Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 51, no. 6, December 2009–January 2010, pp. 29–35
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Japan, the United States and China will need to cooperate to secure the peace, stability and prosperity of Asia-Pacific and indeed the wider world. The three countries must work together to address such problems as climate change, threats to energy security, pandemic diseases, poverty and other urgent problems. With the inclusion of other countries from Europe and Asia in this framework, positive results can be expected.
The alignment of each country’s national interests is complicated, however, by differing views about human rights and other basic values, differences that, particularly in the case of China, can be fundamental. One such difference can be found in the field of national security. Japan and the United States wish to maintain the political status quoin Asia; China aims to challenge that status quo. In such cases there is a risk that the defenders of the status quoand its challengers will become trapped in a dangerous and counterproductive competition.
Sea change
Of particular concern to Japan is China’s expansionary strategy and its efforts to develop a powerful blue-water navy. Beijing has claimed the greater part of the South China Sea as its territorial waters. It has sought the means of controlling the waters east of what China calls ‘First Island Chain’ linking Kyushu, one of the main islands of Japan; the islands of Okinawa; Taiwan; and the Philippines. Recently, five Chinese ships harassed a US Navy surveillance vessel in international waters, while in late 2007 a new city was established to exercise administrative control over a district encompassing the Paracels, the Spratlys and the Macclesfield Bank. It is as though the East China Sea, the Taiwan Straits and the South China Sea have become China’s internal waters.
China will soon possess aircraft carriers. It already possesses a formidable 62-vessel submarine fleet. Its strategic nuclear submarines are stacked with nuclear missiles. The country has demonstrated the ability to destroy satellites, and to sneak up on a US carrier strike group. All this suggests that China is equipping itself with the capabilities to go westward beyond the First Island Chain and project power into the western Pacific. China also has a determined policy of denying the US Navy access, during times of contingency, to the Pacific west of the Second Island Chain, stretching from Yokosuka to the Ogasawara/Bonin Islands to Guam and the Marianas. Indeed, many analysts agree that by the year 2030 China will possess such a capability.1 China’s strategy is to prevent US forces from coming to the aid of Taiwan within the waters between the First and Second Island Chains. This would mean that the US and Japanese fleets could no longer operate freely in the West Pacific.
The problem of history
Another destabilising problem is the fact that Japan has still not achieved reconciliation with China over historical grievances. Indeed, the gap between the feelings of the citizens of both countries has widened, not shrunk, in the 60 years since the end of the Second World War. Since 1945, there has...
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Yukio Okamoto is President of Okamoto Associates, Inc., and Adjunct Professor, Faculty of International Relations, Ritsumeikan University. He served as Special Advisor to Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto (1996–98) and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi (2003–04) and as Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Task Force on Foreign Relations (2001–03).
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