Japan wasn’t blameless in the recent spat. But Beijing must understand that great powers sometimes need to show restraint.
The measure of a great power is not how it flexes its muscles, but how it refrains from doing so. But if that’s the standard by which we judge China’s handling of its recent confrontation with Japan over the detention of the captain of a Chinese fishing trawler in waters around the disputed Diaoyu/Shenkaku Islands, Beijing has clearly failed the test.
Instead of demonstrating its restraint and patience, the Chinese government needlessly escalated tensions. Even though it succeeded in forcing Tokyo to back down and release the detained captain, China gravely damaged its ties with Japan and sullied its image as a responsible great power.
To be sure, Japan wasn’t blameless (despite the portrayal of Japan as a victim in this diplomatic brawl by a sympathetic Western media). Indeed, Tokyo’s decision to detain and charge the captain was ill-considered and set off the confrontation with Beijing in the first place. Considering the hyper-sensitivity routinely displayed by Beijing on issues of sovereignty and territorial disputes, Japan’s best course of action after its patrol boats intercepted the Chinese trawler would have been quick expulsion—of everybody. (Although that said, in light of their penchant for blunders of all kinds, Japanese leaders perhaps deserve some slack).
However, Beijing’s reaction to Tokyo’s misstep was totally disproportionate: it cut off official exchanges at the ministerial level, disinvited Japanese young people to the Shanghai Expo and imposed an effective ban on the shipments of critical rare earth materials to Japan. The Chinese Premier also directly called on Japan to release the captain ‘immediately’ and refused to meet Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan at the United Nations in New York. Thus, instead of pursuing a quiet diplomatic route to seek the release of the captain, the Chinese government raised the stakes to a level that ensured an outcome that would make Japan lose face and Beijing look like a bully.
With the world anxiously watching what kind of great power China is going to be, Beijing needs to reflect on its own mistakes and learn valuable lessons that could help it reassure its jittery neighbors and avoid making similar costly mistakes in the future.
Photo Credit: World Economic Forum
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Agitated Man in Asia
@ Josie Nguyen
How is my logic “inconsistent”. I was making a points,
1. How is it outrageous for the Japanese to detain a Chinese fishing trawler captain and its crew if it feels that it purposely damaged two of its vessels and violated its territorial sovereignty, but okay for the Chinese to do so routinely to the Vietnamese in the Paracels, where they are at times even physically abused and robbed in detention, and this fails to spark the same type of outrage? Hypocrisy.
2. China routinely detains the Captain and crews of Vietnamese fishing trawlers in the Paracel Islands under the pretext that the islands are under Chinese administration and that Vietnamese fishermen, by entering the waters around the islands, violate Chinese territorial sovereignty and law. They would then therefore be subject to detention and questioning by PRC authorities. It’s reasonable, but no “outrage” about this Chinese detention of Vietnamese is voiced whatsoever, even though at times the Vietnamese are not treated well and are sometimes even physically abused. The Paracel Islands are and have been disputed between Vietnam and the PRC. The PRC militarily seized control over the Paracels in 1974, and has administered them ever since. Therefore, people must feel that because China administers the islands, that it is correct in applying Chinese laws to matters in relation to the Paracels.
On the other side of that:
Japan does not routinely detain the Captains or crews of Chinese fishing trawlers in the Senkaku, (and when they do they certainly don’t abuse them) but, in the latest spat decided to do so because of damage it feels was inflicted purposely on two of its vessels, and because it feels that the said trawler, by entering the waters around the islands, violated its territorial sovereignty, and could thus be subject to detentioning and questioning. This is also of course reasonable, but for some reason, outrage and protests abound. Therefore people must feel that even though Japan administers the islands, they are wrong in applying Japanese laws to matters in relation to the Senkaku.
I’m trying to highlight people’s inconsistency and hypocrisy in their views on the same situation is all.
Josie Nguyen said:
“When a territory is in dispute, both sides can lay claim to it and the determining factors as to who’s right and who’s wrong is a matter of political, military, and diplomatic maneuvers.”
Not always. In this case there is a such thing as right and wrong, not necessarily in the claim, but in the maneuvers applied. China went too far in its response to the matter and thus strengthened the resolve of other surrounding countries to unite to contain it. If the maneuvers applied by Japan against China were wrong, then shouldn’t the maneuvers applied by China against Vietnam also be wrong?
“There is NOT, none whatsoever, absolute truth in any teritorial disputes but there is only winning or losing.”
OK, if you mean that there is no absolute truth in either sides claim to a territory. But this is irrelevant, because the existence of territorial disputes would leave such a statement meaningless as it would erase the basis of all claims.
“A small country gets no right to be right simply because of its smaller size, and a big country can not be deemed wrong simply because of its larger size.”
Okay too, but i noticed that you failed to mention that a big country gets no right to be right simply because of its larger size, and a small country can not be deemed wrong simply because of its smaller size. In other words it goes both ways, which would make this point irrelevant, especially because as you said before “the determining factors as to who’s right and who’s wrong is a matter of political, military, and diplomatic maneuvers.”
“China has every right to do what they did, and Vietnam and Japan can do the same to China if the time and circumstances are right.”
True, but how then is Japan in this situation wrong in relation to China, but China in relation to Vietnam is not, when the basic pretexts are pretty much the same? Not to mention the shabby treatment that the Chinese afford the Vietnamese in detention. The main thing I would have against the Chinese in the case of their detention of Vietnamese fishermen is their treatment of them.
How does China continue to get a free ride?
Ly Tran Le
Very well put, Agitated Man in Asia.
China deserved its own medicine given by the Japanese navy in their recent spat. China did the samething to Vietnam and the Vietnamese government, due to their communist affiliation, responded very weakly to China which, in return gave China more reasons to think that it could do whatever it wanted.
Wangchuk
Many Asian nations, like Japan, are slowly realizing that a rising China isn’t necessarily good for Asia. China wants a peaceful rise but it is becoming more aggressive in its foreign policy, particulary in Asia & when dealing with smaller countries. For all its complaints about Western interference in China’s internal affairs, the Chinese Govt does interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, esp. in Asia. China uses its political & economic influence to prevent citizens in other Asian nations from supporting the Dalai Lama or freedom for Tibet, Taiwan, and the Uighurs. When it was reported the Nobel Committee might award the Nobel Peace Prize to a Chinese dissident, Liu Xiabao, the CCP warned the Nobel Committee & Norwary & threatened unspecific reprisals. This is how China tries to bully other countries into accepting China’s policies. As the Chinese Got gets richer (its people are still poor) it will flex its muscles more & eventually will use its economic might to get whatever it wants, esp. in Asia. Meanwhile the PLA continues to grow & improve its capabilities & one day may be used on other Asian nations who refuse to comply with China’s demands.
John Chan
Another artisan in the classic tactic used by the neo-cons to undermine victims, such as Murderer calling help for attacks by the dead victim, or bandit accuses victim mugging him. When China prevents itself from being demonized by the current international framework like Nobel Prize Committee, it becomes an international bully. When China stops Dalai Lama, an CIA and MI6 paid agent, from breaking up China, it becomes a bad guy interfering internal affairs of Asian nations. When China stands up against aggression on its territory by the Japanese militarism, it becomes a Govt flexing economic muscles. WangChuk brings on the worst you can do to China, China will not change its course to rise peacefully because of your smear campaigns to undermine its effort.
Ian
Dalai lama, a paid CIA and MI6 agent!? Don’t know which movie you’d watched, but don’t believe in them John. They are just movies..
China invaded Tibet, a religious, peaceful and harmless country and now you are saying that Dalai Lama is trying to break China??
If you are just joking, it was quite funny though…
Tian
Ian,
You also might want to stop watching re-runs of “7 years in Tibet”.
Tibet was not peaceful at all.
It was a brutal theocratic regime, ruling an under-developed serfdom.
I’ll do you one better and recommend you a book
http://www.amazon.com/Snow-Lion-Dragon-China-Tibet/dp/0520219511/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1286855364&sr=8-1
John Chan
Ian, it is well documented facts. Whether Dalai Lama was tricked, forced or willingly to escape is still in debate. Even nowadays the whole Tibet movement is financed by the foundations that are proxies of the CIA and the Western governments. You can get those information from CIA archive. Ian, go and dig it out yourself, so you won’t blame me pulling wool over your eyes.
megakids
“Tibet – a religious, peaceful and harmless country”….maybe you read too many issues of national geographic and with no history foundation. Go find out more from good university libraries the real Tibetan situation. Slaves who lived under the Dalai Lamai type.
tao
Statements of a career extremist or volunteer…? Dalai Lama an intelligence agent..how hilarious.
Nick
John Chan. Your defence of China’s behaviour in international affairs, though aggressive and patriotic, is basically wrong and misguided.
Yes, China was demonised by the Nobel Prize Committee, but only because it had acted as the “demon”. Its punishment of Liu Xiaobo for asking for democratic reform was a blatant and oppressive action taken to strengthen the power of the central government and weaken the cause of freedom and democracy in the world, a cause strongly supported by the Nobel Prize Committee. And when China threatens to cut diplomatic ties with the Norwegian government as a result, not only does it become an international bully, but it shows the immaturity of the central government in dealing with opposition.
Furthermore, the Dalai Lama has never desired to split up the territory of China, but rather campaigned for the liberation of a foreign country occupied by China. China accuses western nations of interfering with its internal affairs because it considers Tibet its rightful territory, but Hitler could have used the same argument against the USA freeing France, which under German occupation could be considered part of Germany, and anything to do with it an “internal affair of Germany”. This is the situation of Tibet. Do not tell me that Tibet is rightfully China’s. World maps from 1914 show Tibet as an independent nation, and the British Museum has Tibetan visas and passport from this period to prove it.
Japan too, cannot be accused of having acted aggressively since the end of World War 2. Senkaku (Diaoyu) has been administered by Japan since the end of World War 2, and when a Chinese ship caused damage to Japanese patrol boats in the region, Japan acted according to its law, because it administers the islands. Only now that China feels stronger did it decide to react.
Chacha
It is sad that China is trailing what the West has trailed. Worse is, it is bullying the nations that the West had bullied in the past.
This is why even ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia(local born) distrust the mainlanders very much.
China not invading? It is claiming 80% of the South China sea! It is expanding its maritime claims to the violation of the sovereignty of it southern neighbors.e claims that China drew will enable China to have ALL the maritime trade between maritime and mainland Southeast Asia! Alarmingly, Prior to China’s aggression, the dispute in the South China sea was more or less diplomatic. Enter Chinese aggression, it worsened a lot– to the point that Southeast Asian countries are uniting and subtly trying to coax non-Asian countries to come in as an arbiter.