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Japan's island disputes show malaise: analysts
by Staff Writers
Tokyo (AFP) Aug 20, 2012


China media slams Japan over island dispute
Beijing (AFP) Aug 20, 2012 - China's state media criticised Tokyo on Monday, a day after Japanese nationalists landed on a disputed island, warning of the damage to ties and threatening more action by Beijing.

Around a dozen nationalists raised Japanese flags on an island at the heart of a territorial row between the two countries, just days after Tokyo deported pro-Beijing protesters who had landed on the island.

The English-language China Daily newspaper said the unfurling of Japanese flags on the island was an "affront" to China's sovereignty.

"Japan is building another wall in its relations with China and the Japanese intruders and their government seem hell-bent on freezing Sino-Japanese ties," it said an editorial.

"It would be a mistake for Japan to see China's use of reason and restraint to deal with the Diaoyu Islands dispute as its weakness," the editorial said, using China's name for the island chain, which Japan calls Senkaku.

China's foreign ministry registered a "strong protest" with Japan on Sunday after the landing and urged Tokyo to put ties back on track.

The People's Daily newspaper, mouthpiece of China's ruling communist party, said Japan should recognise the consequences of its actions.

"Using the Diaoyu Islands issue to pick a quarrel and provoke an incident with China not only damages Sino-Japanese relations but also hurts the feelings of the Chinese people," it said in an editorial.

Thousands of Chinese citizens in more than 20 cities protested on Sunday, in what some analysts said was the biggest wave of anti-Japanese sentiment since 2005, when several cities also saw protests over several issues.

The People's Daily called for negotiations to resolve the issue, repeating a similar call by the Chinese government made on Friday.

But the Global Times newspaper, known for its nationalistic stance, warned China could reciprocate if Japan increased its defence of the islands.

"China will definitely take further steps regarding Diaoyu," it said. "The reluctance to resort to military means doesn't mean China is afraid of war."

Japan detained and then released 14 pro-China activists and journalists who sailed from Hong Kong to land on the islands last week.

Tokyo's seeming fixation with squabbles over the outposts of its former empire are symptomatic of a foreign policy drift as Japan struggles to find its place in the 21st century, analysts say.

In a little over a month, three long-running territorial disputes have flared up.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev inflicted the first wound in early July with a visit to the Kurils, off the coast of Hokkaido, seized by the Soviet Union in the last days of World War II.

"I do not care," Medvedev told reporters when asked what he thought about Tokyo's "extreme regret" over his trip to what Japan calls the Northern Territories.

South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak sent relations plunging when he flew to Dokdo, islets in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) that Tokyo calls Takeshima.

And last week Tokyo deported 14 pro-Beijing activists who had sailed to a chain of islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, the most bitter of its territorial scraps.

Japanese nationalists hit back with their own landing on Sunday.

Each incident was deeply felt in Tokyo, where a directionless government, destabilised by domestic rows over nuclear power and consumption tax, is stumbling towards a seemingly inevitable election in the autumn.

All the disputed islands harbour valuable resources -- petrochemical, mineral or fishery -- but they are also strategically valuable in a part of the world keenly aware of the rising power of China.

"Senkaku is a window on the continent," said Hideshi Takesada, a Japanese professor of Asian Studies at Yonsei University in South Korea.

"If Japan lost Senkaku, it would lose a significant portion of its frontline defence.

"Moreover, a weak-kneed response will lead to similar results in other fields. China, for instance, may gain the upper hand in patent fights and other bilateral and regional disputes."

Issues linked to Japan's early 20th century expansionism, when it conquered large swathes of east Asia, often brutally, arouse particularly strong feelings in the region, said Takashi Terada of Doshisha University in Kyoto.

"Europe has more or less sorted out the legacy of the Cold War, but it is still visible in Asia. A lot of territorial disputes have remained unresolved," he said.

Indeed, Japan has never signed a peace treaty with Russia to formally end World War II because of the disagreement over the Kurils.

But Japan's inability to head off these fights or to put an end to them when they surface is, says Terada, a function of its listless domestic politics, which has left the country exposed on the global stage.

He says the inexperience of the Democratic Party of Japan, which came to power in 2009 after five decades of almost unbroken rule by the Liberal Democratic Party, is a problem, with key figures enjoying few of the personal cross-border links their predecessors developed over long periods in office.

The frequent changes at the top of government -- Yoshihiko Noda is Japan's sixth premier in as many years -- are destabilising, and give the impression Japan cannot hit back, he said.

China's economic rise and Japan's stagnation have also altered the regional balance.

"Neighbouring countries used to need Japan's financial and technological cooperation," he said. "In exchange for that, they would tone down their diplomatic stance."

The deterioration of Japan's relationship with the United States, with recent Tokyo administrations appearing lukewarm on ties with the country's most important security ally, have also given neighbours a way in.

"While Japan was firmly protected under its security alliance with the United States, it did not have to be so serious about territorial issues.

"But Japan's recent unfavourable relations with the United States are allowing China and South Korea to gain the upper hand."

But Tetsuro Kato of Tokyo's Hitotsubashi University warned Tokyo cannot simply go scurrying back to Washington.

This is partly because the US has no interest in getting its hands dirty in territorial battles where whatever it does risks damaging its own interests, he said, but also because the balance of world power has shifted.

"With the growth of China, Japan can no longer depend only on the United States," he said.

And with demands at home for something to be done, politicians could find themselves increasingly bounced into making the kind of statements Noda made last month when he said Japan could send in the military to defend the Senkakus.

Thomas Berger, associate professor of International Relations at Boston University, said in the short term there would be no actual military conflict.

"However, the growing embitterment of public sentiment in the region over territorial disputes is a source of real concern," he said.

"The possibility of a clash cannot be ruled out, and a regional arms race is already well under way."

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