Hegemonic Warfare Watch: Fun Fun Fun over the Senkakus

A lonely road somewhere in Chiayi.

A piece in The Diplomat observes that China's bogus ADIZ over the East China Sea was used to turn back a Lao Airlines flight...

A little-noticed report published earlier this week in Air Transport World showcases one such case. Although considerably ambiguity continues to surround this incident, according to that report, a Lao Airlines flight flying from South Korea’s Gimehae International Airport to Laos was asked to turn back by Chinese air traffic controllers and complied. The report notes that the Chinese air traffic controllers told the aircraft that it did not have adequate approval to pass through China’s airspace. According to the report, the flight (No. QV916), an Airbus A320, was an hour into its scheduled flight path, “which would have put the aircraft over disputed areas of the China Sea,” before it turned back. Starting last year, Chinese air traffic authorities began to require that all civilian flights flying through the East China Sea ADIZ file pre-flight plans, transponder details, and other technical details ahead of their flights, according to the Air Transport World report. The incident involving QV916 is the first instance of a commercial flight being turned back due to a failure to comply with Chinese air traffic authority requirements, but at least 55 airlines worldwide are complying with the terms of China’s ADIZ.

Laos is very tight with China economically, so they didn't complain. I had been wondering if Beijing had arranged with Laos to do this to increase the legitimacy of their ADIZ, but that's because I am paranoid.

Over at Thinking-Taiwan, J Michael Cole observed that the KMT was far more interested in the ROC claim to the Senkakus than the public at large:

Perhaps even more importantly, though far less acknowledged, is the fact that unlike Chinese and Japanese nationalists, most Taiwanese couldn’t care less about the islets. Segments of the Taiwanese public paid attention when the dispute with Japan prevented Taiwanese fishermen from making a living, but the fisheries agreementsigned in April 2013 by Taipei and Tokyo, after 16 long years of stalled efforts, resolved that matter. In other words, whatever interest most Taiwanese paid to the issue stemmed from practical rather than ideological considerations.

But this is not the picture you will get if you listen to the official rhetoric in Taipei or to members of President Ma’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), both of which emphasize Taiwan’s (or the Republic of China’s) sovereignty claims over the islets. A most recent example of this was the Presidential Office’s reaction to remarks made by former president Lee Teng-hui during a visit to Tokyo, in which he stated that, in his view, the Diaoyutai/Senkaku islets are part of Japanese territory. Although Mr. Lee had made similar comments in the past, this time around the response was much more indignant.

In a way, in the die-hard KMT mind, the ROC exists because it makes claims. In the Ma Administration's practical foreign policy, whose goal is to isolate Taiwan from its neighbors, the Senkakus are a useful issue for irritating relations with Japan.
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Japan Didn't Cave

Earlier this week The Diplomat ran a piece entitled "Japan Caves to China on the Senkaku Islands Dispute". Citing reports in the Japanese media, it opened:

In order to secure a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe agreed to a significant concession in Tokyo’s ongoing dispute with China over the Senkaku Islands, according to Japanese media outlets.

I'd been sitting on it for a couple of days because I just couldn't believe even the Japanese, who have been notoriously incompetent in presenting the historical reality of the Senkakus, could do something that dumb. Looked like the usual depressing move by diplomats facing Chinese intransigence to make a permanent concession for a temporary gain. But fortunately the Nelson Report, the DC insider report, did some digging and concluded:

Hummm...but upon reading, it develops this is just a rehash of the original Tokyo media speculation which our GOJ sources then, and again today, reject in every particular. 

So it never happened.
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JapanFocus, forwarding Chinese propaganda again...

Wetlands in Changhua.

The other day JapanFocus posted another in the seemingly endless examples of Lefties forwarding the claims, language, and ideology of imperialism and expansionism -- apparently, so long as it is non-western imperialism, it is ok. This is Lin Man-houng's awful Taiwan and the Ryukyus (Okinawa) in Asia-Pacific Multilateral Relations – a Long-term Historical Perspective on Territorial Claims and Conflicts (アジア太平洋地域の多国間関係における台湾と琉球諸島（沖縄）領土権主張や紛争を長期的視野でとらえる), a turd so vast that, properly composted, it could fertilize California for a year. Ordinarily I'd just give this laugher a nod on my way by, but it contains new propaganda points that allow me to pass along some useful links and discussion. Onward and downward...

Early on, Lin observes:

Both areas [Taiwan and Ryukyus] were at one time central to the trading hub in East Asian waters (14th~17th Century): As the Ryukyus became the “Bridge to various countries” including China, Japan, Korea and South East Asia, it entered its “Golden Age” during the 14th~17th Century (Lin 2006b). In contrast, despite frequent trade between China and the South Seas during the 13th and 14th centuries, there were few contacts between China and Taiwan at this time. But between 1540 and 1700, the East Asian sea route became vibrant with trade pivoting on Japanese silver, Chinese silk and other commodities. At this time, three quarters of the silver China needed for its silver-based currency came from western Japan. Yet this vibrant trade was not conducted directly. Just as Hong Kong was a third party terminal for Taiwan and mainland China between 1988 and 2008, Korea, Hanoi, Macau, the Ryukyus and Taiwan were all important sites for this Japan-China silver-silk trade. (Lin 2006a: Chapter 1)

At the time, Taiwan had no substantial political organization or formal ties with the Chinese government, so Zheng Zhilong, the Fujian sea-trade businessman, followed by the Dutch, the Spanish and then the family of Zheng Chenggong, successively established trading entrepots on this island. The Zheng family’s wealth, rooted in Japanese silver, was an important means for establishing political power in Taiwan. With the Chinese silk—Japanese silver trade as the core, other goods from Europe, South East Asia, Japan, mainland China, and elsewhere were also traded in Taiwan, making it an Asia-Pacific commercial centre. This was also why in the 17th Century, Chinese people flocked to Taiwan, and from a minority group eventually became the majority population on Taiwan. However, by the second half of the 17th Century, Japan restricted silver to its domestic use. The result was that the Sino-Japanese silk and silver trade declined, and the Ryukyu kingdom also entered a period of decline. From 1609, while paying tribute to the Qing Dynasty, the Ryukyus also paid tribute to Japan, and the Qing replaced the Zheng family in ruling Taiwan between 1683 and 1895 (Lin 2006c).

I've bolded several of her claims. For those of you for whom these claims will be new (i.e., everyone not the author), you will probably nod when you realize that Lin has in fact cited herself for this set of claims.

Observe the second paragraph's first sentence with its telltale assumptive claims:

At the time, Taiwan had no substantial political organization or formal ties with the Chinese government, 

Why should it have formal ties with the Chinese government? And the aborigines had substantial political organizations, they just were not of the nature that the Chinese recognized, then or today. Next she says:

...Zheng Zhilong, the Fujian sea-trade businessman, followed by the Dutch, the Spanish and then the family of Zheng Chenggong, successively established trading entrepots on this island

Zheng was a pirate/trader, of course. Where does this claim come from? If you're feeling the tingle of right-wing Chinese expansionist propaganda because the Zhengs are conveniently re-located to the period before the Europeans, congrats, your spidey sense is dead-on. Tonio Andrade's excellent and eminently sensible How Taiwan Became Chinese is available for free on Gutenberg (note, I said FREE. Read it.). He writes in Chapter 6...read it most carefully:

Perhaps there were other Chinese organizations that sponsored Chinese colonization. Yang Yanjie, a historian from mainland China, argues that the pirates Yan Siqi and Zheng Zhilong established "political authority" (政權) on Taiwan before the arrival of the Dutch.11 His aim is to show that Chinese claims to Taiwan predate the Dutch, and he overstates his case (he also, perhaps intentionally, conflates Taiwan with the Penghu Islands, using the anachronistic term Tai-Peng, 台澎), but he does make an important point: Chinese pirate-merchant organizations may have contributed to the sinification of Taiwan. Still, it is difficult to determine the extent of the colonial involvement that these organizations had on Taiwan, because our evidence is scanty and indirect.8

For example, we know next to nothing about Yan Siqi. As we have seen, he did use Taiwan as a base before the Dutch arrived, and his organization is said to have been large and well structured, with ten "stockades" (寨), scores of ships, and hundreds of men, hierarchically organized.12 Did his people build actual stockades on Taiwan? If so, they were not in evidence when the Dutch arrived, and Chinese fortifications would have attracted Dutch mention in the voluminous and verbose records of the Dutch East India Company. More likely, his men lived among aborigines or in temporary camps near moored vessels. For the first twenty years of Dutch rule, the company struggled against Chinese "smuggling" organizations north of the Bay of Tayouan. It is possible that they were related to or descended from Yan Siqi. But there is no evidence of dedicated Chinese settlements in these areas, and the extent to which Yan Siqi encouraged colonization must remain in doubt.

We know far more about Zheng Zhilong, who, as we have seen, cruised the Taiwan straits under the Dutch flag. He likely had contacts with Chinese sojourners in the Bay of Tayouan and the deer- and pirate-rich areas northward, but the more interesting evidence for his role in Taiwan's colonization comes after he became a Chinese official in 1628. Chinese sources indicate that, during a severe drought in Fujian Province, he had a conversation with officials in Fujian and suggested moving drought victims to Taiwan, providing "for each person three taels of silver and for each three people one ox."13 This is a fascinating idea, but there seems to be no evidence that the plan was actually carried out. Until more sources are found, we must be careful not to overstate the role merchant-pirate organizations played in Taiwan's colonization. In any case, would-be settlers needed more stability and security than pirates probably would (or could) provide.

Reality: the claim that Zheng preceded the Dutch and Spanish is Chinese expansionist nonsense, deliberately constructed to create the false view that the Chinese were there first. An oft-overlooked aspect of this move is that it ignores prior aboriginal claims to Taiwan. Other scholars have also dismissed the (Chinese nationalist) claim that there were many Chinese on Taiwan before the Dutch, see also John Shepard's superb Statecraft and Political Economy on the Taiwan Frontier, 1600 to 1800 for an accounting.

Where Lin got the idea that there was some kind of massive silver trade bringing Chinese thronging into Taiwan I have no idea, but Andrade has a thorough discussion of Chinese colonization in the book (well worth reading, accessible and erudite). His Conclusion summarizes how Chinese settlers under Dutch administration carried out colonization and trade, and the Spanish pursued similar policies. Japanese traders could be found on Formosa in those days, until 1635, when the ruler of Japan issued edicts against leaving Japan and closed the ports in 1639, freeing the Dutch from Japanese competition. The silver trade fell off after that time because its value eroded on the world markets and other reasons (see this fascinating overview paper). Though the Dutch used the port of Taoyuan/Tainan as a transshipment point for goods from China going to Japan sold by the Dutch for Japanese silver, Taiwan was not any major part of this flow of wealth from the silver mines of Japan and Mexico. The trade in silver for Chinese luxury goods went directly and illegally between Japan and China, as well as through Portuguese Macau and the central Vietnam port of Hoi-an. The Spanish silver trade flowed through Manila (the "almighty dollar" originally was the Spanish silver dollar). While there was trade, Taiwan could hardly be described as an Asia-Pacific commercial center. Note that Lin's pro-China presentation studiously avoids saying that Taiwan was a Dutch colony during this period. Inconvenient facts? Evanesco!

I should add that one reason Chinese settlement fell off after 1670 because the fighting between Ming and Qing died off and people who had fled that now sought to return. Not because the massive trade of the "Asia-Pacific Commercial Center" fell off.

In sections 2 and 3 Lin subtly forwards another common Chinese expansionist claim, that Japan incorporated Okinawa in 1879. The Ryukyu kingdom actually became a vassal state of the southern Japanese kingdom of Satsuma in 1609 (Wiki). Lin repositions this as "From 1609, while paying tribute to the Qing Dynasty, the Ryukyus also paid tribute to Japan..." with the Qing at the forefront. Wiki observes:

The kingdom's royal governmental structures remained intact, along with its royal lineage. The Ryukyus remained nominally independent, a "foreign country" (異国, ikoku)^[32] to the Japanese, and efforts were made to obscure Satsuma's domination of Ryukyu from the Chinese Court, in order to ensure the continuation of trade and diplomacy, since China refused to conduct formal relations or trade with Japan at the time. However, though the king retained considerable powers, he was only permitted to operate within a framework of strict guidelines set down by Satsuma, and was required to pay considerable amounts in tribute to Satsuma on a regular basis.

In Chinese expansionist presentations this period of Japanese control typically vanishes. Like in this piece, for instance, when the sovereignty over the Ryukuyus suddenly jumps into view in 1879 -- it had been incorporated into the Japanese central government in 1868, and under Japanese rule as a vassal state since 1609. This should also be a signal to readers of China's coming claim to Okinawa. Chinese expansionists quietly complain from time to time that China should have been consulted when Okinawa was returned to Japan. Longtime readers know the drill.

Further down Lin gives the standard rightist Chinese reading of the Treaty of Taipei:

The sovereignty Japan gained over Taiwan from the Treaty of Shimonoseki was renounced in Article 2 of the San Francisco Peace Treaty. Article 4 (b) of the San Francisco Peace Treaty stipulates that: “Japan recognizes the validity of dispositions of property of Japan and Japanese nationals made by or pursuant to directives of the United States Military Government in any of the areas referred to in Articles 2 and 3.” The US Military order relevant to Taiwan was General Order No.1 of 1945, specifying that, “the senior Japanese commanders … within … Formosa… shall surrender to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.”  Article 26 of the San Francisco Peace Treaty provided that Japan shall conclude with any State which signed or adhered to the United Nations Declaration, and which is at war with Japan, which is not a signatory of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, a bilateral Treaty of Peace on the same or substantially the same terms as are provided for in the Peace Treaty. In terms of the conclusion of war between the Republic of China (“ROC”) and Japan, the Treaty of Peace between the Republic of China and Japan that was signed in Taipei on April 28, 1952 (Illustration 1), ratified by both the Showa Emperor of Japan and Chiang Kai-shek, the President of the Republic of China (Illustrations 2&3), and exchanged and became effective on August 5^th of the same year, (hereafter “Taipei Treaty”), is one such international treaty specifying the transfer of sovereignty of Taiwan. The Taipei Treaty was registered in the United Nations in 1952 as Treaty Series, No. 1858 (United Nations, 1952). The Japanese Embassy in the ROC, which became the Interchange Association in 1972, has been based in Taipei since the Taipei Treaty became effective (Guoshiguan 1999, p.162). The articles in relation to the conclusion of war and transfer of Taiwan sovereignty in the Taipei Treaty were in the nature of having been executed, which is not comparable to articles providing for diplomatic relations that are executive in nature and were terminated in 1972 when Japan established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”).³ This is akin to the termination of consular jurisdiction of the United Kingdom in China in 1943 without terminating the 99 year-lease of Hong Kong.

1. General order number 1 is here. It should be noted that the Japanese troops on Formosa are surrendering to the Allies and that Chiang was acting as their representative. Chiang IS NOT accepting surrender of Formosa on behalf of China alone as Lin appears to be implying. 
2. Treaty of Taipei: This is basic knowledge: nowhere in the Treaty of Taipei is the transfer of sovereignty over Taiwan from Japan to the ROC implied or stated. It is an article of faith that the Treaty of Taipei transfers sovereignty to Taiwan only among Chinese right-wingers, ritually re-iterated periodically to remind everyone how out of touch they are. The Treaty of Taipei is subordinate to the San Francisco Peace Treaty which in turn deliberately does not specify who the sovereignty of Taiwan belongs to. Moreover, the ROC knows this perfectly well. As I have noted several times in posts and comments:
   
   After signing the treaty [of Taipei], the ROC delegate, then ROC foreign minister George Yeh (葉公超), faced harsh questioning from legislators in a Legislative Yuan meeting regarding why the treaty between the ROC and Japan did not state unambiguously that Taiwan and Penghu were returned to the ROC.
   
   Yeh replied that "No provision has been made either in the San Francisco Treaty or the Sino-Japanese Treaty as to the future of Taiwan and Penghu." Yeh further explained: "In fact, we control them now, and undoubtedly they constitute a part of our territories. The delicate international situation, however, means that they do not belong to us. In these circumstances, Japan has no right to transfer Formosa (Taiwan) and the Pescadores (Penghu) to us. Nor could we accept such a transfer from Japan even if she wished to do so."

Lin finally moves on to the Diaoyutai/Senkakus. She calls her article a "long-term historical perspective" on the Senkakus, but focuses on the period after 1895 and in fact lectures us at length on undersea geology. She says the Senkakus/Diaoyutai are separated from Japan by the Okinawa Trench, a common Chinese expanionist claim. Judge for yourself, or Google Search. More importantly, the reason she doesn't give us the long list of documents showing Qing control over the Senkakus is that there aren't any, which is why her discussion focuses on what the Japanese were doing. There's no reason to review her comments since I've discussed that so many times elsewhere.

Please my fellow lefties, stop forwarding Other People's Imperialism.

Droned on long enough, enjoy the weekend...
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Just a note on the Senkakus/Diaoyutai mess

Oops.

Jon Sullivan over at the U of Nottingham tweeted round this paper on the Senkakus/Diaoyutai and western and eastern systems of international governance (the next paper in that file discusses Taiwanese netizen attitudes towards the Senkakus and sovereignty). It makes some interesting points and is constructed in a very articulate and smooth propagandistic way. However, it contains an interesting anecdote about the Senkakus that I hadn't heard before....

...when former US President Ulysses Simpson Grant was visiting China and Japan in mid-1879. Grant agreed to mediate the dispute at the request of Li Hongzhang and Prince Gong, and offered a proposal with American diplomats in Japan as a basis for negotiation. The proposal suggested dividing the Ryukyu Islands into three parts: the central part would belong to the residual Ryukyu Kingdom protected by Chinese and Japanese consuls, the southern part would belong to China, being close to Taiwan, and the northern part would belong to Japan, being close to Satsuma (Kagoshima).

Think about it for a second. If the Manchus thought the Senkakus were part of their colonial empire, they would have said "we already own that, the issue is the islands to the north." But no one did. Instead, Grant had to suggest that the southern islands of the Ryukyus be annexed to Taiwan... because they weren't at that time. D'oh.
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The Black Water Ditch and the Chinese Claim to the Senkakus

Another great trip out to Little Burma in Taipei, on Huaxin Street near the Nanshijiao MRT station (Exit 4, head past the KFC and McDonald's).

Work! What's that? I'm blogging! I've long wanted to take a moment and review a very specific and bogus claim that Chinese expansionist scholars typically use to argue that the Senkakus are Chinese: that a black ditch/trough formed the boundary between China and the Rykyus (Okinawa) which would put the boundary north of the Senkakus, which would thus have been Chinese in the 17th century.

Han-yi Shaw's thesis on how China owns the Senkakus appears to be the origin of the claim. He makes the claim as follows on page 48 and subsequent pages. I reproduced it as an image:

This passage appears to say that there is a ditch that demarcates the Ryukyus from China. In the next paragraph on p 49, he writes:

Note how he specifically says "Viewed together" these constitute proof that the ancient Chinese (who were actually Manchus by this point) saw the Senkakus as part of China. In the first section, he states that the boundary is a trough, while in the second he refers to the Black Water Trough which demarcates Fujian waters. He then goes on to claim that the Okinawa Trench is the Black Water Trough/Ditch.

The only problem with this claim is that it is absolute nonsense. ADDED IN 2017: The Black Water "Trough" in the Ryukyus is not the Ryukyu Trench, but is the traditional name for Kuroshio Current as it winds up the west side of the Ryukyus. The Black Water Ditch/Trough does not refer to any trench in the ocean, which the premodern Chinese knew nothing about. Shaw is counting on his reader's ignorance of the ancient texts and references to make a case that never existed.

There is a Black Water Ditch associated with Taiwan, however, which is the cause of much confusion, including this writer's.

To understand where the Black Water Ditch associated with Taiwan was in ancient Chinese texts, there are several good works that mention it. Macabe Keleher's Out of China, on Yu Yonghe's diary of his visit to Taiwan in 1697, is a must. Emma Teng's Taiwan's Imagined Geography is another gem.

Fortunately, Lawrence Thompson has a piece in the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies from 1968: The Junk Passage Across the Taiwan Strait: Two Early Chinese Accounts (link).

Thompson's first account is that of Yu Yonghe. Yu crossed over to Taiwan in 1697, one of the earliest accounts of the passage, a dangerous and unpredictable one. Yu writes:

22nd. At dawn we crossed the Black-water Ditch. In the passage to Taiwan it is the Black-water Ditch that is most dangerous. [The current] flows from north to south; its source is unknown. The ocean water is a true green, while the ditch water is as black as ink. Its condition is also rather filthy,20 and that is why it is called a "ditch." It is about a hundred 1i wide. The swirling waters flow swiftly, and sometimes a foul odor assails one. There are also snakes with red and black mixed patterns and two-headed serpents that swim around ships. The helmsman will cast paper ingots [into the ditch], holding his breath in fear lest [the vessel be swept] southward by the current to one knows not where.21 The Red-water Ditch is not very dangerous and people regard it as nothing serious. But the two ditches being entirely in the middle of the ocean, it is difficult to understand why, with the agitation of wind and waves, they never become intermingled with the green water.

Yup. The Black Water Ditch lies does indeed mark the boundary between Fujian/Xiamen, except that boundary, an informal one, is between the Penghu/Taiwan and Xiamen. Yu actually reaches the Penghu in the very next diary entry, the next day.

But wait! The Black Ditch issue is even more interesting. Because in the second account, in June of 1763 the traveler leaves Xiamen, goes over to Penghu, and then hits the Black Water Ditch:

According to the navigator-quartermaster, when the night is quiet and the waves are still, one may be able to hear the sounds of dogs and chickens on Taiwan. I did not [have the opportunity to] test this . ...
After the noon meal a north wind suddenly began to blow. In crossing the sea, Experience has shown that the north wind in the sixth and seventh months soon brings typhoons. The navigator-quartermaster wanted to return and moor at P'eng-hu [harbor] to wait until the typhoon was over, but after talking it over with the captains (of the other ships), our captain felt that we had already been held up too long. Moreover, they relied upon the fact that a typhoon had not immediately begun, and so in the afternoon we crossed the Black-water Ditch. The water of the sea [in this place] flows contrary to the prevailing current, And it is the most dangerous place in the passage to Taiwan. The water was a more intense black. One must trust to the wind to get across.... When the ship crossed the ditch, the water was stinking with a noxious vapor that rose (because of poisonous snakes in it). I was afraid to come out and look at it. The navigator-quartermaster said that they had often lowered the lead-tube coir rope to the limit of a hundred and several tens of hsiun (8oo-goo feet), but they had never found bottom and did not know how deep it was4.... At evening the wind grew stronger and the waves were like hills. I suddenly heard a clamor under the ship, a sound like ten thousand horns blown at once in the middle of the earth, and I was even more frightened. When I questioned the navigator-quartermaster, he said that when the wind rises croakers hurry under the ship and blow all evening; when they gasp at the surface they produce this sound ....

What? They crossed the Black Ditch on the other side of the Penghu, between Taiwan and the Penghu? This is explained in a fascinating footnote, which takes its explanation from a text written in 1807:

"The Black-water Ditch is the place which forms the boundary dividing P'eng-hu and Hsia-men. It is about sixty or seventy li wide and the most dangerous place in all the ocean. Its depth is unfathomed, and the water is as black as ink. The current is violent; in form it is a slight depression (see note 20 above). If a vessel is lucky enough to have a favoring wind and sail quickly, she will cross [the ditch], being tossed this way and that. If she is delayed, then the waves will buffet her, and she may easily lose her bearings. "[Note that there are two black-water ditches: the one to the west of P'eng-hu is perhaps eighty-odd 1i wide and forms the boundary between P'eng-hu and Hsia-men. The water there is as black as ink, and it is called the Big Sea. The one to the east of P'eng-hu is also eighty-some 1i wide, and it forms the boundary between Taiwan and P'eng-hu. Its name is the Small Sea. The water of the Small Sea is even blacker than that of the Big Sea, and its depth is unfathomed. When the wind is calm in the Big Sea (a ship) can still anchor; but it cannot anchor in the Small Sea, which is more dangerous than the Big Sea. This is a distinction that has never been made in previous accounts.]"

In fact, not only were there two Black Water Ditches, one each in the Big and Little Seas, Chinese sailors operating between Taiwan and Xiamen referred to several bands of colored water, including red, white, and greenish-blue, which they used to identify their progress across the Strait (the footnotes are the most interesting part of Thompson's paper). Even more misleadingly, in some confused modern descriptions, the Strait itself is sometimes called the Black Ditch.
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The political role of "There is no consensus"

Waiting for people to hang out.

Was reading up on some notes of the presentation of Taiwan Defense Minister Andrew Hsia at one of the conferences on the 35th anniversary of the TRA. Hsia said the government recognizes three security threats:

1. unconventional threats - climate change, natural disasters.
2. "problems with Japan over the Diaoyutai," issue with the Philippines
3. biggest threat still the other side with its increasing defense budget since 1985.

I thought it was cool that global warming was the number one threat, and thought it was really stupid that the second one was Japan and the Senkakus/Diaoyutai (and Manila. LOL). I doubt many ordinary people see Japan as a threat. It really shows the insanity of the ROC position on the Senkakus, and also their important function as an irritant in Japan-Taiwan relations, cooling and complicating Japanese support for Taiwan.

The notes observed that Hsia's next point was that the government wants a prosperous and stable Taiwan without being coerced by China, based on the 1992 consensus. But interestingly, Hsia then said that due to the lack of mutual trust and Taiwan being a democracy, there is no consensus on how to handle China. Hsia then went on to claim that the KMT move toward Beijing was apolitical and pragmatic (how they love that word!).

You can see the political function of the constant claim about how there is no consensus from the KMT side right in Hsia's comments. The reason they keep reiterating that is (1) to cover the fact that there is indeed a consensus and (2) it permits them to do whatever they want -- they're not defying the consensus, right? -- and claim that since there is no consensus, they aren't being "political."
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JapanFocus: The (Wrong) Origins of the Senkaku Mess

JapanFocus, a progressive website that turns out lots of interesting stuff on Okinawa, on Japanese colonialism, and on Cold War and post-Cold War history and politics in NE Asia, put on a fine display this month of the way lefties often adopt the right-wing imperialism of non-western nations as their analytical stance, something that needs to stop. In The Origins of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Dispute between China, Taiwan and Japan, Mark Seldon and Yabuki Susumu write:

...While other important issues add to the gravity of the conflict, including enlarged territorial claims by China, Japan and Korea in the form of advancing and defending competing claims to ADIZ in the East China and South China Seas, Yabuki shows the long trajectory of competing claims over the Senkaku dispute and the evolving policies of China, Japan and the United States in shaping it. Since so much of the international discussion of the issues has focused on China-Japan conflict, a particularly important contribution of the present paper is its clear presentation of US recognition at the highest levels of the significance of the competing territorial claims, and its maneuvering in negotiations with Taipei, Tokyo, and Beijing to shape the outcome.

The story can, of course, be traced back to earlier claims to the islands, including historical interactions involving Taiwan and Okinawan fishermen and Chinese tributary missions, to Japanese claims to the islands, and to their disposition by the US in framing and implementing the San Francisco Peace Treaty...

The article then goes on to show how the US manipulated things to preserve the Chinese claims and how the Chinese manipulated the US, probably because Kissinger, who was running the show at the time (he would later go on to establish profitable business relations with China), was so irredeemably pro-China and because of the general historical ignorance and laziness of Americans: nobody on the US side appears to have researched the Chinese claims to see whether they were actually correct. For example, a memo from John Holdridge reproduces the Chinese nonsense claims without comment and says:

John H. Holdridge’s Comment reads as follows:

As you can imagine, the Japanese Government has a comparable list of apparently offsetting arguments and maintains simply that the Senkakus remain Japanese. State’s position is that in occupying the Ryukyus and the Senkakus in 1945, and in proposing to return them to Japan in 1972, the U.S. passes no judgment as to conflicting claims over any portion of them, which should be settled directly by the parties concerned.

After reading this memorandum, Kissinger immediately handwrote the following comment in the margin: “But that is nonsense since it gives islands to Japan. How can we get a more neutral position?”

Don't miss the conversation between Kissinger and the ROC representive reproduced in the article; it's high comedy.

Going back to the introduction, readers familiar with China's nonsensical claims to the Senkakus can see how in the introduction Seldon and Susumu have completely and uncritically swallowed them. I posted some comments there, but (naturally) they were nuked.

I should add that one of my projects for this vacation is translating and commenting on the great website 為什麼釣魚台是日本的. It has been taken down, but I have it in reserve and hopefully sometime in the next couple of months will be able to reproduce it in full and in English. It's stuffed with little gems that show that no rulers of China ever thought of the Senkakus as Chinese. A sample:

當時負責與日本交接的清國代表是李經方，李經方擔心福建沿海島嶼也被劃入割讓範圍希望日方提交臺灣附屬島嶼清冊.水野遵表示如果將島名逐一列舉，難免會出現疏漏或涉及無名島嶼問題，如此一來該島將不屬於日、中任何一方，從而帶來麻煩,而且臺灣與附屬島嶼已有公認的海圖與地圖鑒於日方的表態，李經方同意對台灣附屬各島嶼不逐一列名的處理,之後雙方簽署交接臺灣文據.

Qing representative Li Jing-fang was responsible for the handover to Japan. Li Jing-fang was concerned that the coastal islands of Fujian were also included in scope of things ceded and hoped that the Japanese side would submit an inventory of Taiwan affiliated islands. Mizuno Jun [head of administration of first Japan gov't of Taiwan and participant in 1874 invasion, pic here --MT] said that compliance meant that if the islands were listed by name, there will inevitably be omissions or problems involving nameless islands. Then there will be islands not belonging to either party, resulting in trouble. Moreover, the island of Taiwan and its affiliated islands were already recognized on the charts and maps of the Japanese side. Li agreed that the islands affiliated with Taiwan should not be listed individually by name and the two sides later signed the instrument of the transfer of Taiwan.

Note first that neither side mentioned the Senkakus as they worked out the handover of Taiwan to Tokyo. Had the Qing or the Japanese considered the Senkakus to be part of Taiwan, they certainly would have been mentioned, but of course neither side did. I linked to the LeGendre map yesterday. It is typical of all western maps of Taiwan in the 19th century -- none included the Senkakus as islands traditionally thought to be part of Taiwan, like Green Island or the Pescadores/Penghu. No one, Chinese or foreign, considered the Senkakus to be Chinese until after the possibility of oil under the sea floor was announced in the late 1960s. It's really that simple, and anyone who writes on the "origins" of the Senkakus mess is churning out ideologically-driven propaganda if they write or imply anything else.

UPDATE: See also this post.

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Will China become less bellicose if it is a democracy?

Because these bugs hover, you can often get shots of them in midair.

I was reading the Taipei Times editorializing on the history textbook issue (quality of editorials has plummeted since J Michael Cole has left) and noticed its stance on the Senkakus:

The Japanese government’s decision that its students should be taught that Dokdo, which is governed by Seoul, and the Diaoyutais, which belong to Taiwan but are governed by Tokyo, all belong to Japan, is untenable legally and in the face of international realities.

Some argue that if China becomes a democracy it will cease to be expansionist. Hmmm... certainly that has not been the case with some other large democracies I could name. But here in Taiwan we have an example of a democratic government in the Chinese cultural sphere -- and the major pro-Taiwan paper writes ahistorical crap like "Taiwan owns the Senkakus". A puny but nominally democratic government, without much military, nevertheless insists on claiming its neighbors' territories, including -- formally -- all of China. Because it thinks it is China. So... how will China behave?

Can the Taipei Times be more critical of these claims?
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More on the ADIZ

My first half-decent photo of Venus.

Lots of stuff out there. This Volokh Conspiracy post has good links to other posts and resources and notes:

China’s assertion of an ADIZ, as Julian Ku says, is not per se impermissible. But the devil is in the details. China’s ADIZ raises two large questions of legality. First, the “not-impermissible” scope of an ADIZ, that which is accepted in widespread state practice, is a projection outwards from the coastline of a coastal state. One might argue as a matter of international law as evidenced by state practice that a ADIZ has to bear a reasonable relationship to that coastline and the protection of its sovereignty, in the sense of both national security and domestic regulation (e.g., air traffic management, anti-smuggling, etc.). Those requirements can be fluid, addressing the nature of technology and threats to sovereignty, while still being “reasonably” connected to the protection of the sovereign coastline from unlawful encroachment.

Whatever can reasonably be projected as an ADIZ related to the coastal state’s coastline, the legality of an ADIZ created in such a way as to allow China to assert a new legal claim regarding contested rocks far out at sea has to be considered at issue. It’s a “bootstrapping” claim, assuming its conclusion: China declares an ADIZ around a contested territory, and then uses that as a basis to control the airspace as though it were an ADIZ declared along its uncontested home coastline. But an ADIZ cannot create sovereign territory or vindicate a claim to it. Unfortunately, enforcing that fundamental point requires that other states ignore and denounce the ADIZ – in the teeth of a threat, implied or express, that whatever regulatory terms China has dictated (see below) will be enforced.

Whereas it seems clear that state practice is limited to uncontested home territory. No bootstrapping. The virtue of an ADIZ is that it can reduce risks of confrontation, mistake, and dangerous brinksmanship as aircraft come close to unquestionably sovereign, territorial airspace by regularizing the passage of civilian aircraft, especially, as either intending (in which case ADIZ procedures apply) or not intending to enter the sovereign’s airspace (in which case ADIZ procedures do not apply) is turned into a mechanism for contesting sovereignty, and becomes a pretext for confrontation.

It's so like China to follow the letter while subverting the spirit of the procedure. The whole post is excellent.

The ADIZ also shows how the US policy on the Senkakus has now impaired its own response. It can't take a strong position and point out that the Senkakus are sovereign Japanese territory because for years the US hasn't taken a position on the "dispute" (the US might even consider retaliating by recognizing Japan's sovereignty formally). D'oh! Once again, failure to do the right thing ramifies....

The BBC reports that the US has required its carriers to comply with the ADIZ. But when you read it closely...

But on Friday, the state department said the US government "generally expects that US carriers operating internationally will operate consistent with Notams [Notices to Airmen] issued by foreign countries".

It added: "Our expectation of operations by US carriers consistent with NOTAMs does not indicate U.S. government acceptance of China's requirements for operating in the newly declared ADIZ."

The US position is that its carriers should behave as they do in all other ADIZs and ignore Beijing's special reporting requirements. Nope, they are complying with Beijing's demands. The Volokh piece above gives other examples of how normal the US military response is. The BBC piece contains a little tidbit:

South Korea claims a submerged rock, known as Ieodo, also within the zone.

If China is "boostrapping" the ADIZ as a form of territorial claim.... no wonder the Koreans are suspicious.
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Hegemonic Conflict Watch: China's ADIZ roundup

Took the Motao out to Shihlin Night Market the other day.

So much commentary -- apparently China's new ADIZ woke the world up. We've arrived at one of those historical moments when even the densest dunderheads can see, a Panay moment, or a remilitarization of the Rhineland moment, when onlookers are beginning to realize the coming course of events....

...China has already scrambled planes in response to US and Japanese flights, Chinese media reports. Japan denies this.

Lots of good stuff out there. Corey Wallace over at China Policy Institute observes:

The Chinese government is increasingly perceived in Japan to be implementing a calculated and “staged” approach to undermining Japan’s claims to the Senkaku Islands, and using antipathy towards Japan as a justification for pursuing a more expansive military policy. For example, in September 2012, the PRC submitted to the United Nations the coordinates for demarcating the territorial seas around the islands. This was identified a precursor to maintaining a routine presence in and around the islands, and since this point incursions in the territorial waters around the islands have rapidly increased. Just two days prior to the ADIZ announcement, it was reported in Japan that Chinese maritime authorities had escalated the stakes again by boarding Chinese fishing vessels in the EEZ waters around the Senkaku Islands. It was confirmed by the JCG that this had happened three times since August, 2013. The ADIZ will therefore be interpreted as a signal of a Chinese intention to further implement its jurisdictional claim.

Indeed, Japanese media has been quick to explore the dangerous implications of the new ADIZs. For example, the Yomiuri labelled China’s action of declaring an ADIZ that includes airspace over islands under the administrative control of another nation to be of “an unusual nature in the international community.” The ADIZ move is seen as providing further evidence of Xi Jinping prioritising China’s “great power” ambitions, rather than steering China towards becoming a cooperative player in building a mutually beneficial East Asian regional framework. Xi’s advocacy for a “New Type of Great Power Relations” for managing future diplomacy, which excludes the interests of regional and global players other than the United States or the PRC, has also not gone unnoticed in Japan. The Japanese media has even reported that various Chinese diplomatic sources have admitted that hard line elements within the Chinese government and the PLA have settled on a strategy to challenge Japan on the Senkakus, to drive a wedge through the US-Japan alliance, and take a hard-line towards relations towards Japan in general. This strategy was apparently consolidated at the end of the recent third plenum, which saw China setting up a National Security Council, and Xi Jinping noting that China needed to directly face external and internal threats to China’s sovereign rights and national security. As such, the East China Sea ADIZ will be seen as setting the stage for a long-term exercising of military influence in the area, especially if the PRC goes on to announce a similar zone for the South China Sea. With the maiden South China Sea voyage of the Liaoning also being heavily reported in Japan, Japanese politicians and officials have quickly moved to discussing extending Japan’s own ADIZ eastwards to cover the Ogasawara islands in anticipation of future Chinese aerial activity on the back of its new ability to project aerial power.

Michal Thim at CPI similarly observes:

There is another important aspect to consider while analysing recent Chinese actions. Beijing may be motivated to take a stance in regards to its sovereignty claim and it is consistently pushing the envelope in this matter. However, it is also interested in testing the reactions of the U.S. and its allies to get a clearer picture for its actions in the future. The Taiwan Strait missile crisis in 1995/96 might have backfired and in the short term it was Beijing’s debacle but at the same time Chinese leaders tested U.S. reaction. In addition, the crisis provided critical stimulus for the development of Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD) capability that nowadays represents significant challenge for any future deployment of carrier battle group near Chinese shores. More recently, during 2012 Scarborough Shoal standoff with the Philippines, China has tested whether the U.S. would go beyond rhetorical support of its treaty ally when the subject of dispute is relatively insignificant elevation. Creation of ADIZ and increased number of naval and air incursions in the disputed area should be understood as part of broader strategy to change the status quo. Should the ADIZ face no strong reaction or should the extent of backlash be acceptable for Beijing, second ADIZ may come soon, this time over the South China Sea.

At the Diplomat, the really bizarre writing:

The islands, when referenced in Chinese historical documents, are generally considered to have been part of the administrative zone of Taiwan. In other words, if mainland China does gain control of the islands, it would effectively be administering part of Taiwan. Obviously, this give the dispute a deep symbolic meaning for Taiwan’s government.

The was never any administration of the Senkakus from Taiwan. That's a post-1971 lie. Where do people get this crap? -- especially since several of us have now published at The Diplomat showing that these are lies. Do they not consult their own stuff? The writer does make one good point, however:

In this context, Beijing’s ADIZ could have lasting ramification for cross-strait relations. The PRC seems not to have considered the potential backlash on Taiwan — particularly since the ADIZ roll-out occurred only days before an important visit to Taiwan by Chen Deming, the head of the mainland’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits. The timing of the announcement has marred Chen’s visit. The DPP and other critics have demanded that Ma lodge protests with Chen and even expel him from Taiwan if his response is seen as inadequate.

Beijing could easily have avoided this by holding off on the ADIZ for even a week, or even done Ma a political favor by informing him of the decision in advance. Instead, mainland officials missed an opportunity to ease the political shock in Taiwan. As a result, China’s aggressive move to solidify its claims over some uninhabited rocks might jeopardize its chances at a far larger prize — eventual unification with Taiwan.

Exactly -- the ADIZ not only screwed Korea, it also screwed Beijing's friend and ally, Ma Ying-jeou. The ROC government has announced that it will go along with the requirement of reporting its airlines movements in the ADIZ to Beijing, unlike Korea, Japan, and the US. Speaking of Korea, at The Diplomat resides a piece on the ADIZ and Korea:

The beauty of a unilateral move like an ADIZ is that the country imposing the zone gets to decide how the lines are drawn on the map. The Chinese decision to draw the ADIZ such that it was guaranteed to raise the ire of South Korea is odd. With South Korea, the PRC was fortunate enough to avoid the sorts of territorial rigmaroles it often finds itself in with Japan, Taiwan and various Southeast Asian states (over the South China Sea). South Korea and China had also found themselves converging over their common historical distaste for Japan along nationalist lines — a phenomenon abetted by the almost concomitant election of conservative Park Geun-hye in Korea and Shinzo Abe in Japan.

It’s perhaps too early to make a definitive determination about the impact the Chinese ADIZ will have on future relations between China and South Korea. South Korea’s restrained rhetorical response and China’s immediate attempts to set the record straight on Ieodo indicate that the ADIZ’s northeastern frontier, near Jeju-do, may have been an oversight on China’s part.

..........

What should give South Korea pause over the ADIZ is the possible imposition of such zones in the future by China, something Chinese Ministry of Defense spokesman Yang Yujun claimed was in the pipes: “China will establish other Air Defense Identification Zones at the right moment after necessary preparations are completed.” A future ADIZ off the Bohai Sea and into the Yellow Sea would have serious implications for South Korean security

For me the scariest article was a WaPo piece on it by Simon Denyer, which reads as if it softened something dictated by Xinhua propagandists:

It was designed as a forceful response to Japanese assertiveness. [Hahahaha - mt] But Beijing’s creation of an air defense zone may have backfired, experts said, eliciting a strong joint response from the United States and Japan.

In Chinese eyes, the standoff began in September 2012, [Why are we regurgitating Chinese propaganda? Who cares what Beijing wants outsiders to think? Don't we do our own research? - mt] when the Japanese government purchased three of the islands — known as the Senkaku islands in Japan and the Diaoyu islands in China — from a private Japanese landowner. In response, Beijing stepped up its own claims to the rocky landmasses, increasing sea patrols and pressing Japan to accept that the territory is disputed.[Reality: the Japanese purchase was driven by China's escalating pressure. - mt]

This next bit is so comical it deserves to stand alone:

Beijing’s actions appear to fit a recent pattern, experts said. Reluctant to be seen as the provocateur, China tends to respond forcefully to what it sees as provocations from others and then advance its own claims even more strongly.

A totally Beijing-centric presentation. Ugly to see this in a US newspaper... but expect more in the future: the new normal is going to be US media presentations shaped by Beijing's power.

Finally, James Fallows has a good piece over at The Atlantic:

3) Is this likely to do China any good? The puzzling nature of Chinese foreign policy, especially its generally self-defeating "soft power" aspects, is a subject too vast for our purposes right now. In brief: the very steps that, from an internal Chinese-government perspective, are intended to make it seem confident, powerful, and attractive often have exactly the opposite effect on audiences outside China.

One famous illustration followed the world financial crisis of 2008. The Chinese economy recovered much more quickly than others; the U.S. looked like a house of cards; and the Chinese military made a number of expansionist-seeming moves in the South China Sea that quickly got the attention of neighboring countries. The result of this "over-reach" episode, as it is described now even in China, was to bring Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and other countries into closer alignment with the U.S. than they had thought necessary before. By acting super-tough, the Chinese military made its real situation weaker.

This ADIZ case may become the next famous example. Whether it seems, either now or later, worthwhile from the Chinese leadership's perspective I have no idea. But at least in the short term, it appears to have alarmed the South Koreans, with whom Chinese relations had been steadily warming, plus introducing new friction into China's most important relationship, which is with the United States.

Great stuff. UPDATED: And don't miss this piece on the Chinese perspective from a Chinese PHD student in the China Policy Institute.

The Lew-Rockwell Antiwar.com types are still off in some La-la land where all evils are due to the US and China is all rainbows and unicorns, but I noticed that over at the progressive website CommonDreams writer Gwynne Dyer actually thought the ADIZ was deliberately provocative. I'm remaining optimistic that the Left will come around on China...
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China Cranks up pressure, sets events on war path

This map appeared in the Taipei Times.

I go off to Alishan for the weekend and whaddaya know... China declared a new air defense zone that includes the Senkakus, cranking up the pressure on Japan and essentially declaring that this conflict over the Senkakus will end in open war unless Japan backs down. The Taipei Times report offered some useful insights:

China’s ministry of Defense issued a statement on its Web site yesterday regarding the establishment of the zone.

The statement was accompanied by a map and a set of rules regarding the zone, which stated that all aircraft must notify Chinese authorities and are subject to emergency military measures if they do not identify themselves or do not comply with orders from Beijing.

...

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方), who also sits on the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, suggested that China’s move was aimed at Japan, as China did not include Taiwan’s Pengjia Islet (彭佳嶼) in its East China Sea air defense identification zone.

Li Fung, a Hong Kong-based Chinese military expert, said that China’s move can be regarded as an effort to bolster Beijing’s sovereignty claims over the islands.

It also showed the Chinese government is preparing for military conflict with Japan over the disputed islands, Li said.

WSJ adds:

"An ADIZ isn't defined in international law. Basically, each country draws up its own and operates on that basis. Therefore, setting up the ADIZ doesn't have any legal meaning for China or affect Japan's territorial rights. However, it is unclear to what extent they will enforce it. In general the situation is getting riskier," said Narushige Michishita of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.

The US has a defense treaty with Japan and has said on several occasions that the Senkakus fall under the purview of that treaty. This means that if China goes to war over the Senkakus then the US must come in on the side of China Japan! The US State Department issued a State-ment:

The United States is deeply concerned about China's announcement that they've established an "East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone." This unilateral action constitutes an attempt to change the status quo in the East China Sea. Escalatory action will only increase tensions in the region and create risks of an incident.

Freedom of overflight and other internationally lawful uses of sea and airspace are essential to prosperity, stability, and security in the Pacific. We don't support efforts by any State to apply its ADIZ procedures to foreign aircraft not intending to enter its national airspace. The United States does not apply its ADIZ procedures to foreign aircraft not intending to enter U.S. national airspace. We urge China not to implement its threat to take action against aircraft that do not identify themselves or obey orders from Beijing.

We have urged China to exercise caution and restraint, and we are consulting with Japan and other affected parties, throughout the region. We remain steadfastly committed to our allies and partners, and hope to see a more collaborative and less confrontational future in the Pacific.

This is basically a signal of coming war. China has just reduced everyone's room for maneuver, especially if they attempt to enforce this zone.

And also consider that this is just a step. There is more cranking up of pressure coming in the future. At what point do the US and Japan had to intervene to show they mean business, and how? Do we wait for the next carefully calculated escalation? Or are the escalations meant to provoke a Japan-US response that China can plausibly claim as a pretext for war?
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AJISS: Japan - Taiwan Fisheries Agreement Backgrounder and fisheries agreement round up

This recent cycle of late afternoon thunderstorms is really playing havoc with my cycling, since I like riding in the nearby mountains but don't like descending on slick, leaf-covered, muddy roads threatened by landslides. The picture above is Shuili at about 5 pm the other day. My friend Wayne and I had taken the 147 over to the 131, swung around Sun Moon Lake, lunched, and then climbed the Nantou 63 in anticipation of one of the best descents in the area when all hell broke loose. The skies deluged us. We took refuge in front of someone's house, waiting thirty or forty minutes while the pounding rain continued, and finally flagged down a little blue delivery truck. He raced down the descent over several landslides including a couple of small trees lying across the road, applying the Taiwanese theory that road conditions are irrelevant if you just drive fast enough. All the while he had one hand on the wheel and the other on his cellphone, while chatting with my man Wayne up front. I sat in the rear, stunned, watching the landslides recede into the distance. Rapidly. 

AJISS has an interesting commentary that goes into some of the political aspects of the Fisheries Agreement between Taipei and Tokyo. It observes:

As the above account shows, the Japan-Taiwan fishing talks were wrapped up via political decisions made by both sides. However, the greater context of regional politics that made these decisions possible cannot be overlooked. China-Taiwan relations have stabilized since the Ma administration came to power, and the US, Japan and other neighboring countries have welcomed this. A political understanding on prioritizing the development of economic ties over sovereignty issues premised on both parties belonging to "one China" has brought stability to China-Taiwan relations. In light of this understanding, China has outwardly criticized the words and deeds of the Ma administration but finds it difficult to take actions that would harm Taiwan's interests, as a loss of support for the Ma administration in Taiwan could result in the collapse of the "one China" premise. Realizing that the Chinese government would not protest or interfere, Japan and Taiwan then moved step by step along the process leading to the fisheries agreement.

"loss of support for the Ma Administration." Once again, Taiwan's democracy, which Ma must ostensibly appeal to in order to keep his underlings in power, places restraints on what China can do because it sees Ma as its servant.

Another piece on the agreement by a Japanese commentator observed:

Fishermen in Okinawa have been concerned about the illegal operations of Taiwanese trawlers. They have been asking that the Japanese authorities maintain order in the surrounding waters, securing the area so that they can operate safely, and arresting fishermen who operate illicitly. According to media sources, a Japanese government official commented that the agreement embodies about 80% of the desires of the Okinawan fishermen; however, fishermen from Kumeshima, who are close to the area where Taiwanese trawlers will be allowed to operate, may be dissatisfied. Protecting the interests of fishermen in Okinawa is necessary for the Japanese government.

Illegal trawling operations by Taiwanese fisherman have cause political problems for Taiwan across the Pacific. When commentators in Taiwan argue that the agreement with Japan could be a model for an agreement with Philippines, what they mean is essentially an agreement that legalizes Taiwanese poaching in Other People's Waters. The Japan Times reported that in practice Tokyo is strictly and rigidly interpreting the agreement. The June 13th piece notes:

Since the agreement came into force May 10, Taiwanese vessels have been detained for trespassing four times, only one of which in a zone subject to the agreement. The other three cases concerned fishing equipment drifting outside the zones.

The Japan Coast Guard has increased the number of vessels to patrol waters beyond the areas subject to the fisheries pact at the request of Okinawa’s fishermen.

The Taiwanese fishermen, of course, are not happy either.

Huang Yi-sen, chairman of Yilan County’s Association of Fishermen’s Rights, said the way the Japanese authorities are carrying out the agreement is “simply too strict.”

For instance, while the JCG previously allowed some leeway when infringements occurred, it is now detaining Taiwanese trawlers when their fishing equipment drifts out of the zone even less than 1 nautical mile, he said.

Suao Fishermen Association Director Chen Chun-sheng said if the situation continues, Tokyo will push Taiwanese fishermen into the embrace of China, which has been acting like a big brother to Taiwan in its fishing disputes with Japan.

Yeah, right, like the Suao Fishermen Association wants to see Chinese fishing boats in those waters....

Agreements like this also highlight another aspect of the issue, Taiwan's food security. If you look at the  numbers, Taiwan appears self-sufficient in seafood and "produces" a large surplus. This is an illusion, however; Taiwanese waters are fished out. Rather, Taiwan "produces" so much seafood because it has access to the waters of other nations, legally and illegally. Preserving this access and maintaining harmonious relations with the Pacific island nations whose waters are trawled by Taiwanese boats should be a core policy of every Taiwanese administration. That Taiwan's policies are so China-focused is one of the many costs Beijing's desire to annex Taiwan imposes on the people of Taiwan.
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Hegemonic Warfare Watch: China wants Okinawa too

Onion harvest near Checheng in Pingtung.

In the People's Daily, two "scholars" argue that Okinawa is Chinese, a pattern that has been emerging more and more in the last few years. The Chinese government coyly refused to take a position (bloomberg)....

China refused to confirm that Okinawa belongs to Japan after two Chinese scholars suggested re-examining the ownership of the archipelago that includes the island, adding to tensions over a separate territorial dispute.

Agreements between allied forces during World War II mean the ownership of the Ryukyu Islands may be in question, the researchers said in a commentary in the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s main newspaper. Asked if China considers Okinawa part of Japan, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said scholars have long studied the history of the Ryukyus and Okinawa.

“It may be time to revisit the unresolved historical issue of the Ryukyu Islands,” Zhang Haipeng and Li Guoqiang of the China Academy of Social Sciences wrote in the commentary.

Willy Lam, longtime China commentator, was quoted in several articles as saying that this appears to be a negotiating tactic to put pressure on the Japanese to give way in the Senkakus, but to my mind this is only the latest in a gentle, long-term escalation which will one day result in the same pattern of visa games and attempted marginalization of Okinawa that Beijing has already deployed against Taiwan and Arunachal Pradesh. I have noted on several occasions that in the minds of  right-wing Chinese expansionists Okinawa, the Senkakus, and Taiwan are linked, which is one reason why nationalist ideologues like Ma Ying-jeou constantly link Taiwan to the Senkakus. This thing with Okinawa will only get worse over time, because the leadership in Beijing seems to believe its own propaganda, and there will always be "scholars" willing to shove things further to the Right in order to further their own careers.... there's a structural aspect to authoritarian governments that advocacy of radical positions often gets greater attention from the few at the top....

Reuters reported:

China criticized Japan on Thursday for lodging a diplomatic protest against a Chinese state media commentary calling into question Japanese sovereignty over the southern Ryukyu Islands, which include Okinawa. The latest angry exchange could further strain tense relations between Asia's two-largest economies, which are involved in a stand-off over a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, called the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.”

This comes hot on the heels of the standoff in the Himal between China and India. Seems like the government in Beijing is manufacturing some nationalist sentiment ahead of bad economic news, etc.

It will be interesting to see if the Taiwan government comes out with some nonsense about how the ROC owns Okinawa.....

RELATED: Japan and Taiwan failed to set rules for fishing in the Senkaku area in the first round of the negotiations....
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UPDATED: Someone is unhappy about a recent fisheries agreement

Taiwan's chickens are awesome. When Kenji spoke to these black meat chickens in Japanese, they understood and came right over.

Someone is Officially Not Happy over the recent fisheries agreement between Tokyo and Taipei. The CNA reports on the Japan Times:

China dispatched over 40 warplanes to join eight surveillance vessels in trying to prevent a flotilla of Japanese nationalists from landing on the disputed Diaoyutai Islands on April 23, according to a Japanese media report.

Previous foreign reports had only mentioned that the simultaneous presence of eight Chinese maritime surveillance vessels in the region were the most since tensions over the uninhabited island chain escalated last September.

....pressure is on.

UPDATE: China has now officially declared the Senkakus a "core interest" (link)(NHK):

Chunying made the comment after General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, in Tokyo said that Chinese officials repeatedly told him during his visit to Beijing earlier in the week that the Senkakus are "one of China's core interests," the report said. 

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Fisheries Agreement

A spider checks on lunch amid drops of dew.

Some interesting comments on the recent Japan-Taiwan fisheries agreement in the TT today:

"Sovereignty", which as Heinlein once wittily noted, is a word between sober and sozzled in the dictionary....

Given that the parties to the accord are defined as Taiwan and Japan in sub-paragraph (b) of paragraph 3 of Article 2, it is unnecessary to use “competent authorities” in lieu of “both Parties (viz, Taiwan and Japan)” as stated in Article 4, Hu said.

Hu said he thought the substitution was made because “competent authorities are not emblematic of state sovereignty.”

If the competent authority is seen as the Fisheries Agency, it does not represent the nation, Hu said.

...and thus, as the TT notes, is a "demotion" of the nation's claims. Although, the TT article consistently uses "Taiwan" instead of "the Republic of China". Since "Taiwan" has no claim to the Senkakus, but the ROC is pushing one, for once it might have behooved the Taipei Times to accurately identify the entity on whose behalf these claims are being made. One of the side effects of the Senkakus claims is that it is constantly use to identify the ROC with Taiwan and vice versa by the true believers in the KMT. So far the public has been consistently indifferent to this claim. Of course...

In another scenario, if Taiwanese fishing vessels avoid entering the area, voluntarily or not, that could mean that Taiwan “indirectly acknowledged Japan’s claim of sovereignty over and administrative control of the Diaoyutais,” Hu said.

Yup. Surely the Japanese saw this, and also saw that however faintly, to weaken the ROC claim is also to put a ghost of a dent in the PRC claim. And as many observers noted, to separate China from the ROC on this issue is important.

I'm thinking that the fisheries accord, if it actually does come to be meaningful, will likely lead to increased pressure on Japan from Beijing. But the TT piece says...

The signing of the accord reflects the great importance that Japanese Prime Minister Shino Abe has attached to Taiwan, and its implications go beyond just the bilateral relationship, Ho said. By having Taiwan jointly manage the designated fishing zone, Japan does not need to confront China head on in case of the latter’s maritime surveillance ships entering the waters near the islands, he said.

“China would not risk sabotaging cross-strait rapprochement by not reining in unwanted behaviors that could tensions,” he said.

It's a textbook example of the kind of magical thinking that pervades the problem of Chinese expansionism. The rapprochement is between the CCP and the KMT; there is nothing that China could do in the Senkakus that would endanger the understanding between the two parties, because the thrust to annex the Senkakus and the thrust to annex Taiwan are two parts of the same expanionist trend supported by Chinese nationalists on both sides of the Strait. After all, the current President of the ROC wrote his thesis to back the Chinese claim to the Senkakus. End of story, really. Moreover, the article says earlier:

The Coast Guard Administration has vowed to take measures proportionate to actions taken by its Japanese counterpart in the event of an intrusion in the area by Taiwanese fishing vessels and vice versa, Hu said.

“This suggests that conflicts in the region could erupt at any time even with the fisheries accord in place,” Hu said.

This might actually be good for overall tensions, since it is much better that coast guard boats from Taiwan spray water on coast guard boats from Japan and vice versa than Chinese and Japanese boats face off directly.

We'll see what further negotiations produce, and more importantly, what happens when the fall begins....

James Holmes in his generally excellent column at the Naval Diplomat observes that the agreement was good for three reasons....

3. It shows that Taipei is no one's crummy little toady.
2. It reminds everyone that Taiwan remains a responsible de facto sovereign.
1. It shows how mature powers conduct themselves.

These are, on the whole, good things. This was an important success for the Ma Administration and for Taiwan, and it would be a shame if the whole thing was made small by the antics of "activists" and another round of the water cannon exchange stupidity.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Pivot Divot

Two women assemble stacks of beer cans as temple offerings. Any country where they offer beer to the gods is all right with me.

"For years we thought of ourselves as a production oriented company, meaning we put all our emphasis on designing and manufacturing the product. But now we understand that the most important thing we do is market the product. We've come around to saying that Nike is a marketing-oriented company, and the product is our most important marketing tool." -- Phil Knight, CEO of Nike.

John Pfeffer at FPIF scribes:

The Obama administration has revived the old Clinton dream of rebranding the United States as a Pacific power. But there are two reasons why this new pivot doesn’t really exist except at a rhetorical level.

During the 1990s, the Clinton administration was successful in turning around the U.S. economy, at least in terms of shrinking deficits, encouraging impressive economic growth, reducing unemployment, and improving median wages. In other words, the United States was in a good position to take advantage of cooperation with Asian economies.

Today, by contrast, the U.S. economy is in difficult straits. Unemployment remains high, and growth anemic. Projected budget cuts may well send the economy into a downward spiral. The Obama administration bills the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as a vehicle for growing its members’ economies. But the reality may well be closer to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which only contributed to the hollowing out of the U.S. manufacturing sector as companies fled south and north of the border.

The most buzz about the Pacific pivot, however, has been on national security. Having presided over military fiascos in the Middle East and Central Asia, the Pentagon is planning a move to calmer waters. Former Pentagon head Leon Panetta announced, for instance, that the United States would devote 60 percent of its naval warships to the region, up from 50 percent.

But that’s about it, actually. There will be some rearrangement of existing U.S. forces in Asia, with some Marines heading to Australia and an expansion of facilities on Guam. But this shell game of “strategic realignment” is largely an effort to reduce the U.S. military footprint on Okinawa, again something promised a while ago by Bill Clinton.

"Rebranding" is exactly what is going on. The Pivot is an exercise in branding, it is like all branding in that it is an exercise in creating the perception of value where no real value exists. Ironically, in the corporate world, where do branded products actually get manufactured? In China, of course. I noted last year that actual force redeployments were thin upon the ground. Dean Cheng at Heritage has also argued that the Pivot is more rhetoric than reality. Really, it is something marketed to the folks at home...

....while in the world outside, the deadly stupid business of producing terrorists in Central Asia and the Middle East via Obama's continued pursuit of Bush-era violence goes on, while Asia gets... warm fuzzies. The Pivot is also a classic example of how Obama always says the right thing and then does whatever the Bush Administration did. As I've noted, our policy has essentially become pacifying Afghanistan using American blood and treasure, in order to make it safe for Chinese expansion into Central Asia. Calling such a policy idiotic would be a compliment...

Wendell Minnick wonders aloud in DefenseNews whether the Senkakus mess will be the undoing of the Pivot....

America’s strategic rebalancing toward the Pacific — known as the “Asia pivot” — could meet its first unwanted test over the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands, now being challenged for control by China.

Could the Asia pivot’s true fulcrum be located on these desolate, rocky outcrops in the East China Sea? China, which calls them the Diaoyu Islands, claims they were stolen from it after World War II. Over the past two years, Beijing has taken aggressive actions to intimidate Japanese Coast Guard vessels in charge of safeguarding the islands’ territorial boundaries.

There are concerns an accidental war could be triggered by miscalculation or by China, in the spirit of nationalism, taking a calculated risk by invading the islands.

The question many are asking is: Would Washington fulfill its defense treaty obligations with Japan by taking an active military role to remove Chinese forces from the islands? Or would the U.S. hesitate for political and economic reasons to placate China? If so, what would this mean for regional confidence in America’s commitments to peace and stability?

This could be America’s “Suez moment,” said Paul Giarra, who heads Global Strategies & Transformation, a national defense and strategic planning consulting firm in Washington. It could be the moment when America, hobbled by massive debt, domestic political spasms and the lingering wounds of two exhaustive wars, finally realizes, as did Great Britain during the Suez crisis of 1956, that its ability to fulfill its international strategic commitment in a complex, multipolar world ends.

The remainder of the article is devoted to consideration of specific scenarios. One of the most critical costs of the Bush-Obama madness in the Middle East is its effect on Asia. Hadrian built walls as much to prevent imperial overstretch as to keep the people on the other side of the wall out of the Empire; the US should borrow that policy. But we won't...

The same theme runs through this article that runs through many similar articles about Taiwan: would the US really go to war over the Senkakus/Taiwan/Scarborough Shoal? The commonality, of course, is the declining power of the US. There's a whole industry back home devoted to writing about how the US isn't really in decline, but everyone out here can smell the carrion odor.

Including Beijing. The reciprocal of the question beginning Would the US.... ? is of course When will Beijing....?
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Daily Links:

• SPECIAL: Taiwan executes another six
• CIER revises growth forecast to 3.6%
• China deploys its "anti-carrier" missile on the coast opposite Taiwan
• You're not allowed to say the US is in decline, but a commentary in WaPo says we should push harder to get Japan to reverse its decline. To confront China. 
• Brief report of foreigner detention centers in Taiwan
• Great article citing TH Schee, an amazing and special person in the Taiwan IT world, on the open data movement in Taiwan.
• Beijing should redefine One China so it can get the Taiwanese to come in. LOL. 

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!