xi Jinping as a more assertive and forceful leader of China’s armed forces, including the People’s Liberation Army and People’s Armed Police. The Wall Street Journal, for example, described Xi as “as a strong military leader at home and embracing a more hawkish worldview.” Similarly, the New York Times described Xi “as a champion of the military, using the armed forces to cement his political authority and present a tough stance in growing territorial disputes with American allies in the Pacific region.”

Such characterizations, however, may be misplaced – or at least incomplete. Since becoming Chairman of the CCP’s Central Military Commission at the 18th Party Congress four months ago, the policies adopted under Xi reflect far more continuity with those of past leaders than is commonly perceived.

One general indicator of the relative priority of the military for China’s leaders is spending on defense. Although China’s official defense budget does not include all defense-related spending, there’s no evidence yet that Xi has been more inclined to favor the military. At the most recent National People’s Congress, China’s official defense budget was slated to increase by 10.7 percent in 2013. Although budget preparations likely started before Xi became CMC chair, the figure nevertheless helps to assess whether Xi has been exerting any special influence. Under Hu Jintao’s chairmanship of the CMC (2004-2012), China’s defense budget, on average, increased 15 percent per year. When Jiang Zemin was CMC chair (1989-2004), it increased more than 16 percent per year on average. Under both leaders, China’s defense budget as a share of the government budget has been declining steadily, indicating that the military was not being favored over other government spending areas.

Instead, if anything, the 2013 defense budget reflects continuity in China’s defense policies. The percentage increase for the 2013 defense budget roughly equals the rate of GDP growth plus inflation for 2012, and is slightly lower than the rates of growth in 2011 and 2012 (reflecting the slight downturn in China’s GDP). The growth of the defense budget is consistent with Beijing’s official policy “that defense development should be both subordinated to and in the service of the country’s overall economic development, and that the former should be coordinated with the latter.” Thus, the military budget, roughly in line with the growth of China’s GDP and inflation, has not diverted massive funding away from important civilian projects necessary for maintaining economic development.

Xi’s statements on military affairs have attracted a great deal of attention. In the post-Deng era, all new leaders have moved early to distinguish their command over China’s armed forces from their predecessors. The easiest way to do so is by articulating new formulations (tifa) for what are often the same or very similar general policies. Previously, for example, in December 1990, Jiang Zemin announced his “Five Sentences” that the PLA should be “politically qualified, militarily competent, have a good work style, strict discipline and adequate logistics support.” Likewise, shortly after becoming CMC chair in 2004, Hu Jintao called on the PLA to fulfill its “historic missions in the new phase of the new century.” Although the historic missions called on the PLA to develop the capability to carry out non-combat operations such as peacekeeping and disaster relief, they were premised on “strengthening the ability to win local wars under modern conditions as the core.” Now after becoming CMC chair, Xi has used a new formulation of building a “strong army” (and PAP) that “obeys the party’s commands, is capable of winning wars, and has a good work style.”

Despite the different formulations each leader has used, the content and general policies have remained the same. Both Jiang and Xi have stressed “having a good work style,” basically a call for the PLA to be a model for society, particularly in the fight against graft and corruption. Unsurprisingly, Jiang, Hu and Xi all emphasized the leading role of the party over the armed forces. And although the specific words are different, Xi’s requirement that the PLA be able “to fight and win” reflects a long-standing policy to enhance China’s military preparedness, especially in the context of changes in the conduct of warfighting since the Gulf War. In the past, this goal has usually been described as strengthening “preparations for military struggle” (junshi douzheng junbei). The PLA itself underscored the continuity with the past in a February 2013 article published by the General Staff Department in the authoritative party journalQiushi. According to the article, “To be able to fight and win battles is also the fundamental starting and ending point of preparations for military struggle.” As a result, this directive basically is a call to improve the PLA’s operational readiness – it is not an indication of impending operations that will be executed.

Xi Jinping’s leadership has also been linked with a more assertive posture in China’s disputes with other states, especially the maritime sphere. China’s maritime assertiveness, however, started long before Xi took office. In the South China Sea, it can be traced back to 2007 and 2008, when China began to oppose the investments of foreign oil companies in Vietnamese blocks. In 2011, China Marine Surveillance vessels harassed Vietnamese and Philippine seismic survey vessels while in early April 2012, China responded forcefully to a stand-off with the Philippines over Scarborough Shoal.

In the East China Sea, China’s assertiveness started at around the same time. In 2008, a China Marine Surveillance vessel for the first time entered the 12 nautical mile territorial waters around the islands. In September 2010, China reacted harshly to the arrest of a Chinese fishing captain who had entered the territorial waters around the islands and then collided with a Japanese Coast Guard vessel. Between September 2010 and the purchase of three of the islands by the Japanese government in 2012, Chinese government ships entered the territorial waters around the islands almost once a month. Although Xi is rumored to have played a role in China’s response to the purchase of the islands in September 2012, China’s response reflected a continuation of policies adopted under Hu Jintao.

What does this all mean?

On the one hand, like past top leaders in the post-Deng era, Xi is seeking to build a strong relationship with China’s armed forces, which is key to cementing his status as both CMC chair and CCP general secretary. He’s moved more quickly than either Jiang or Hu because he has been able to assume the CMC chairmanship without a senior party figure looking over his shoulder. Jiang became CMC chair while Deng was still very active in Chinese politics, while Hu had to two wait two years before Jiang relinquished that post. Ironically, the relatively smooth transition has enabled Xi to move more quickly in consolidating his position as commander-in-chief.

On the other hand, China’s basic approach to military modernization remains unchanged. It is premised on ensuring the loyalty of the military to the party and not the state. The long-term goal is to recapitalize China’s armed forces to achieve mechanization and partial informatization by 2020 – a goal set by Jiang Zemin in the late 1990s – and to complete its military modernization by mid-century, 2049. It is perhaps not a coincidence that Xi has set 2049 for the fulfillment of the “China dream.” Xi is the new leader of China’s armed forces, but he is not yet pursuing new policies.

[This piece originally appeared in The Diplomat and was co-authored with Dennis Blasko.]

Nuclear Weapons in U.S.-China Relations

This past year, I joined a working group sponsored by the Project on Nuclear Initiatives at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. We were tasked with thinking about the role of nuclear weapons in U.S.-China relations in the coming two decades.

The working group’s report explored the challenges posed by China’s continued force modernization and offered several recommendations for maintaining stability in this area.

Part of the report draws on my earlier research with Evan S. Medeiros published in International Security.

Hainan’s New Maritime Regulations: An Update

On January 1, 2013, Hainan’s new maritime security regulations entered into force. Entitled Regulations for the Management of Coastal Border Security and Public Order in Hainan Province, they replaced those lastissued in 1999. When the new regulations were first announced in November they attracted a great deal of attention because they appeared to authorize broad powers to interfere with freedom of navigation throughout the South China Sea. At the time, however, the full-text of the regulations had not been published, making it difficult to discern the exact impact they would have on China’s territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea.

Now that the regulations have entered into force, the full-text has been released. Containing fifty-two articles divided into six sections, the new regulations are an expansion and elaboration of the 1999 version, which had forty articles. Despite the inclusion of new provisions not contained in earlier versions regarding the seizure of foreign vessels, the full-text of the 2012 regulations indicates a primary focus on the management of Chinese vessels and coastal areas. In fact, according to the Hainan government, the regulations were revised to address increased smuggling, theft and other types of illegal activities at sea. The complete text of the new regulations confirm my preliminary analysis; China is unlikely to significantly increase efforts to interfere with freedom of navigation, including expelling or seizing foreign vessels.

The bulk of the new regulations, roughly forty-two articles, address the activities of Chinese vessels from Hainan and the provinces coastal waters. Topics include the credentials and documents that Chinese vessels from Hainan must possess and the rules that they must follow in the province’s waters. For example, the regulations allow public security units to establish warning areas (jingjie quyu) and special management areas (tebie guanli quyu), and to prohibit Chinese vessels from entering these zones. The regulations also ban Chinese ships from entering the waters of foreign countries, from carrying foreign flags and from entering China’s military administrative districts (junshi guanli qu). The regulations outline ten types of prohibited actions that would disrupt public order from transporting weapons, selling drugs, smuggling and illegal entry and exit to the use of poisons and explosives, among others.

The activities of foreign vessels within Hainan’s coastal waters are discussed in two of the fifty-two articles. As outlined in previous Chinese news reports, one provision (Article 31) states that foreign vessels that enter the province’s waters should respect China’s national laws and refrain from any actions that would harm public order, such as illegally stopping within Hainan’s 12 nautical mile territorial waters or landing on the province’s islands and reefs, among others. The six actions that would provoke action by public security border defense units are the same as reported earlier.

A second provision (Article 47) states that public security border defense units can “legally board, inspect, detain; expel, and force the vessels to stop, change course, or reverse course” as well as “seize offending vessels or instruments such as navigation equipment.”

The new regulations refer specifically to Sansha City, a prefectural-level administrative unit that Hainan established in June 2012 to oversee all the disputed islands and waters that China claims in the South China Sea. Article Seven calls on public security border defense units to conduct security patrols in the islands, reefs and waters of the city and to support joint law enforcement efforts (lianhe zhifa) in the South China Sea.

Nevertheless, the scope of the new regulations will be limited. First, regarding the activities of foreign vessels, the regulations refer only to the province’s 12 nautical mile territorial waters (linghai). As a result, the zone where public security units might board or seize foreign vessels is limited to the area where coastal states enjoy more or less sovereign rights apart from innocent passage (that the new regulations do not challenge) under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Second, according to Article Five, the regulations apply only to public security border defense units (gong’an bianfang jiguan). The provision states that the “province’s public security border defense organs are responsible for this province’s coastal defense and public order management work.” The article further calls on other departments—including foreign affairs, maritime affairs and fisheries—to assist the public security units in their work, indicating that the regulations do not apply directly to these other actors. In other words, these regulations do not empower “other departments” that routinely operate within China’s claimed 200 nautical miles Exclusive Economic Zone to seize or detain foreign vessels.

Third, despite the reference to the islands and reefs of Sansha City, the regulations will be implemented mostly in the waters around Hainan Island itself and the Paracel Islands, not other disputed areas in the South China Sea. Wu Shicun, the director of Hainan’s foreign affairs office (and president of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies), noted in December that the regulations would only apply to those areas of Hainan where China had drawn baselines, from which a 12 nautical mile territorial waters would be delineated. In 1996, China announced baselines around the Paracels as well as Hainan Island, but not other land features that it claims in the South China Sea, including Scarborough Shoal and the Spratly Islands.

[This originally appeared in The Diplomat.]

Hainan’s New Maritime Regulations: A Preliminary Analysis

Hainan’s People’s Congress recently approved new regulations for the management of public order for coastal and border defense. Part of the regulations authorizes public security units to inspect, detain or expel foreign ships illegally entering waters under Hainan’s jurisdiction. As a result,initial reporting and analysis indicated that the regulations may provide a basis for China to challenge freedom of navigation in the vast disputed waters of the South China Sea.

As the full-text of the regulations have not been published, such conclusions are, at the very least, premature. Moreover, based on information that is currently available, the regulations will likely focus on the activities of foreign ships and personnel within Hainan’s 12 nautical mile territorial seas and along Hainan’s coast, including its islands. The basis for this conclusion is analysis of a partial summary of the regulations that Xinhua published.

The regulations govern the activities of Hainan’s public security border defense units (gong’an bianfang jiguan). This refers to China’s public security border defense troops, which are part of the People’s Armed Police but fall under the Ministry of Public Security and include the Maritime Police (haijing, also referred to as China’s Coast Guard). These public security units are tasked with maintaining public order in China’s border and coastal areas, including port security and immigration. However, they are not responsible for maintaining law and order within China’s Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) or any maritime zone beyond the 12 nautical mile territorial sea. The China Marine Surveillance force under the State Oceanic Administration holds the primary responsibility for these duties along with the Maritime Safety Administration and Fisheries Law Enforcement Command.

The details of the Hainan regulations indicate that the conditions under which public security border defense units are authorized to engage foreign vessels is limited. Here’s the key paragraph from Xinhua:

《条例》对外国船舶及其人员，进入海南管辖海域不得有违反沿海边防治安管理的行为进行了界定，包括：通过海南管辖领海海域时非法停船或者下锚，寻衅滋事；未经查验准许擅自出境入境或者未经批准擅自改变出境入境口岸；非法登上海南管辖岛屿；破坏海南管辖岛屿上的海防设施或者生产生活设施；实施侵犯国家主权或者危害国家安全的宣传活动和其他法律、法规规定违反沿海边防治安管理的行为。

The paragraph defines six actions that could warrant boarding or other interference with foreign vessels: 1) vessels that stop or anchor within the 12 nautical mile territorial sea (linghai) or “try to pick a quarrel,” 2) vessels that enter ports without approval or inspection, 3) the illegal landing on islands under the administration of Hainan, 4) the destruction of coastal defenses or production facilities on islands under the administration of Hainan, 5) violations of national sovereignty or propaganda activities that threaten national security, and 6) other actions that threaten the management of public order in coastal and border areas.

The only maritime zone mentioned specifically in the regulations is China’s 12 nautical mile territorial sea, where it enjoys more or less the equivalent of sovereign powers under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. There is no specific reference to boarding foreign vessels in other zones such as the EEZ, though apparent language from the preamble refers broadly to “waters under Hainan’s administration” that could include areas in the South China Sea beyond 12 nautical miles. Nevertheless, the actions outlined above are all concern with Chinese territory or territorial waters – not the much larger maritime areas that press accounts have suggested. This is, moreover, consistent with the duties of the China’s public security border defense units that are the subject of the regulations.

The impact on disputed areas in the South China Sea is likely to be minimal in the short to medium-term. In the regulations, the reference to the islands under Hainan’s administration indicates that they could be used to justify or rationalize the interference with the navigation of foreign vessels in territorial waters around islands and other features that China either occupies or claims in the South China Sea. However,the Chinese navy and not public security border forces are responsible for the defense of the islands that China holds. Whether public security units are granted a greater role in disputed areas is a key indicator to track.

In addition, Hainan is not the only Chinese province to pass new regulations governing public order in coastal and border areas. Within the past week, Zhejiang and Hebei have also passed similar regulations. Importantly, Hebei is not adjacent to any disputed maritime areas. This suggests a broader effort among coastal provinces to strengthen the management of public order in border and coastal areas and not a specific focus on disputed areas, though the regulations are relevant as discussed above.

In sum, although the regulations establish a legal basis for Hainan’s public security border defense units to board or seize foreign vessels on or near disputed islands, they are unlikely to result in a major change in China’s behavior in the disputed waters of the South China Sea. Policing China’s EEZ is the responsibility of the China Marine Surveillance and the Fisheries Law Enforcement Command, not public security units. Nevertheless, given the applicability to disputed islands and adjacent territorial waters, China should clarify when and where these regulations apply.

[This originally appeared in The Diplomat.]

Chinese Foreign Policy Under Xi Jinping

Following the conclusion of the , a new , the top leadership body of the Chinese Communist Party, has been named. has revolved around whether or how China’s new leaders will pursue much-needed economic and political reforms. An equally important question concerns the future direction of Chinese foreign policy under Xi Jinping.

To repeat Zhou Enlai’s assessment of social upheaval in France in 1968, it is “.” Very little – if anything – from the backgrounds of these individuals can illuminate whether China will adopt a new approach to foreign relations in the coming five or ten years.

An assessment of China’s foreign policy under Xi is “too early” for several other reasons. Although general secretary of the party, Xi Jinping will not become head of state, or president, until the National People’s Congress in March 2013.

In addition, who will hold key positions in China’s foreign policy system (waijiao xitong) remains unknown. The most important vacancy to be filled is the director of the Central Foreign Affairs Office (zhongyang waishi bangongshi). The post is currently held by , who is China’s highest-ranking official in foreign policy after the party’s general secretary. The CFAO coordinates policy within the party-state bureaucracy, always a challenge, and provides research and advice on foreign affairs to China’s top leaders. Other key posts to watch are the , the head of the and the head of the CCP’s .

Finally, Xi and the new Politburo Standing Committee may not launch new initiatives of their own for perhaps one or two years – once key positions are filled, working relationships are formed among the new leaders, and power is consolidated.

In this context, the best clues to Chinese foreign policy under Xi Jinping may be found in the lengthy that outgoing general secretary Hu Jintao delivered at the opening of the party congress. Despite being laden with socialist slogans and Chinese political jargon, the report both sums up what the party believes has been achieved since the last congress and outlines principles to guide the party’s work until the next congress. Consistent with past practice, Xi Jinping as incoming general secretary of this year’s report.

The report has a mixed-message on foreign policy issues. On the one hand, the report underscores that China will continue to press ahead with policies that have raised anxiety and concern in East Asia. In the section on “,” Hu Jintao called for China to become a “maritime power.” In particular, Hu said that the party “should enhance our capacity for exploiting marine resources, develop the marine economy, protect the marine ecological environment, resolutely safeguard China’s maritime rights and interests, and build China into a maritime power.” In other words, expect greater Chinese activity in maritime Asia, including increased fishing and perhaps hydrocarbon exploration in disputed waters and a growing presence of the civil maritime law enforcement agencies, including the China Marine Surveillance force, the Fisheries Law Enforcement Command and the Maritime Safety Agency.

The section on indicated that the comprehensive modernization of China’s armed forces will continue. In this regard, the report called for developing a military “commensurate with China’s international standing” to address “interwoven problems affecting its survival and development security as well as traditional and non-traditional security threats.”

On the other hand, the of the report contained a glimmer of potential “new thinking” that might feature more prominently in the next few years. In particular, the report outlined how China will endeavor “to establish a new type of relations of long-term stability and sound growth with other major countries.”

The phrase “new type of relations” (xinxing daguo guanxi) echoed language that appeared for the first time in Hu Jintao’s at 4^th U.S.-China in May 2012 (which was swamped by attention to the Cheng Guangchen case.) The core of the concept is a recognition of the security dilemma and the need to avoid conflict typically associated with power transitions in world politics. Although it remains a , the inclusion of this new phrase in the work report of the congress indicates the priority that has been attached to developing it. Given the clear implications of conflict between the U.S. and China for the region, this aspect of the report is noteworthy and encouraging.

Finally, the work report underscores the dominance of the most important factor in China’s foreign policy: domestic politics. Only about 10 percent of the report addressed externally-related issues (i.e, defense policy, Taiwan and foreign policy). The remainder emphasized the economic and social challenges that the party must confront – roughly matching perhaps the amount of time that China’s top leaders spend on foreign affairs. In this sense, Chinese foreign policy under Xi Jinping is likely to remain inherently reactive and not proactive.

[The originally appeared in .]

Sinica podcast

During a recent trip to Beijing, I met up with Kaiser Kuo, one of the hosts of the outstanding Sinica podcast.

We discussed recent developments in China’s maritime disputes in the East and South China Seas, as well as the state of the Chinese navy.

You can listen to the podcast here. I had so much fun there’s a bit of popping on the line after the first 5 minutes….

Even if you’re not interested in maritime affairs, the Sinica podcast is a “must listen” show for anyone interested in contemporary China.

Redefining the Status Quo

The most striking feature of China’s behavior in its maritime disputes this year has been efforts to redefine the status quo. In its disputes with the Philippines and Japan, China has used the presence of its civilian maritime law enforcement agencies to create new facts on the water to strengthen China’s sovereignty claims.

Before April 2012, neither China nor the Philippines maintained a permanent presence at Scarborough Shoal. Fishermen from the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan and China operated in and around the large reef. At times in the past, especially in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Philippine navy had arrested Chinese fishermen who were inside the shoal. Since then, Chinese patrols have sailed by the shoal, but no effort has been undertaken to exercise effective control over the shoal or its surrounding waters.

The situation changed following the standoff over sovereignty of Scarborough Shoal. The standoff began in April 2012 when the Philippine navy prepared to arrest Chinese fishermen who were operating in the shoal’s lagoon. After receiving a distress call, two China Marine Surveillance (CMS) vessels arrived on the scene, blocking the entrance to the lagoon and preventing the arrest of the Chinese fishermen. After the fishing boats left the shoal, however, government ships from both sides remained to defend claims to sovereignty over the shoal. By the end of May, China had deployed as many as seven CMS and Bureau of Fisheries Administration ships.

In early June, the Philippines announced that an agreement had been reached with China for a mutual withdrawal of ships. Although China never publicly confirmed the existence of such an agreement, ships from both sides left in mid June as a typhoon approached the area. Later, however, Chinese ships returned and appear have maintained a permanent presence in the waters around the shoal since then. In mid July 2012, for example, an intrepid news crew from Al Jazeera videotaped an attempt to visit the shoal, only to be turned away by a combination of CMS and fisheries administration vessels. China has also roped off the sole entrance to the lagoon inside the shoal to control access to it.

Before the standoff, China had no permanent presence at Scarborough Shoal. Three months later, China had effective control of the shoal and the surrounding waters, thereby altering the status quo in this dispute in its favor. As an editorial in the Global Times noted, China has “directly consolidated control” of the shoal.

A similar dynamic is underway in the East China Sea over the Senkaku / Diaoyu Islands. Before the Japanese government’s purchase of three of the islets from a private citizen in September 2012, Chinese government ships had generally avoided entering the 12 nautical mile limit of Japan’s territorial waters around the islands. As I wrote several years ago, China and Japan appeared to have a tacit agreement from the mid-2000s to limit the presence of ships and citizens near the islands in an effort to manage the potential for escalation.

In September 2010, the detention of a Chinese fishing captain whose boat had broached the 12 nautical mile limit and then rammed a Japanese Coast Guard ship sparked a crisis in China-Japan relations. Part of China’s response included increasing the number of patrols by marine surveillance and fisheries vessels near the islands. Most of the time, these boats remained beyond Japan’s 12 nautical mile territorial waters around the Senkakus or crossed this line only briefly. China in practical terms continued to accept Japanese de facto control of the islands and their associated territorial waters (over which a state enjoys sovereignty rights under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea).

After the purchase of the islands last month, however, China has abandoned this approach. China firstissued baselines to claim its own territorial waters around the islands and then began to conduct almost daily patrols within its newly-claimed waters – directly challenging the Japanese control that it had largely accepted before. The purpose of the patrols is two-fold: to demonstrate that the purchase of the islands will not affect China’s sovereignty claims and to challenge Japan’s position that there is no dispute over the sovereignty of the islands.

Although China does not control the waters around the Senkakus (unlike the situation at Scarborough), it no longer accepts de facto Japanese control. On October 31, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesmanasserted that a new status quo had been created. After describing China’s new patrols as “routine,” Hong Lai stated that “the Japanese side should face squarely the reality that a fundamental change has already occurred in the Diaoyu Islands.”

In both cases, China responded to challenges to its claims with an enhanced physical presence to bolster China’s position and deter any further challenges. These responses suggest an even greater willingness to pursue unilateral actions to advance its claims. In neither case is a return to the status quo ante likely.

[This originally appeared in The Diplomat.]

The Dangerous Math of Chinese Island Disputes

Today, I published a piece in the Asian Wall Street Journal on the current standoff between China and Japan over the Senkaku Islands.

Reviewing China’s behavior in its past territorial disputes, I argue that the danger of escalation is much greater than is commonly believed.

The piece can be viewed here. You can also email me for an off-print.

PS — The origin title was “Danger in the East China Sea.”

Doubling Down in the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands?

High-ranking diplomats from China and Japan met in Shanghai recently to hold consultations over the Senkaku / Diaoyu Islands. Zhang Zhijun, vice minister of foreign affairs, met with his counterpart, Chikao Kawai. Details of the talks were not disclosed, but the continuation of consultations that started in September is important if the two sides seek to maintain stability in the East China Sea.

Just before the talks, however, both sides hardened their stances. A diplomatic solution to the current standoff appears to be fading fast.

On October 19, China held a widely-publicized one-day maritime exercise involving naval and government vessels. Dubbed “East Sea Coordination–2012,” the exercise simulated how China would respond to a collision between its government ships and “foreign law enforcement vessels” in which Chinese boats were damaged and personnel injured. Vessels participating in the exercise came from the regional bureaus of the China Marine Surveillance force and the Bureau of Fisheries Administration. In the exercises, naval ships provided protection and medical aid while government ships practiced search and rescue operations. Photos and videos of the exercises, which occurred off the coast of Zhoushan Island in Zhejiang Province, circulated widely through the Chinese media.

In the context of the Senkakus standoff, the purpose of the exercise was two-fold. First, the exercise signaled to Japan China’s resolve to defend its “territorial sovereignty and maritime interests” with its diverse maritime assets. Second, the scenario of a hypothetical collision of government vessels invoked the current situation around the disputed islands. The message is clear: any incident involving a Chinese government ship could result in the use of naval forces and thus the escalation of the dispute.

At the same time, Japan has been seeking to build international support. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) posted on its website a pamphlet underscoring two aspects of Japan’s position. First, the pamphlet countered China’s claims that the 1943 Cairo and 1945 Potsdam declarations dictated the disposition of Japanese territory after World War II. It also underscored that the islands were incorporated into Okinawa in January 1895, before the Treaty of Shimonoseki, and thus not part of Taiwan and territories that Japan was required to relinquish after the war.

Second, the MOFA pamphlet challenged the notion that top Chinese and Japanese leaders had discussed the presence of a dispute over the Senkakus in the 1970s. According to the pamphlet, “in the course of negotiations with China, Japan never recognized the existence of an issue to be solved on the territorial sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands.” The pamphlet then provides excerpts from conversations between Zhou and Tanaka in 1972 and Deng and Fukuda in 1978. Interestingly, the excerpts are shorter than those found in Chinese sources (here and here). For example, the Japanese account of the Zhou-Tanaka talks omits Tanaka’s response to Zhou that the question of the Senkakus could be discussed after the normalization of relations. As a result, Japan appears to be eliminating the option of using some acknowledgment of these past discussions as the basis of a diplomatic solution to the current standoff.

In sum, the two sides are talking. Nevertheless, they are also hardening their positions. As a result, a diplomatic breakthrough may be increasingly difficult to achieve in the short-term. The dispute is poised to become a long-term thorn in the side of China-Japan relations.

[This original appeared in The Diplomat.]

Easing China-Japan Island Tensions

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently announced that Luo Zhaohui, Director-General of the Department of Asian Affairs, had made an unpublicized visit to Japan. The purpose of his trip was to prepare for the next round of talks over the Senkaku / Diaoyu Islands at the vice ministerial level, similar to those heldin late September.

Overall, this is good news – talking is better than unilateral actions that might spiral out of control. As I andothers have suggested recently, China and Japan in these talks could revisit past discussions of the islands in the 1970s. A formula might be crafted that would allow both sides to disengage from their irreconcilable positions. China could claim that a “common understanding” with Japan had been re-affirmed. Japan could maintain that the islands had been discussed in the past even though it believes that there is no dispute. Quietly, China and Japan could also agree to refrain from unilateral actions in the waters around the islands.

What can else can Japan and China discuss that might help to enhance stability in the East China Sea? Several options exist, even though some are less realistic than others. Nevertheless, all options should be explored.

First, and more practically, Tokyo and Beijing could agree to start talks on how to share the resources in the waters around the islands, starting with fisheries. Such an agreement would be the first step toward reducing the salience of sovereignty over the islands. Moreover, it could be premised on an understanding that it would not affect each side’s claims to sovereignty. Nevertheless, a resource-sharing agreement would allow for a modicum of trust to be built. And it would remove one potential flashpoint that could create a real crisis – a clash involving fishermen.

Furthermore, China and Japan have already demonstrated their capacity to reach this kind of a functional agreement. They singed a bilateral fishing accord in 1997 (though it excluded the waters near the Senkakus), which can be updated and expanded. In June 2008, the two sides concluded a “principled consensus” on natural gas exploration in the East China Sea. The agreement noted explicitly they would conduct joint activities “without prejudicing their respective legal positions.” In other words, economic cooperation would not weaken each other’s sovereignty or maritime boundary claims.

Second, Beijing and Tokyo could accelerate talks on establishing a high-level maritime consultative mechanism. The first round of such talks was held in May 2012 and included representatives from the relevant agencies on both sides – foreign affairs, defense, and maritime law enforcement. These talks could be integrated with an effort between the two militaries to enhance maritime communications, which so far has held two meetings at the working group level in 2008 and 2010. They could also create hotlines and other risk management procedures between the Chinese and Japanese navies as well as relevant government agencies, such as the China Marine Surveillance force and the Japanese Coast Guard.

Finally, China and Japan could explore submitting this case to the International Court of Justice. On its face, this is least likely. Nevertheless, it merits consideration. Japan need not abandon its position that there is no dispute. China could seek to demonstrate the strength of its claims. Moreover, it would take time – years – for the court to issue its ruling, creating a “cooling off” period. When a ruling was reached, it would provide political cover accepting the final judgment. Alternatively, they could simply announce their intention to submit the dispute to the court at an unspecified date in the future.

I’ve avoided assessing the plausibility that any of these agreements can be reached. Success requires diplomatic skill and political will, which both sides appear to lack at this time. Nevertheless, talking remains better than the alternative.

[This originally appeared in The Diplomat.]