As Good As It Gets

 

                        by  Bill Lee

 

He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot will be victorious.

— Sun Tzu

 

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has released his much awaited statement on the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Expectations for it ran the whole gamut, from very low – fears of a new outbreak of tensions if the statement turned its back on previous apology statements – to very high – hopes for a lasting period of reconciliation with a full-throated apology. While the fallout from the statement is still waiting to be seen, immediate reactions to it have been predictable. Xinhua rightly described the statement as being full of “rhetorical twists,” South Korean President Park Guen-hye said it left “much to be desired,” and the United States, Britain, and Australia welcomed the statement. However, none of the reactions have seemed to understand the statement from the Japanese context, and thus have missed what Abe was really trying to say. What is needed is a closer reading of the statement to understand Abe’s argument. In this paper I will first look at the buildup to Abe’s statement, provide a close reading of the actual language and arguments in the declaration, and consider China’s options from now in dealing with Japan.

 

Buildup

 

Worries about Abe’s 70th anniversary statement were spurred when the Abe administration launched a panel to look at the way the 1993 Kono Statement on Japan’s sex slaves was drafted. That statement and the way compensation was offered to the former sex slaves is a very good example of the deft – or tricky – “end run” maneuvers in Japanese diplomacy. Kono’s recognition of and apology for the military-controlled brothel system were certainly sincere and well-intentioned, and Kono himself, the only Liberal Democratic Party president not to become prime minister, has always had a dovish reputation within conservative circles. Japan could have resolved the sex slave problem then in 1993 by reinforcing Kono’s statement with appropriate compensation to the former sex slaves. However, the government, still bound, as with an albatross around its neck, to its position that all redress claims had been settled with the San Francisco Peace Treaty and other post-war agreements, refused to offer compensation from official government coffers, but instead hit on the alternative of providing its compensation through a private fund, the Asian Women’s Fund, which the government tried to sell as a fund representing all of the Japanese people, and not just the government, and thus an expression of the contrition of the nation as a whole. Not unsurprisingly many of the former comfort women were not taken in and rejected the offering. Although Abe has been often slammed by critics who claim he is trying to “whitewash” the issue, Abe has consistently maintained in Diet testimony that his administration will not alter the Kono Statement and that he is “deeply pained to think of the comfort women who experienced immeasurable pain and suffering.”

 

Abe’s grip on reality took a turn for the worse when he claimed in Diet testimony in 2013 that there was no established legal definition of “aggression.” Here Abe was clearly parroting the ultranationalist view that there were no internationally accepted statues in international law on aggression and that Japan did not invade China but was merely fighting a war of self-defense against Western aggressors. The absurdity of these claims was even refuted by the staunchly conservative government supporter the Yomiuri Shimbun, which in an editorial on August 7, 2015 stated:

[A]cts of sending troops into territories of a foreign country and infringing on its sovereignty have been defined by historians as ‘aggression’…the series of acts from the Manchurian Incident onward obviously constituted ‘aggression.’ It is irrational to refute that it was for the purpose of defense…It is not acceptable to argue defiantly that the United States and European countries also committed aggression. It is also wrong to assert that Japan waged the war for the liberation of Asia.

Abe nimbly defused the issue by saying that the “interpretation of history should be left to historians” and that since he is “not a historian,” he is not in a position to judge.

 

 

Abe also repeatedly said that his war statement would be “future-oriented,” which most observers believed that to mean Abe would not apologize for the war and would instead emphasize Japan’s international contributions since the war and presumably into the future. Indeed, at his much anticipated speech at the 60th Bandung Conference in April 2015, Abe offered no apology and only “deep remorse” over the war. Unlike former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s 2005 Bandung speech, Abe did not use the key words “colonial rule and aggression” or “heartfelt apology,” which China-baiter Koizumi did.

 

Thus the stage was set. Abe also made a closely watched speech to the US Congress at the end of April this year that seemed to provide further hints of what he would say in his war statement. He convened a panel – what is life without another panel – to give him their opinion on what he should include in his statement. And in the week or so leading up to August 14, when the statement was to be released, the news surfaced that Emperor Akihito himself would offer an apology for the war. This would clearly be a counterbalance to an apology-less statement from Abe that could save Japan’s skin.

 

Close Reading

 

The first sentence of Abe’s statement is significant: “On the 70th anniversary of the end of the war, we must calmly reflect upon the road to war.” Abe is poised to give a cool, objective account of the war. This is in contrast to the Murayama Statement, which begins with the declaration that “my heart is overwhelmed by a flood of emotions.” Abe then sets the historical context for the war by stressing the encroachment of Western powers, with “waves of colonial rule surg[ing] toward Asia in the 19th century.” Abe asserts that Japan modernized after the opening of the country by the Black Ships to protect itself, noting that Japan was able to keeps its independence. The idea that Japan was a savior country in the eyes of the colonized is introduced when Abe says Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War “gave encouragement to many people under colonial rule.” This is the standard nationalist line: Japan modernized to protect itself from predators and not to get in on the imperialist game itself, and Japan’s victory over Russia was due to its superiority, which it was, rather than to Russia’s long supply lines from St. Petersburg and military incompetence under a corrupt and dying Tsarist reign.

 

After briefly mentioning World War I and its aftermath, Abe discusses the run-up to World War II. The standard nationalist view, of course, is that Japan was forced to invade Manchuria and attack the United States at Pearl Harbor because of the economic stranglehold being put on Japan by the West and America’s oil boycott. Abe follows that line in a muted way. He notes that Japan at first “kept steps” with the international community in seeking world peace through the League of Nations and other efforts. “However,” he says, “with the Great Depression setting in and the Western countries launching economic blocs by involving colonial economies, Japan’s economy suffered a major blow.” He then says Japan became isolated and attempted to break out of the “deadlock” (ikizumari) with force, Japan’s own political system unable to control these moves. At the end of this analysis, Abe grudgingly admits Japan “took the wrong course” and advanced towards war. Although Abe concedes Japan was wrong, the tone of the description is oddly removed and passive. By using “Japan” (日本) rather than “our country” (我が国) as the subject for the sentences in these two paragraphs, Abe conveys the feeling that Japan was some kind of disengaged historical entity, a different country from the one of which he is now prime minister. Part of this aura of disconnectedness is due to the nature of the Japanese language, which emphasizes objective description over subjective explanation, but there are certainly ways around that, and I believe Abe intentionally sought to describe Japan in an “historical context” of being isolated and without options.

 

That is it for Abe’s explanation of the historical context for Japan’s belligerence. Abe’s statement that Japan “gradually [italics mine] transformed itself into a challenger to the new international order” surely surprised Koreans, who saw their country annexed by Japan in 1910. The interbellum period between the two world wars and into the Second World War indeed saw Japan enter the darkest chapter in its history. Yet in its early wars with China and Russia, Japan emerged with an excellent international reputation, at least according to Western observers of the wars at that time. The military historian S.C.M. Paine notes in her book The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 that Japanese soldiers, unlike later Russian soldiers, did not pillage the countryside but paid for all the food they took, and treated Chinese prisoners of war relatively humanely, though that is also disputed. The point is that Japan, intoxicated with power and conquest, changed into an evil force. That is something Abe and other nationalists cannot admit about their grandfathers’ generation, whom they see as kindly and noble (re: the famous photograph of Abe sitting on the knees of his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi, once held as a war criminal). They will never change their views, which are so deeply entrenched in their psyches.

 

Abe next offers his condolences to the war dead in three poorly written paragraphs, which likely satisfy no one. Abe (or of course the actual writers of the statement) probably considered long and hard whether to mention the Japanese war dead first and then the dead in the invaded countries or vice versa. Quibbles can be made about the order, but I do not think it matters much if the passages are well written. The detailed description of the suffering by the Japanese — the number (three million), location (battlefields, Hiroshima, Okinawa, etc.), and degree of suffering (extreme cold or heat, starvation and disease, etc.) — paints the Japanese as victims. The next paragraph focusing on the overseas war dead seems almost like an afterthought. It begins strangely: “Also in countries that fought against Japan….” The “also” makes it seem like just supplementary information, and the sentence order — “countries that fought against Japan” — gives the impression that Japan had a rather passive role. The right note would have been: “The countries that Japan invaded….” Rather than “Also in countries,” the Japanese original is “…kuniguni demo”, (even in countries). Why “even in countries”? Why not “in other countries as well”?

 

While lacking numbers and types and degree of suffering, except for “numerous innocent victims” and “severe deprivation of food,” this second paragraph does something remarkable: it mentions the sex slaves. Though the phrase “sex slaves” or the euphemism “comfort women” are not used, it is clear that the “women behind the battlefields” refers to the sex slaves. People can argue that they should have been explicitly named, but this is the first time sex slaves have been referenced in any of these prime ministerial statements.

 

The third paragraph begins with a very clear and unequivocal admission of wrongdoing: “Upon the innocent people did our country inflict immeasurable damage and suffering.” Nothing could be more straightforward than that. Here would have been the most logical and opportune point to offer an apology: “We caused immeasurable damage and suffering; I offer my heartfelt apologies for that.” It would have been a powerful moment that assuaged many wounds. Instead, with unintended irony Abe says that all this has made him “speechless” (kotoba o ushinai). A novel reason for not making an apology emerges. All of this grief has made Abe literally unable to make an apology because he has been rendered “speechless.” I wish Abe or the statement drafters had been a little more attentive here.

 

The next sentence is haiku-like in its brevity but seemingly pregnant with meaning: “The peace we enjoy today exists only upon such precious sacrifices. And therein lies the origin of postwar Japan.” (これほどまでの尊い犠牲の上に、現在の平和がある。これが、戦後日本の原点であります.) The “sore ga” in the original Japanese presumably refers to peace built on the sacrifices of the war dead. But what was the origin of postwar Japan? What was the psyche of the Japanese just after the war, particularly towards the countries they had invaded? Perhaps most ordinary Japanese were too preoccupied with just surviving and wanted to forget the nightmare of the last days of the war. But what of the political elite? Much has been discussed about the degree of guilt, shame, and sense of responsibility the elites felt about the war. Ruth Benedict of course maintained that Japanese felt shame rather than guilt, thus explaining a predisposition not to apologize out of guilt but to feel “deep remorse” out of a feeling of shame. Masao Maruyama famously pointed out that none of the war leaders felt a sense of responsibility for the war because everything was done in the name of the Emperor. Thus when the Emperor was not made to take responsibility at the Tokyo Tribunal, it obviated the need for any leader to take responsibility. However, these psychological assessments are difficult to validate. From a purely instrumental view, the postwar political leaders like Nobusuke Kishi and Shigeru Yoshida, supported and funded by the United States to stand against communist regimes in the Soviet Union and China and leftist groups in Japan, which wanted Japan to atone for the war, sought nothing more than to conceal Japan’s actions during the war, particularly their own. Moreover, South Korea and China were not in a position to demand apologies. South Korea had to deal with the Korean War, and the later regime of Park Chung-hee made no demands on Japan because of Park’s affinity for Korea’s former colonial overseer. Mao Zedong and the PRC were of course preoccupied with the civil war and so on, and were disinclined to make demands for an apology, especially considering the well-known fact now that Mao kept his troops from fully engaging the Japanese invaders and that the Kumomintang army bore the brunt for the resistance. Thus a number of purely instrumental reasons buried the need for apologies for the war.

 

Abe next paraphrases Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, quoting directly from it in saying that Japan will “never again resort to any form of the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.” He then says Japan “made this pledge” (そう誓いました) with “deep repentance for the war.” However, a “pledge,” although solemn, is not bound by law. Abe has turned the Constitution, which is the fundamental law of the land, into a “pledge.” Perhaps this is why he believes the Constitution can be changed simply by a reinterpretation of it by a sitting government.

 

The next paragraph has received the most attention. It is an apology, or at first glance, seems so. He uses the centerpiece phrases “deep remorse” and “heartfelt apology.” Yet it turns out that it is not an apology from him directly but a statement that “[s]uch a position articulated by the previous Cabinets will remain unshakable into the future.” It is not a personal apology directly from Abe, but a recognition that past administrations have apologized and will continue to do so in the future. Abe had hinted that he would not necessarily use the language of previous statements of apology, but he used all four key phrases in his statement: “aggression (shinryaku),” “colonial domination (shokuminchi shihai),” “deep remorse (tsusetsu na hansei),” and “apology (owabi).” Perhaps this was Abe’s “Plan B” version of his statement. With plunging approval ratings caused by his administration’s attempt to ram through his security-related legislation through parliament and the prospect of a visit to China in September that he did not want to endanger, Abe may have felt he needed to strike a conciliatory line by at least half-apologizing. It was another great irony as Abe tried to stave off his falling popularity, which is due to his China-inspired “war legislation,” by somewhat apologizing to save his trip to China, which he hopes will help him regain the trust of the Japanese (and Chinese) public. And he did not want to be hung out to dry by the possibility that the Emperor himself would offer an apology. In the end, however, the indirect apology was a politically expedient move that satisfied neither the Chinese or Koreans nor Japanese nationalists.

 

However, the key passage in the entire statement for me is the next paragraph. “[N]o matter kind of efforts we may make,” Abe says, “the sorrows of those who lost their family members and the painful memories of those who underwent immense sufferings by the destruction war will never be healed” (italics mine). That, in a nutshell, is how Abe views apologizing: no matter how often or deeply Japan apologizes, the wounds will never be healed; therefore, it is does no good (shikata ga nai) to continue apologizing. Indeed apologizing could be counterproductive. As Jennifer Lind points out in her book Sorry States, every time a Japanese leader apologizes for the war, some influential right-wing figure or organization refutes the apology, spurring charges that Japan is really unrepentant. Apologizing starts a downward spiral of denial, recrimination, strained relations, and so on. Apologizing, Abe seems to believe, is a broken record that continues playing the same old tune.

 

Then if not apologizing, what? Abe makes that clear next: expressing gratitude. Abe marvels at “how much emotional struggle” there must have been for the “Chinese people who underwent all the sufferings of the war” to become “so tolerant nevertheless.” Because of this tolerance, Abe says, Japan was able to “return to the international community.” Therefore, Abe concludes, “Japan would like to express its heartfelt gratitude to all the nations and all the people who made every effort for reconciliation.” Despite singling out China’s suffering, Abe particularly notes the “goodwill and assistance” extended by the United States, Australia, and the European nations, nations to which Japan was most interested in exporting its products in the postwar period. So it is gratitude rather than an apology that Abe would like to offer.

 

With an admission of guilt and an apology comes the need to provide compensation; with an expression of gratitude comes the desire to provide gifts. Japan has officially said that its compensation requirements have been all settled by past treaties and agreements. But gifts can be offered through official development assistance (ODA), which Japan certainly extended to China and South Korea as de facto compensation. In the end, Japan would have been better off calling all the billions of dollars it extended to China war reparations rather than ODA.

 

Abe spends the rest of the statement making his “future-oriented” promises about what lies ahead. He says that Japan will work for nuclear nonproliferation, the rights of women, alluding again to the sex slaves, free trade, poverty eradication, health care, education, and, finally, peace.

 

Options for China

 

Not surprisingly former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama was critical of Abe’s statement. Giving the pithiest appraisal of it, Murayama said, “It was full of flowery language, and I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say.” Britain, Australia, and the United States welcomed the statement, South Korea gave a “prudent” response, and China zeroed in on the lack of a personal apology from Abe.

 

With all the buildup to Abe’s statement and now that it has been made public, the ball seems to be in China’s court. What must President Xi Jinping be thinking about the statement? Perhaps not much. It was reported that when he was Hong Kong governor, Chris Patten complained to Deng Xiaoping how complicated things were in Hong Kong. Deng snorted, and said, “If you think it is difficult running Hong Kong, think what it is like trying to run all of China.” Xi Jinping surely has a lot on his plate now — the flagging economy, the stock market plunge, the Tianjin explosions, and so on. How must he see his options? There are three obvious options: 1) take a hardline, reject the statement, and demand a correct historical understanding; 2) keep up the pressure but show a willingness to engage Japan politically and economically; 3) accept Abe’s statement, put the past behind, and seek reconciliation. The first option would be emotionally satisfying, popular with public sentiment, especially the Weibo kind, and not in China’s economic interests. The third could win Xi Jinping a Nobel Prize for peace, placate the region’s apprehensions about China’s perceived potential for aggression, and open up a fresh new era in Sino-Japanese relations. The second option is the most likely. China has already ramped down tensions around the Senkaku Islands and, with Xi’s friendlier demeanor toward Abe at Bandung, indicated a more pragmatic course towards Japan. Xi knows China needs Japanese investment. Apparently, Abe’s visit to China during the ceremonies marking the “Victory Day of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japan” in early September is a done deal. Like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who attended a ceremony marking Russia’s victory over Germany but skipped the military parade, Abe will attend a ceremony or two commemorating the end of the war in China but will not attend the military parade. Abe’s visit at that time would certainly put Abe in the position of a supplicant and Xi in the position of a forgiving “emperor.” Through crafty diplomacy, Xi is in the driver’s seat.

 

Ghost Fleet, a new techno- military thriller written by two military analysts has taken Washington by storm. It is supposed to be a prophetic tale of how China overcomes America’s military might by technology to win the opening rounds in a future war against the United States. As a novel, it is lousy, as all such thrillers are, but it tries to show how the seeming technological and military superiority and hubris of a future China might all just be illusionary because, after all, America has tremendous military power and is not going to roll over and play dead. The book’s intended message is that military expansion is, in the end, a fool’s errand. It is hoped that Abe and his nationalists and Xi Jinping and the PLA will take notice, so that both sides can go back to the business of doing business.

 

Japan and China Military Space Programs

                                              by Philippe Valdois

Space plays a critical role in information gathering and communications. Space programs not only offer possibilities for scientific and other forms of cooperation but also could in addition, as history have revealed, become a catalyst for tremendous improvements in the relations between various countries. They also present risks, in particular weaponing of space and a possible new arm race. I will try here to offer a subjective analysis, focusing on the identification of various risks and offering some suggestions for improvement, looking at history, realities and perception, and the character of various actors implicated in decision-making.

It is not my purpose here to list all the landmarks and accomplishments of China and Japan in that field over the past 50 years or so. However, to start on a positive note, it should be noted that both countries have played a leadership role in recent years promoting regional cooperation, for example with the establishment in 1993 by Japan of the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum, APRSAF, the “Sentinel-Asia (Asian supervisors)” project in 2006 and the Space Application for Environment (SAFE) project in 2008. In China, we should mention the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization (APSCO) inaugurated in 2005, with a growing number of cooperation projects http://www.apsco.int/program.asp  . Those programs can be seen as similar to the European Space Agency efforts to involve smaller countries which could not afford it by themselves, offering them the possibility to participate in large scale programs and scientific experiments. I had a chance to attend the First International Space Exploration Symposium in Japan, in October 2012 and chat with Dr. Alain Dupas who talked about the pooling of resources http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/26535690 – Dr. Dupas presentation starts at 1:20:10). It was an opportunity to see how European space programs differed from US ones.

Those major initiatives put those countries at the center of any discussion on the future of space programs in the region, although we should not forget the role played by the U.S. as major partner of Japan and as a catalyst of many decisions taken by Japan.

To write this essay, I have found James Clay Moltz’s Asia’s Space Race, National Motivations, Regional rivalries and International Risk,  (Columbia University Press, 2012,) extremely valuable to understand the history and context of national space programs in the region, including their military, scientific and commercial aspects.

Political changes in Japan
Many events are shaping new policies regarding space efforts in Asia, as we enter the last trimester of 2014.

“Normalcy” has been one word associated by the medias with Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s vision for his country and interpreted in part by his government as a shift towards stronger defense capabilities. This includes Japan’s space program.

In August 2014, news came out that Japan was planning to launch a military space force to protect communications and reconnaissance satellites from debris orbiting the Earth. Personnel from the Air Self-Defense Force would acquire radar and telescope facilities to monitor space debris. Until 2008, Japan space mandate excluded military space activities and the country relied heavily on information shared by the US, but the attention became focused on space and national security with North Korea’s launch of a Taepodong 1 rocket in 1998 over the Japanese Archipelago.

In 1969, the National Space Development Agency was created to develop civil space activities and to represent Japan in its interaction with foreign space agencies, but Japan started receiving liquid-fuel rocket technology from the United States, and on the same year, the Parliament, fearing this technology could be used to develop ballistic missiles, adopted a resolution requiring that the space program be conducted only for civilian purposes.

To comply with the 1969 resolution the construction of a multipurpose satellite for Earth-observation operated by civilians, but able to be used for military purposes, was suggested and in March 2003, the first two of a series of satellites to constitute the Information Gathering Satellite (IGS) were launched.

In October 2003, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi merged the Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science (ISAS) with NASDA (National Space Development Agency) into the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) but following some technical failures a push for more reforms was to take place with the so-called Kawamura initiative. The Liberal Democratic Party thought too much emphasis had been put on scientific programs and not enough on user-oriented space applications. It also wanted to streamline the administration and free the country from the limitations of the 1969 resolution. Thus, in May 2008 the Diet adopted the Basic Space Law, allowing military uses of space.

In Chapter 2 Section 4 Outer Space and Security of its White Paper: Defense of Japan 2014 http://www.mod.go.jp/e/publ/w_paper/2014.html Japan Ministry of Defense mentions China only-as a country, by name-in section 1 dedicated to its own program, referring to the January 2007 Anti-Satellite (ASAT) test. It mentions the same test in section 4 (China) where it also says “the country is developing equipment that interferes with satellites capable of using lasers”.

Japan considers as key threats North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, but also Chinese growing military activities in South and East China seas. Improving its reconnaissance capability is vital. Japan is also keen on developing its missile defense system and needs reliable systems to communicate with its ships and troops deployed overseas (on UN missions, for example).

Already, after the failed missile test by North Korea in April 2009, voices were heard calling for a better cooperation with the United States against any threat to either country. Since any preventive action would include spy satellites, we might see how space policy might have been a factor in the Abe government’s decision to call for a different interpretation of the Constitution legalizing the right to collective self-defense and the nomination of Akinori Eto as Minister of Defense and Minister in charge of Security Legislation in early September 2014.

On the non-military side, Japan has since 2006 worked on a regional disaster-management system called Sentinel Asia, mentioned in the introduction. The Joint Project team included participants from Australia, Bangladesh, South Korea, People’s Republic of China, etc. JAXA is seen as being encouraged to play a somewhat similar role to the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) as part of a soft-power strategy, with launch access, satellites and training being provided to Asian countries as Official Development Aid.

On the military side, a similar strategy has been adopted, in particular through cooperation with the United States but also with India, South Korea and other Pacific countries. This was also the conclusion of James Clay Moltz. His Asia’s Space Race, National Motivations, Regional rivalries and International Risk was published two years ago, but his analysis was recently confirmed on August 31st, 2014, as a result of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi visit to Japan, with the elevation of bilateral ties to Special Strategic Partnership and the removal of six of India’s space and defense-related entities from its negative list known as Foreign End User List (see Asian Tribune, “We will help you”, Abe tells Modi, ties elevated to Special Strategic Partnership, Malladi Rama Rao, New Delhi, 02 September 2014) http://www.asiantribune.com/node/85321

There is a lack of transparency in certain aspects of the programs of both China, and Japan, which has failed in the past to list the orbital parameters of some of its IGS satellites, in violation of a UN Convention, arguing that other countries did the same. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2007/06/15/national/japans-spy-satellites-are-an-open-secret/#.VAwc9kum3rA

This did not later prevent Japan in 2007, when Shinzo Abe, was first in power, to be the only country to categorize the Chinese anti-satellite test (ASAT) as a “violation” of Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty.

China, the new space power

Beijing has often been criticized for its lack of transparency. One example was in January 2007 when the kinetic ASAT test we just mentioned was followed by a denial from China’s Foreign Ministry, then by attempts to justify what amounted to a radical shift from the policy of opposing weapons in space, thus damaging China’s reputation in the United Nations. I see many reasons to such criticism. Some are legitimate, and some have to do with perception. For example, on one hand, the public sees or imagines power in China as being highly centralized and authoritarian, but on the other hand, most Western specialists see it as fragmented with different institutions vying for control of a particular program. As I previously mentioned I will not paint a detailed history of China’s space programs but the list of the various entities involved show this pattern has existed for decades.

The difficulty to know who controls what and how it will affect the direction of space decision-making makes in fact other regional powers uneasy. The decision in 1993 to create the China National Space Administration (CNSA), presented as the equivalent of the NASA, while in fact most space research, production, etc., was the realm of the defense industry, was not conducive to trust. The creation of the powerful China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) came later in 1999 and clarified the situation. With its myriads of subordinate entities it could be seen as a group of subcontractors, like those working with other space agencies like NASA, but here under the control of the State. But the fragmentation of power in addition to leaving too much space for speculations has also been cause for legitimate concern. In April 2006 CNSA Vice Administrator Luo Ge visited the United States but when NASA Administrator Michael Griffin reciprocated he was denied access to the flight operations center and other facilities he wished to visit. Since these were military controlled, the refusal might have been the product of an internal dispute between the NCSA and the People Liberation Army (PLA).

The emergence of China as a military space actor is relatively recent since it started in the 1990s, when China quickly came to understand the importance of advance reconnaissance and communications satellites in military operations, in particular when looking at how modern, large scale military operations were conducted during the Gulf War. It is however too early to consider China as really engaged in an arm race. The U.S. greatly dominates the space scene in terms of number of satellites and experience and this dominance makes also the US fear that this dominance makes them particularly vulnerable, encouraging them to always stay one step ahead.

It is true that the US and Japan relying more on space-base technologies should have more to loose than China if a tit-for-tat situation involving the mutual disabling of satellites was to happen, but the lack of a major military ally and the sheer number of military assets deployed by the U.S. would precipitate a defeat for China. Things could change however if China developed the necessary technology to make possible the deployment of a great number of micro-satellites. Also, China now has to deal with the determination of countries like India to develop military space operations, the launch by Japan of a military space force, and the recent partnership agreement between Japan and India. I do not see improved Chinese militaries capacities as enough to force the U.S. and its allies to envision a “space Pearl Harbor” against the United States, the slowing down of the Chinese economic growth and the need to invest in domestic infrastructure would preclude it. A bloated military budget with strategic challenges developing in Europe and in the Middle East for the U.S.; the financial aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and the enormous debt in Japan; these are factors putting those countries in a situation where a new arm race would be financially catastrophic and conducive to more mistrust.  I will come back later on the origin, significance and implications of this “space Peal Harbor quote.

We already mentioned transparency. Another problem is the reluctance on the part of China to expose its scientific or technological shortcomings in some particular fields. When it should be proud of its achievements in human spaceflight, China will go to great lengths to dissimulate failures. It is a cultural problem and, as with other defense matters, it leaves the observer scratching his head, wondering if there are not military secrets dissimulated behind this wall of silence and assuming the worst-case scenario. To learn about one’s own shortcomings and improve them necessitates a measure of realism, which in this particular case necessitates in turn the ability to expose those shortcomings and candidly ask for support. Again, history has shown China benefiting from such approach. In fact at the JAXA Tokyo symposium I mentioned in the introduction, the Secretary General of the International Academy of Astronautics IAA – in Chinese said that China had unfortunately declined an invitation, to what was to be a successful event with informal exchanges between major industry players, adding China would always be welcomed!

However, as we have seen with Japan and its Sentinel Asia project, China has also a history of collaborating with other countries’ space agencies, like NASA from 1980s to the late 1990s, with ESA since the late 1980s, with Russia, starting in 1989 and in the 1950s with the Soviet Union, and with countries in the developing world. In fact, if China relied heavily on the Soviet Union in the 1950s for its missiles technology, it greatly benefited and learned from the exchanges with the United States following the Richard Nixon trip to China in 1972.

Twenty years later, two Chinese astronauts were to fly aboard the U.S. space shuttle. This cooperation encouraged in fact China to integrate the world space community, with 1988 being a turning point, when President Reagan allowed U.S.-made satellites to be launched on Chinese rockets and China joined two important space related international conventions. Those events, when compared to what followed later at the end of the 1990s, show the benefit of exchanges for maintaining peace and goodwill. They also help us understand how political changes in the United States in particular helped destroy this goodwill.

The Clinton administration started restricting space technology exchanges and years of mistrust followed, fueled by strong military and conservative politicians both in the U.S. and in China. Even after the November 2009 summit meeting in Beijing of U.S. President Obama with President Hu Jintao, which concluded with a joint statement including a call for expanding discussions on space science cooperation, scientific cooperation was halted by Republican Representative Frank Wolf http://news.sciencemag.org/technology/2011/04/spending-bill-prohibits-u.s.-china-collaborations

However, cooperation continued and is still growing with other countries, in particular since the 1980s with European countries. This might be a reason why China decided to adopt European instead of U.S. Technology for its mobile phone network!

Another conservative “villain” in the story would be Donald Rumsfeld. I used previously his own words: “Space Pearl Harbor”, to describe what amounted to a call for a new arm race. I would make mine the conclusions of Michael Krepon in his article Lost in Space: the Misguided Drive Toward Antisatellite Weapons, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2001 http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/57025/michael-krepon/lost-in-space-the-misguided-drive-toward-antisatellite-weapons

In addition, we sometimes hear about China’ plans to build its own space station and many in the public see this as a non-cooperative attitude on the part of Beijing, but what few people in the public recognize is that as a result of the publication of the controversial Cox Report in May 1999 http://www.house.gov/coxreport/ . China was denied access to the ISS.

All the previous events illustrate my point, regarding the toxicity of using as reference the past to deal with modern challenges. On the opposite, Deng Xiaoping, who studied and worked in France where he also met Zhou Enlai, another advocate for peaceful coexistence with the West who initiated some of Deng Xiaoping reforms, comes out as a very different type of leader whose policies for and his longing of promoting peace, cooperation, and prosperity helped raise the standard of living of hundred of millions of Chinese, even if we take into account a parallel rise in revenue inequalities. It is worth mentioning he was an architect of the emergence of China as a major space player.

Space applications and in particular communication satellites are also vital in China for maintaining domestic order. They not only help broadcast information but also authorize the transfer of data for the printing of national newspapers for example. In addition, the human spaceflight program and the recent lunar landing are showcasing to the Chinese people the capacity of the Communist Party to put China in a central position on the world stage and the technological benefits space programs under its direction can bring to them.

In strategic terms China, as we have seen, has no major ally at a time when alliances are developing in the region. It is not only facing Japan and India, but also the possibility of a conflict, which might involve the U.S., not only as a result of the future reinterpretation of Japan Constitution and the exercise of the right to collective self-defense, but also over Taiwan and disputed islands in South and East China seas. This in turn puts China on the defensive, fueling the need for Beijing to build a competitive hedge but more importantly to become an active participant and promoter of international treaties. I think positive results in terms of cooperation can only be obtained if the secrecy and reluctance on the part of the PLA to engage in military-to-military discussions are but the product of uncertainty and unpreparedness and are not rooted in mistrust going back maybe to the Opium Wars and a time that no man alive now has known. Even if mistrust has been born from events having happened less than a century ago, as was the case when a great scientist, Dr. Qian Xuesen, was deported by the United States in 1955 (see The Two Lives of Qian Xuesen by Evan Osnos, in The New Yorker, November 3, 2009 http://www.newyorker.com/news/evan-osnos/the-two-lives-of-qian-xuesen the page needs to be turned. Let us remember that this event took place in the McCarthy-era, a time when the press and the public blindly followed a one-man crusade before, a few short years later, making their mea culpa. Times like this happen in history when small men engaged in a personal crusade would be later forgotten if not for their association with controversial reports or a series of appearances in the media. Leaders should not follow this track.

The Obama administration has shown a willingness to engage in a fruitful dialogue as when the U.S. invited four ships from China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) to the Rim of the Pacific 2014 exercise in July 2014 http://news.usni.org/2014/07/02/china-invited-back-future-rimpac-exercises this should be one more reason for Asia-Pacific countries to cooperate more on space programs. Hurdles coming from individual hardline politicians will be removed over the years and opportunities should be used anytime they happen. The history of Chinese space program demonstrates it and also the fact that the nationalist flavor of success always gave place to pride in humanity’s accomplishments in general, when human and technological success is attained in space.

Another way to improve the dialogue, especially since as we have seen there is a thin line between civil and military space programs, is to focus on civil space cooperation between NASA, JAXA and NCSA. It would help build confidence on both sides.

It is also vital to educate the public regarding the complexity of the issues related to the economic, political and military components of space programs in Asia. Traditional geostrategic thinking, apart from dealing with ground bases, for example, shows its obsolescence when dealing with a borderless tridimensional environment such as space and might in fact exacerbate mistrust and tensions.

Finally, The question of debris in space is a major problem, which has to be addressed through international cooperation since it is a common threat. But this threat can also be used as a justification for greater monitoring of foreign satellites opening the way to the development of more ASTs.

Security in space, be it against debris or weapons, will be a vital interest for the more than 60 countries having satellites deployed in space, but it should not be a reason for pushing for militarization of space. However, the fact that those weapons can now be used or discussed in a non-military context, will assure their continuous development and will contribute to the blurring between commercial and military use of space, and if space race there is, we should be on the lookout for keywords such as “debris” and “microsatellites” since they will also play a growing dual purpose, along with the development of non-kinetic AST such as lasers.

Space is an open space without borders, which enables us to view Earth as a shared system. This provides us with an opportunity to change the dynamics in the Asian region and engage into or multiply discussions over various topics, including disaster prevention and environmental monitoring. The ESA offers good examples of multidisciplinary cooperation.

We have seen a growing interdependency since the end of the Cold War between Russia and various countries including the United States for the supply of vehicles to transport its astronauts to the ISS, but also of rocket components. In return, Russia is dependent on those exportations. It is even true for Ukrainian commercial rockets that heavily depend on Russian components.

For all these reasons, space cooperation might not only be a dream but also a necessity, and the beginning of a real Asian community might also well be the indirect product of space cooperation.  

 

 

On the Road to War—The Deterrence Gap

 

                                                             by Bill Lee

Deterrence is the art of producing in the mind of the enemy the fear to attack…The whole point of the doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret!

— Dr. Strangeglove, 1964

 

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has finally moved very near to realizing his goal of getting approval for the exercise of the right of collective self-defense (CSD); meanwhile, China is continuing its relentless buildup of its armed forces, particularly with regard to aircraft carriers and aircraft. With North Korea thrown into the mix and heightened disputes pitting China against Vietnam and the Philippines in the South China Sea, the course seems set for a sharp escalation of the arms race in East Asia. No one of course knows where this will precisely lead, but at least a Cold War-like stand-off between the United States, Japan, Australia, and other allies in the Asia-Pacific region and China and a Ukraine-minded Russia is clearly looming, with increasingly likely possibilities that armed clashes could occur at any time. The adherents of CSD in Japan claim that CSD will serve to “deter” China; at the same time, China also invokes the concept of deterrence to justify its arms buildup. But is “deterrence” still a valid concept, one that can be relied upon to preserve peace? This paper will examine the slide toward CSD in Japan, the current situation of China’s defense deterrence, and the prospects for China’s aircraft carriers providing the deterrence to prevent war in the region.

 

Dreams into Nightmares

 

As I pointed out in a previous paper (“Becoming Normal – Japan’s Rising Militarism,” October 27, 2013), the Abe Cabinet carefully paved the way toward approval of collective self-defense by creating a National Security Agency, passing a National Secrets Act, revising Japan’s National Defense Program Guidelines, bypassing the Cabinet Legislation Bureau, and so on. In a Cabinet decision on July 1, 2014, the Abe Cabinet authorized the exercise of CSD. The opponents of CSD had plenty of ammunition with which to fire back at the decision. Abe et al claimed that the main reason CSD was necessary was because the “security environment around Japan had changed.” The countries most responsible for precipitating this change are, presumably, North Korea and China. But 20 years have passed since the Agreed Framework was signed to end the DPRK’s nuclear program, and although of course North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests of varying success and continues to test launch its missiles, the Kim Jong Un regime has been keeping a relatively low profile – perhaps test-firing missiles to grab a few meager headlines. Indeed the Abe administration has stepped up its overtures to North Korea to resolve the abduction issue, belying its claim that the DPRK is a probable imminent threat. China has certainly been building up its military capability within the last several years, tightening the security environment, but it was of course Japan’s nationalization of the Senkaku Islands that sparked the current row over the islands. And even dimmer wits in the Abe administration cannot fail to see that approving CSD will only increase tensions in the region, this rationale of a changed security environment ironically only serving to hastening the spiraling of tensions as China and then Japan successively react to the other’s moves.

 

Another objection against the Abe administration’s rationale for CSD is that the scenarios upon which the administration and Abe’s handpicked panel of “experts” considering CSD based their justification for CSD were unrealistic, such as the possibility North Korea would launch a missile strike against the United States or attack a US naval vessel on the high seas. Even a former fleet commander-in-chief of the Maritime Self-Defense Force, Yoji Koda, wrote in Bungei Shunju that the scenarios are effectively meaningless because each scenario considers only the initial option, while in reality, the initial scenario option is never that clear – is North Korea firing at a US vessel or another vessel nearby? – and the subsequent responses and counter-responses were never considered by Abe’s civilian “experts.”

 

But the greatest objections to CSD came in reaction to the way CSD was approved – through a Cabinet decision that bypassed all democratic processes. As is well-known by now, amending the Japanese Constitution requires approval by a two-thirds’ majority in both chambers of the Diet, and then a simple majority in a national referendum. Abe rather breathtakingly bypassed all that by having his Cabinet simply declare an effective change in the Constitution. It has been pointed out that Abe has no understanding of the function of the Constitution and the prime minister’s subordinate relationship to it. Abe’s concept of the function of a national leader is grounded in a very Confucian mindset in which the leader is a sovereign who is “responsible for the Japanese people” (Abe’s words). What Abe forgets, or does not understand, is that he is responsible for protecting the Japanese people in accordance with the nation’s laws. The procedural waters are often intentionally muddied in Japan, and a good example is the Japanese legal system, which is based on a merging of the Napoleonic Code (think the labyrinthine Kamakura bakufu edicts) and English Common Law, the basis for the current Constitution. In the United States, for instance, the Supreme Court decides the constitutionality of laws, but in Japan, while the Japanese Supreme Court should also assume that prerogative, in fact it is the Cabinet Legislation Bureau (CLB) that does so. But the problem is the CLB has no constitutional authority to render final judgments on constitutionality; its power resides in custom.

 

This kind of discussion leads inevitably to the question of whether Japan is really a democracy or not. It can be argued that the Japanese Supreme Court has been left feckless and conservative intentionally by appointing judges at late ages who have passed through the judicial ranks by hewing to an authorized line. Critics of the political system point to the large number of hereditary lawmakers and the disparities in voting power. But what does this have to do with CSD? Potentially a great deal. As will be discussed in more detail later, deterrence depends on how the other side views your capability and likelihood of using military force. For China, the alarming aspect of Japan’s move toward exercising the right of CSD is not Japan’s military capability per se but the ease with which Japan could apply it. China should be wary that Japan, under a crypto-tyrannical leader like Abe, could quickly shed its democratic skin and engage in military action by diktat. Still fresh in mind is Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso’s reported comment that the Nazis were able to deftly change the Weimer Constitution without anyone really noticing, and then suggesting, “Why don’t we learn from their tactics?” It appears that Abe followed Aso’s Nazi-inspired advice.

 

But little in Japan is completely black and white, and, like its population, there is a great deal of gray. Public opinion was unexpectedly quite critical of Abe’s railroading of approval for the exercise of CSD, with, according to the opinion polls, up to a strong majority against the administration’s action. In July the LDP suffered a turnaround setback in a bell-weather gubernatorial election, likely, in part, because of the reinterpretation of CSD. Abe was apparently spooked enough by the groundswell of opposition to put off submitting CSD-related legislation to the Diet until next year, rather than in the fall, as he had originally planned. (As an interesting sidebar to illustrate Abe’s political adroitness, Abe has decided to create a new ministerial post to shepherd the CSD-related bills through the Diet. He wants LDP Secretary-General Shigeru Ishiba to take the post, first, because Ishiba is a supposed expert on defense issues, and, second, since Ishiba is Abe’s chief rival for control of the party, by having Ishiba take up a Cabinet post, he will be able to neutralize Ishiba. Ishiba is in a quandary: if he accepts the post, he could lose his chance to become prime minister; if he refuses, he can be accused of putting self-interest above the interests of the country, particularly since he proclaims himself to be such an expert on security matters and would, presumably, be the ideal person to take the post.) The upshot of all this is that while Abe could initially usurp the laws of the land to try to carry out a militaristic venture, the opposition — in other words, democracy — in Japan might be strong enough to stop him.

 

The United States of course backs Japan’s exercise of CSD as there are absolutely no downsides for the US. America wants Japan to exercise CSD because: 1) it reduces the military and financial burden on the US, 2) integrates Japan more fully and effectively into security missions, and 3) (in the minds of some) prevents Japan from being too independent militarily. It has been charged that the United States has been after Japan to exercise CSD like a “dog barking after a car but with no idea what to do when it catches it.” However, the US military presumably wants the SDF for minesweeping operations, reconnaissance and surveillance, and ballistic missile defense. The US government also strongly supported the Abe administration’s state secrets legislation, eager to prevent the further leakage of US military secrets. The upcoming formal review of the Japan-US defense cooperation guidelines before the end of the year was also one of the factors leading the Abe administration to hurry through with the Cabinet decision approving CSD. If there was any doubt about the US position towards Japan’s exercise of CSD, it was completely dispelled when US Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy, a staunch liberal but of course a representative of the US government, came out with a “statement of support for collective self-defense.”

 

Great Wall of China

 

If it was not very effective militarily, China’s Great Wall was at least a metaphorical indicator of China’s intense desire to keep out invading barbarians. But China’s new Great Wall — the Western-termed Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) strategy — is a very formidable and effective deterrent against outside threats, particularly from the United States. I do not know which genius Chinese general or military theorist put together this comprehensive “counter-intervention” strategy, but it seems apparent that China closely studied America’s successes in Desert Storm and NATO’s operations in the Balkans and realized that stopping the projection of air power was crucial for any defense of its homeland.

 

China’s A2/AD strategy is centered on five platforms: 1) land-attack missile systems, 2) anti-ship missile systems, 3) submarines, 4) air defense systems, and 5) cyber-attacks. They are all pretty much concerned with stopping air attacks. In Desert Storm, the Chinese realized how easy it was for the US military to fly in assets to staging areas next to Iraq for the invasion. The crucial point is to prevent an enemy from easy access to, and freedom of action in areas near, China. China now has the short- and medium-range ballistic missiles able to attack Okinawa and even Guam. In a conflict, if China took out US and Japanese military bases in Okinawa, the US military would be forced to stage operations from Guam, the distance from China causing enormous logistical and operational problems. China’s anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM), particularly its DF-21D ASBM, and anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM) could sink US naval vessels, including its aircraft carriers. Chinese submarines, once derided for being so noisy, have become much more sophisticated, with their air independent propulsion systems, and the incident in 2006 when a PLAN submarine stalked a US aircraft carrier group and then surfaced within firing range without being detected shows how advanced China’s submarines have become. China’s surface-to-air missiles (SAM) and air force make up an effective integrated air defense system (IADS) that could prevent US air superiority, something the US military has almost taken for granted everywhere else in the world. China’s fifth-generation prototype fighters, the Chengdu J-20 and the Shenyang J-31, have been making successful test flights and could repel US fifth-generation fighters from Chinese airspace. Disrupting communications is also crucial in modern warfare, and China’s cyber-attack capabilities are well-known. China’s cyber-attacks against US government networks are a matter of record, and China demonstrated that it could shoot down a satellite in 2007. China’s A2/AD strategy has the capability not only to deter and repel an invasion but also to push back the US military further out into the Pacific and away from Asia because its aircraft carriers are now more vulnerable, thus reducing the US presence in Asia (note the foundering US “pivot to Asia”).

 

Big Boys

 

Despite the highly deterrent-effective capability of A2/AD, why then is China diverting precious resources to a dubious symbol of force projection: aircraft carriers?

 

In January this year, Wang Min, the Communist Party chief of Liaoning Province made the first “official” announcement at a people’s congress meeting that China had started construction of its first indigenous aircraft carrier in Dalian (some reports say Wang said two carriers are being constructed there) and that China would have four aircraft carriers in the future. Considering his senior position in the party, Wang Min’s statements have credibility. China of course already has its well-reported Liaoning aircraft carrier, even toured by US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. The tour was probably less an attempt at transparency on the Chinese side than a recognition that, to paraphrase Dr. Strangeglove: What good is a doomsday machine if no one knows you have it?

 

Plugged-in news portals in Hong Kong and elsewhere report that China has already started construction of two Type 001A carriers at the Dalian shipyard and one Type 002 carrier at the Jiangnan shipyard on Changxing Island in Shanghai. Photographs have already appeared on the Internet of what appears to be the aircraft carrier under construction at the Jiangnan shipyard. Though bigger, the Type 001A carriers are modeled after the Liaoning. However, the most important index for assessing a carrier’s firepower is the number of sorties it can launch. The sortie rate for US Nimitz-class carriers is 160 aircraft per day. The most optimistic sortie estimates for the Liaoning put the rate at around a third of that, 55 sorties per day. The main reason China is modeling its first domestically produced carriers after the Liaoning is because, despite the Liaoning‘s deficiencies, since China already has experience refitting the Liaoning, it should be easier and faster to construct similar carriers. But the Type 001A carriers will also be remodeled to facilitate the faster movement of fighters from the hangar to the flight deck and to incorporate the possible use of catapults for take-offs. These and other changes should increase the sortie rate from the Liaoning‘s 54 to 100 or so aircraft per day.

 

The Type 002 carrier will reportedly be commissioned in 2019, one year after the Type 001 carriers. It will apparently have a flat, angled deck, rather than a ski jump-type deck, catapults, greater size, more sophisticated weapons systems, and the potential to be nuclear-powered. A nuclear-powered carrier would be important for China because, unlike the United States, China does not have naval bases around the world, so a nuclear carrier would not have refueling restrictions. The Type 002 carrier should also be able to carry China’s new J-31 stealth aircraft. Though roughly similar to Kitty Hawk-class carriers in tonnage, the Type 002 should significantly surpass them in firepower, but still be behind Nimitz-class carriers.

 

Aircraft carriers do not travel alone of course, and China has rushed to build a range of submarines, missile destroyers, cruiser escorts, frigates, corvettes, and supply ships to make up carrier strike groups.

 

Sitting Ducks

 

The question is why China wants to spend so much money for aircraft carriers. Many commentators suggest that it was the “aircraft carrier shock” China received when the United States sent two carriers to the Taiwan Strait during the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis. Spooked by that show of intimidating force, China soon accelerated its military buildup.

 

Of course aircraft carriers have an irresistible allure for military and state leaders. They are an ultimate symbol of threat projection, military power, and state might; they have, to put it crudely, a phallic presence. But like all such psychosexual projections, they can easily become dysfunctional, considering all the lost time needed for training and dry-docking maintenance, repairs, overhauls, etc., which takes them away from active service.

 

I believe there are three major reasons why China’s expansion of its aircraft carrier fleet is unnecessary.

 

1) Endless catch-up — At present, the total firepower of the Liaoning just surpasses that of the US Midway-class carriers, which have already been mothballed. Although China appears to be building a Type 002 possibly nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, it will still have less firepower than a current Nimitz-class carrier and be far behind the Ford-class supercarriers, which will have 50% to 70% greater firepower than the Nimitz-class carriers and are scheduled to be in continuous construction up until 2058. China has made tremendous strides with its aircraft and missile weapon systems, its fifth-generation stealth fighters being a serious threat to similar-class US fighters. But aircraft carriers are a very complex and massive integration of networks and systems, and China will likely not be able to close the gap with the United States as readily as it did with stealth fighters, chiefly because of America’s huge head start. The risk for China is that it will throw its money and resources into a bottomless pit to try to catch up, a fruitless arms race that could cost China $9 billion for one carrier (the newest US carrier will cost $13 billion) — about the amount Japan spends for its entire Official Development Assistance (ODA) outlays in one year — and force it to spend millions of dollars per day to operate a single carrier strike force. As mentioned above, China already has a very strong foundation for its Anti-Access/Area Denial defense, so its defensive needs are already well-served.

 

2) Chasing pirates? — Aside from the prestige involved, what will China do with an aircraft carrier-centered blue-water navy? Unlike the United States, which has commitments around the world, China has no collective self-defense obligations with any other countries, except possibly North Korea. It needs to play no role as a global policeman. In the late 1970s the United States tried to cut spending sharply for aircraft carriers, but the Iran crisis required carrier battle group deployments in the Middle East, and spending cuts were eased. The current ISIS attacks into Iraq highlight the need, from the Western perspective, for carrier deployments to launch airstrikes against extreme Islamist forces. But where does China stand in these global crises? The most plausible reason for China to have aircraft carriers is to protect its energy lifeline of oil tankers going to and from the Middle East. But if this lifeline were threatened, so would that of other countries; China could ally with those countries, including the United States, to protect these maritime transport corridors. And where would these threats come from? From Somali pirates? Sending an aircraft carrier strike group to deal with a bunch of pirates seems a bit of overkill. It would be much cheaper just to bribe them not to attack your ships. If key sea lanes were mined, China could ironically team up with Japan, as it has in the Gulf of Aden, for demining operations, since both countries depend on the narrow passageway between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden for their energy shipments. A wonderful irony would arise if Japan could send its minesweepers to the region, as Prime Minister Abe wants to do through the exercise of the right of CSD, to rescue the energy lifelines of both Japan and China. Elsewhere in the world, China would probably want to protect the countries where it has invested the most. According to CNBC, the top three countries for China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) are (1) Hong Kong, (2) the Cayman Islands, and (3) the British Virgin Islands. It is hard to see China sending aircraft carriers into Victoria Harbour to quell local dissidents, or to the Cayman Islands to protect the bank accounts of its rich.

 

3) On the road to war — Aside from nuclear weapons themselves, aircraft carriers can be called the highest expression of deterrence because (1) they are very intimidating threat projection, and (2) if they are attacked, the attacking side can expect a full retaliation. It is easy to understand the second reason. Aircraft carriers are so expensive and, with 5,000-6,000 people on board, they are “cities on the sea”; losing one would necessitate a full-scale retaliation.  Chinese military sources say that the new aircraft carriers currently under construction will be deployed at naval bases in Hainan Province, which faces the South China Sea. Thus the most immediate utilization of the carriers would be to bolster China’s military activities in the South China Sea against Vietnam, the Philippines, and other countries with which it has territorial disputes, and also in the East China Sea against Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. This would be extremely provocative and be like throwing a match in a tinderbox. As mentioned above, aircraft carriers have a highly deterrent effect, but this deterrence can quickly and dramatically diminish because in this day and age of very sophisticated submarine and anti-ship ballistic missile capabilities, aircraft carriers are akin to the proverbial sitting duck. If China deployed an aircraft carrier to the East China Sea and tensions escalated to the point where the carrier used its firepower, it would be vulnerable to US or Japanese anti-ship missiles from submarines or land. If the Chinese carrier were sunk or badly damaged, China would retaliate in strength and the outcome would be the unthinkable: full-scale war.

 

Conclusion

 

Both Japan and China justify the bolstering of their military capabilities as necessary for “deterrence.” Under the Abe administration’s explanations, it is difficult to see how Japan’s exercise of collective self-defense per se could present much of a military threat to China, but the disguised nature of those explanations and the Abe Cabinet’s ignoring of democratic processes should alarm China. At the same time, it is difficult to see what lasting deterrence Chinese aircraft carriers will provide to bolster China’s already formidable and effective A2/AD defensive strategy and, indeed, what their actual function will be. In the name of “deterrence,” both sides are reinforcing and ramping up tensions that could easily spiral into full-scale conflict.

 

Report On A Trip To The Korean DMZ

RG21 Researcher and global strategist Philippe Valdois recently made a trip to the DMZ seperating North and South Korea. Here are some of his thoughts on what he experienced. ED.

No other place on Earth can compare with the Korean Demilitarized Zone or DMZ for the weight of history it carries and as a place of unresolved animosities.

 I recently was offered the chance to visit part of the long gone village of Panmunjom, now the Joint Security Area, as a guest of the United Nations Command. Situated inside the DMZ, a strip of land 4 km wide and 250 km long separating North and South Korea, it has been the site of all negotiations between the 2 countries since the signing of the Armistice Agreement, on July 27, 1953, when each side agreed to move back their troops back 2,000 meters from the front line. It is also the most militarized border in the world. The line running in the center of the DMZ, the Military Demarcation Line, also goes through Panmunjom and in particular down the middle of the conference tables inside the buildings. When the main conference building is unoccupied, visitors have the possibility to stand on the North-Korean side of the table. Before that they have to be briefed and to sign a Visitors Declaration (UNC REG 551-5) warning that “The visit to the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom will entail entry into a hostile area and possibility of injury or death as a direct result of enemy action.”

 This is not in fact a trivial matter. Since the mid-60s’, many incidents have occurred in the DMZ resulting in deaths, including some inside the JSA.  The most famous one is the so-called axe murder incident, in 1976, when North Korean soldiers attacked members of a work party trimming a tree blocking the line of sight from a checkpoint situated at the entrance of the Bridge of No Return (where the return of prisoners of war had taken place decades before). Two unarmed US officers were murdered and the incident was filmed. Now a sobering monument marks the site where the tree originally stood.

The second major incident happened in 1984 when a Soviet defector ran across the MDL. Four people were killed in the resulting exchange of fire.

 It is however necessary to note than if, for the most part, incursions by the North-Korean agents across the DMZ, and the discovery of four tunnels having certainly be dug by North Korea to facilitate an invasion, have made the news, the North had also to contend with a number of raids and sabotage operations by South-Korean forces. Partly declassified documents such as this one http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76ve12/d286 show that such actions have taken place. Those operations, few of them having been made public, could only antagonize an already paranoiac regime.

 I came out of this visit and another to the War Memorial of Korea, convinced that it might take decades for trust to be built between the two sides. Manufactured or not, fear is a day-to-day reality for the people of South Korea. It is evident that with the present regime in North-Korea, peace and unification will not happen, but it is also clear that from a geopolitical perspective, support to a regime which has done so little for its people can only make this situation worse and encourage North-Korea to isolate itself.

 

Notes On A Visit To China (3)

Bill Lee

 From March 25 to 30, I made another short visit to China — this time to Shenyang in northeastern China and Beijing. The icy relations between Japan and South Korea began to thaw slightly when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye met together with President Barack Obama in Geneva at the Nuclear Security Summit at his urging. Prime Minister Abe made a statesmanlike gesture by greeting President Park in Korean, but Abe still sends mixed signals on the sex slave and other issues, and Park appears intent on proving to her constituency in South Korea that she is not pro-Japan, as her father was. There was also a resumption of official talks between Japan and North Korea after a long hiatus. President Xi Jinping was in Europe for a grand tour, grabbing headlines in the China media for enhancing China’s global presence, while at home unprecedented corruption cases were building against very high-level former and current Chinese party officials.

                                                                          Shenyang

The infamous Mukden Incident, when the Japanese Imperial Army allegedly blew up part of a railway as a pretext for invading Manchuria, occurred near Shenyang, then called Mukden. A large memorial marks the spot, with the date of the Incident, September 18, 1931, etched deeply and dramatically in the memorial wall. In Shenyang last month, Japanese and North Korean officials met to discuss the abduction issue, which Japan keenly wishes to resolve, but the negotiations are seen as creating a possible rift between Japan and its partner countries the United States and South Korea. Shenyang is also fairly close to North Korea, and a noticeable Korean presence exists in the city. For many observers of North Korea, a Hamletian dilemma grips them as they question whether to engage or not to engage the DPRK. The official US line is that North Korea should not be engaged, considering their supposed reneging on past agreements that has made the United States conclude that it “would not buy this horse for a third time” (then Defense Secretary Robert Gates), unless they agree to negotiate an end to their nuclear program. In an article in NK News, B.R. Meyers says, “No tour group [to Pyongyang] is complete without at least one suck-up.” A suck-up is one who bows to the statue of Kim Il Sung, as used to be required a number of years ago, apologizes for US actions against the DPRK, or otherwise tries to engage North Korea. In the US State Department, being labeled an “engager” of the DPRK is probably a kiss-of-death career-wise. Meyers likens engagers to the foreign visitors to the 1936 Berlin Olympics who went home “with a better view of Hitler than before,” or as Neville Chamberlains. Engagement is seen as propping up the status quo; isolation or boycotts are the answer. Certainly boycotting South Africa helped to dismantle apartheid, but the problem is that North Korea is already isolated; further isolating it will likely have no effect if China continues its infusions of aid.

 

Articulate North Koreans can make a strong case for engagement. Some “officials” can become quite expansive, but not unguarded, in expressing themselves, especially if they feel some bond of trust with their interlocutors. When asked about Dennis Rodman’s recent visit to the DPRK, one official said, with some embarrassment, “Anyway, he is gone and that is over.” On the current situation in the DPRK, one immediately said that they had “gotten rid of” Jang Song Thaek because he had “mismanaged” the economy, only wanting to build hotel resorts, and promote himself. One wonders how closely associated Jang was with the newly built luxury ski resort in North Korea. Did sour business disputes precipitate Jang’s fall, as the main South Korean intelligence agency claims?  Jang wanted to open up the country to gain foreign currency, and a ski resort would fit that bill. But on the other hand, Kim Jong Un was seen touring the facility, clearly enjoying himself and deeming it “at the center of the world’s attention.” One can only speculate; that is the nature of the game.

 North Koreans are also grateful to George W. Bush. Because of his administration’s veiled threat to destroy North Korea, the North Koreans felt justified in developing their nuclear weapons for protection. They are more ambivalent about somebody like Bill Clinton. North Korea also believes the United States is using North Korea as the “bad boy” in Asia to explain its presence there and “justify its arms buildup.” Apparently, North Korea would negotiate with the United States on two conditions: the signing of a peace treaty and compensation to North Korea for “Cold War debts.” One North Korean said, perhaps straining credulity, that North Korea “wants to become like Switzerland” and could become a buffer between the United States and China. Could North Korea become America’s friend? Why not, say the North Koreans. The United States now has friendly relations with Vietnam, its former enemy (not to mention Japan). A final bit of North Korean Yin/Yang wisdom: “Don’t make friends; recognize them,” and “Never accept anything; but don’t refuse anything.”

 We saw some main must-see sights in Shenyang. The former residence of Zhang Zuolin and Zhang Xueliang is an interesting compound filled with period receptions rooms, offices, and houses and bedrooms for the various wives of the two warlords of Manchuria. Zhang Zuolin, the father, was assassinated by the Japanese to allow his then opium-addicted son, Xueliang, to take power because they thought he would be more malleable. But that didn’t turn out to be the case as Xueliang transformed himself into a fervent patriot, and even kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek in 1936 — the Xian Incident — to get him to join forces with the Communists to drive out the Japanese invaders. He was later exiled to Taiwan and ended up in Honolulu, where he lived to 100. Legend has it that Xueliang flipped coins, which are lovingly preserved, to decide whether to assassinate two officials considered too pro-Japan. The two officials lost the toss.

 In Shenyang, one must of course visit the Imperial Palace, a vast complex and the only existing royal palace in China other than the Forbidden City. Like the palace complex in Beijing, the Shenyang Imperial Palace is meant to impress, which it grandly does with its sweeping spaces, high walls, and imposing buildings. Shenyang’s air was quite polluted so it was a welcome respite to go to Beiling Park, where the Zhaoling Tomb is located. The Tomb is a vast area, divided into three parts, and filled with pine trees, a moat, gates, and pavilions, it offers a tranquil refuge from the city. At the northern end of the park is the Underground Palace, the tomb of the Emperor and his wife, which sits under the Treasure Top, a man-made hill, which one walks around along the “crescent” path. Of discordant interest was the presence of two cosplay girls, in full anime regalia, being photographed by a pack of men with expensive cameras.


RG21-Shenyang.jpg           Treasure Top at the Zhaoling Tomb. Note the solitary tree at the top of the mound.


 Food in northeastern China is hearty, with meat stews, pork “tempura” – razor-thin slices of pork fried in batter — and the delectable pan-fried crepes stuffed with Chinese chives and shredded shrimp.

Going to Beijing by high-speed train was worthwhile, if nothing more than to compare the ride with the journey from Beijing to Shanghai. The train for the latter trip is usually filled with businesspeople, who tend to be quieter, thinking about their business deals. But the trip from Shenyang appears to bring the northerners to Beijing, which makes for a more raucous and vivid journey. One tip: buy a box lunch in the dining car early-on because they sell out fast and only frozen lunches are left.

 Among other places in Beijing, we walked around the campus of Renmin University, where it was interesting to see the students reciting English out-loud repeatedly, which is why Chinese students are better than Japanese students at English, ate chocolate at Godiva’s Beijing flagship store, enjoyed a massage with a young woman stepping on your back, and strolled around the Houhai district, where a lot of bars — some featuring eye-catching pole dancers near the entrance to draw you in — cafes, and “live” houses are located.

 I also realized why so many Chinese people want to shop in Japan, the States, or Europe. It’s not because the goods are necessarily better there; they’re cheaper. I wanted to buy some carry-on luggage, thinking it might be cheaper, but found that in the up-scale department stores, the luggage was about three times more expensive than what I could get in the US, granted, though, it was better quality. Income disparities notwithstanding, it’s great to be the second biggest economy in the world.

                                                                     RG21-Amy-1.jpg

                                                              ShaoMing Ou, RG21 Publisher

Okinawa and China interpretation of the UNCLOS as part of a grand strategy

                                                   by Philippe Valdois 

Okinawa

Okinawa has long been at the center of the 1960 U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, and since the decision by the Obama administration to implement a Pacific pivot or rebalancing, even if not the only place concerned by the building of American military assets in the region, it will play a growing role. This might be of concern to China due to the geographical situation of the Okinawa prefecture and the fact that, since 1972, this same treaty includes the Senkaku (Diaoyu Islands) because of the Article 5.  In the following essay I will briefly talk about Okinawa history, its geostrategic importance, describing in particular how the Okinawa Reversion Treaty of 1971, or “Treaty Between Japan and the United States of America Concerning the Ryukyu Islands and the Daito Islands”, applies to the Senkakus (Diaoyu Islands). I chose not to expand on the details of the well-documented recent developments related to the anticipated transfer of Marines to Guam or the transfer of Futenma Marine Corps air station to another part of Okinawa, the deployment of the Osprey transport aircraft or the military exercises taking place this Autumn of 2013, but to talk more in depth about the perception many analysts have of China’s own plans in relation to the waters surrounding the Senkakus (Diaoyu) and Okinawa in East China Sea, focusing on legal aspects (in particular related to the law of the sea) also pertaining to South China Sea territorial claims. This should help us understand better the extent and nature of present and future misunderstandings.Okinawa Prefecture is located in the southernmost part of the Japanese Archipelago. It is also the southern half of the Nansei Shoto, a 1200 km stretch of islands extending from Kyushu to Yonaguni Island. Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong, Manila and Tokyo are all situated less than 1500 km from Naha, the seat of the Okinawa prefectural government, where we can also find the main commercial airport. There are 48 inhabited islands with the island of Okinawa accounting for 53% of the prefecture’s area. The total population of the prefecture is approximately 1.31-million. Okinawa Island alone has approximately 1.15-million residents. 14 U.S. military bases occupy 18% of the main island. As we will see, the proximity of those bases to densely populated areas has created a dangerous situation.Regarding the terms of the Treaty of 1971, in relation to the Senkaku (Diaoyu) issue, we find a clear expose of the United-States position of neutrality, that I will quote in part, in the January 22, 2013 Congressional Research Service report on Senkaku (Diaoyu/Diaoyutai) Islands Dispute: U.S. Treaty Obligations, by Mark E. Manyin  (p. 5) 

During Senate deliberations on whether to consent to the ratification of the Okinawa Reversion Treaty, the State Department asserted that the United States took a neutral position with regard to the competing claims of Japan, China, and Taiwan, despite the return of the islets to Japanese administration. Department officials asserted that reversion of administrative rights to Japan did not prejudice any claims to the islets. When asked by the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee how the Okinawa Reversion Treaty would affect the determination of sovereignty over the Senkakus (Diaoyu/Diaoyutai), Secretary of State William Rogers answered that “this treaty does not affect the legal status of those islands at all.”

This position of neutrality has been restated in recent years but the inclusion of the islands in the Reversion Treaty makes Article II of the Treaty also applicable to the islets, and although Japan is primarily responsible for its own defense, the United States are obligated to defend Japan including the islets.No discussion about Okinawa would be complete without mentioning the local population and its relation to the military. Over the years, as I was able to see with my own eyes, and learn through discussions with Okinawans, an economic interdependency has developed between the U.S. forces and the local population, in particular around the bases. However, let’s not forget that the peaceful nature of the Islanders, who had to suffer greatly during the 82-day Battle of Okinawa (early April until mid-June 1945) at the hands of the hard-line Japanese military forces, being pressed into service, driven to suicide, starved or used as human shields, did not mean there were no tensions before the reversion. As an example, the Koza riot occurred on the night of December 20, 1970. The violent clashes between roughly 5000 Okinawans and 700 American MPs resulted in many injured and extensive damages, including inside Kadena Air Base. This was the product of anger against 25 years of occupation and the exemption from Okinawan justice of servicemen involved in accidents, under the standard status of forces. In fact, it could be seen as a prelude to the reactions of the population, faced with the numerous accidents and crimes which in the past few years have affected the relations between the US forces and the residents. 

A non-official source, the Institute for Policy Studies gives the following numbers: From 1972, the year of the reversion, to the end of December 2008, there have been 1,434 incidents and accidents related to military exercises including 487 airplane-related accidents. During the same period, there were 5,584 criminal cases involving US military personnel, including 559 cases of murder, burglary and rape. A number, which might be much higher if we consider sexual and violent cases, not reported. It is also not be forgotten that the revisionism at work since the end of World War Two at the highest level of the Japanese government has also been criticized internally by citizens and scholars like the late Saburo Ienaga. A parallel might in fact be drawn between the outrage expressed by foreign countries regarding Japanese history textbooks’ contents and the ongoing disagreement between Okinawa’s local government and Japan’s national government regarding the position of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, a disagreement which has involved Nobel Prize-winning novelist Kenzaburo Oe, who defended successfully in court his statement that Japanese soldiers had ordered civilians in Okinawa to commit mass suicide and murder-suicide in 1945. 

Unfortunately, the lack of interest for Okinawa, apart from the role it plays in the U.S.-Japan alliance, also expresses itself in the promotion of Okinawa’s economic development under the national government’s own terms and without taking into account the particularism of Okinawa. The Japan Ministry of foreign Affairs in its own website recognizes that: “Ryukyuan trade during the Sho Dynasties revolved around tributary trade with China begun during the Sanzan Period. Ryukyuans also acted as agents for vigorous transit trade with Japan and the Korean Peninsula to the north, and Siam, Malacca and Luzon to the south, among others. Foreign trade was the foundation of the Ryukyu Kingdom economy.”

However, to experience prosperity again, the prefecture should implement infrastructure projects conceived to facilitate trade expansion and access to the huge Chinese market. This is necessary to convince Japanese manufacturers to build factories in the prefecture. As Yan Shenghe says, the Japanese government has not approved of setting up a Chinese consulate in Okinawa, forcing local Chinese to fly to Fukuoka, a thousand kilometers away, to deal with relevant business. 

Before going to the legal and diplomatic matters related to the Law of the Sea, at the root of the problem which is the central theme of this essay, I would like to mention another matter which is dear to the Okinawans and has an impact on the future of the prefecture. It concerns the recent efforts by the Abe government to secure amendments to the war-renouncing Constitution of Japan.   In a joint statement issued October 3 in Tokyo by Secretary of State Kerry, Secretary of Defense Hagel, Minister for Foreign Affairs Kishida, and Minister of Defense Onodera, it is mentioned that “(Japan) is re-examining the legal basis for its security including the matter of exercising its right of collective self-defense, expanding its defense budget, reviewing its National Defense Program Guidelines, strengthening its capability to defend its sovereign territory, and broadening regional contributions, including capacity-building efforts vis-à-vis Southeast Asian countries. The United States welcomed these efforts and reiterated its commitment to collaborate closely with Japan.” 

As Colonel Ann Wright writes, this is a way to say that the Obama administration wants Japan to “re-examine” the legal basis for Article Nine of its war-renouncing Constitution. In this same article, the author describes the military assets being deployed around the Pacific, including the long-range Global Hawk, an unmanned aerial surveillance aircraft, in Japan. She also gives a comparative assessment of the military budgets and equipment of the United States and China based in part on the Military Strength Comparisons published on GlobalFirepower.com as a way to debunk the fear- inducing statements regarding the danger Chinese military assets in their actual form might pose to the region.However, we should now mention the international community’s position and see how it differs from the position of the Chinese government regarding China’s territorial and maritime ambitions, and why. 

China and the sea

The perception of many foreign experts and the public at large regarding the PRC’s territorial ambitions has been in general one of suspicion, if not fear. Those feelings are not to be seen as a mere echo of sensationalist medias but are based on concrete evidence, starting with the repeated efforts by Beijing to “clarify” legal issues pertaining to the exclusive economic zone (EZZ), most Chinese experts aligning themselves to the Party line, like Dr. Ren Xiaofeng and Senior Colonel Cheng Xizhong in 2004, in “A Chinese Perspective, China Institute for International Strategic Studies”, although the terms of the law of the sea regarding military activities in the EEZ had already been made clear in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea  (UNCLOS). Many observers see these efforts we will analyze as destabilizing.  

China has to awake to the realization it is entirely zone-locked by other countries’ EEZs, and if those countries were to exert the same type of control China is trying to implement in its own EEZ, China would not be able to enter the open sea without the consent of neighboring countries. The signing in 2002 of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Declaration of the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea was a step in the right direction, and China agreeing this year to hold “consultations” with the ASEAN on a code of conduct for disputes in the South China Sea is a sign of hope, but some diplomats and analysts, in particular in South-East Asia seem to think that China is in fact aiming to drag the talks out while consolidating its maritime claims. In fact, China has until now resisted discussing the territorial issue with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or addressing the issue in public forums, preferring to settle disputes in the South China Sea through negotiations with individual claimants. This plays in the favor of China, which has the capacity to dictate its exigencies. This reinforces a measure of goodwill towards the United States which is pushing for multilateral talks as a way for small countries to be able to resist the economic and political pressures that would occur if China were to negotiate with individual countries. Washington, in July 2010, through its Secretary of State at the time Hillary Clinton, had already challenged Beijing to participate in multilateral dialogue without success. Also, the United States’ constant advocacy of freedom of navigation makes their naval presence less a threat than a protective presence against regional territorial ambitions, even if Washington, as we have seen, has also adopted a policy of not siding with any party regarding territorial claims, promoting instead the adherence to the existing international treaties and the peaceful resolution of dissensions by legal means. In fact, if we were to make an analogy between the South China Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, we could imagine what would happen if any country in this sea surrounded by three continents decided to exert a control over the free passage and activities of military ships by claiming they might conduct activities contrary to their “indisputable rights”. An article published on Xinhuanet.com on October 26, 2010 was titled: “China opposes any military acts in exclusive economic zone without permission.” However, “… PRC naval units routinely conduct submarine operations, military survey operations, and surveillance/intelligence-collection operations in foreign EEZs throughout the Asia-Pacific region.” Similarly, the Chinese navy, in mid-2013, had acknowledged conducting patrols inside the U.S.’s EEZ, without any interference from the US navy. 

Closer to Okinawa, in the East China Sea, we can observe repeated attempts by China to expand its EEZ. On May 11, 2009, for example, China submitted a 17-page “Preliminary Information Indicative of the Outer Limits of the Continental Shelf Beyond 200 Nautical Miles of the People’s Republic of China” to the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea at the UN, which was answered by a laconic Note Verbale from the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations stating that ” It is indisputable that the establishment of the outer limits of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles in an area comprising less than 400 nautical miles and subject to the delimitation of the continental shelf between the States concerned cannot be accomplished under the provisions of the Convention.”

Territorial claims by China are numerous, but what might exacerbate the unease of most countries in the region is the fact that the restrictive maritime laws advocated by China are part of a clearly defined strategy, adopted in 2003 by the Chinese Communist Party and the Central Military Commission under the name of “Three Warfares”, or san zhong zhanfa, composed of psychological, media and legal “warfares”. For example, by trying to influence scholars, create dissensions and promote a redefinition of concepts included in treaties and other legal instruments China had itself signed, Beijing hopes to shape international opinion in its favor. It is then not surprising that the quasi-majority of scholars and journalists, as we have mentioned previously are in lockstep. In fact as the “2009 Report to Congress of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission” mentions on page 289: 

Additionally, the Chinese government seeks to shape opinion in elite policy-making circles by influencing the commentary about China and U.S.-China relations that emerges from U.S. academics and think tanks. This effort includes giving rewards to ”friendly” scholars, such as preferred access to career enhancing interviews and documents, as well as taking punitive actions, such as visa denials, for academics who anger the authorities. These rewards and punishments offer the Chinese government leverage over the careers of foreign scholars and thereby encourage a culture of academic self-censorship. By influencing scholars, these actions also shape analysis and public understanding of China.”

It is becoming evident that the rebalancing is done not only by the United States but is gaining support from many countries of the region which are doing their own balancing by “developing the components of an ‘anti-access/area-denial’ (A2/AD) capability to offset China’s impressive regional maritime build-up”. It is possible the Three Wars strategy will attain some measure of success. However, most of the press articles and essays, found via an Internet search focused on EEZs and China, signal the failure of the Chinese expansion strategy. It might be time for China to consider its geographic position and take into account the perverse effects a divisive strategy; exaggerated territorial claims (especially coming simultaneously, encouraging a Forbes magazine contributor to title his op-ed “China And The Biggest Territory Grab Since World War II”) might produce.  Nationalism is not a vision in itself and can in fact blind policy-makers to the reality of a world in constant evolution. Thinking and planning a virtual domination over the area by 2050 by denying foreign military vessels and aircraft access to its EEZ while exposing itself to retaliation by countries, in Africa and elsewhere, is apt to develop enough in the next 20 years or so to advance their own claims and adopt the same restrictive definitions of EEZ and free passage, is not a good idea. Also, internal restrictions on the circulation of information might make it difficult for Chinese policy-makers to anticipate or even imagine how much of their strategy and plans are exposed in foreign medias, a strategy definitely interpreted as nothing but aggressive by most foreign observers. An example could be the suggestion, contrary to all what China stands for (as an anti-colonialism force), offered by a Chinese military official to the Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command in 2009, to split the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean into two spheres of influence and control them respectively under China and the U.S. This was rejected and China claimed it was a joke. Joke or not, it might have made many countries in the region cringe!

However, not everything is intimidation and coercive diplomacy in this game. Many efforts are made to develop mutual trust at various levels. Actually, according to James Kraska, who quoted also the above-mentioned incident, Chinese officials had told their American counterparts in private that they understood Beijing’s expansive claims over the EEZ were not consistent with UNCLOS, while saying they viewed military activities and reconnaissance flights as “impolite”. James Kraska continues with the following analogy to describe the Chinese view: “It may be lawful to peer into the window of someone else’s house, but it is going to make them very uncomfortable.”

Cultural understanding might be a step towards more courteous exchanges. It is however very improbable, seeing the utmost priority being given to the survival of the Communist Party and those whose power depends on its continuity, that the most reasonable voices will feel encouraged to abandon nationalism as a social unifying tool, even if keeping it alive for a later use means amplifying the risks of war as was recently seen when China for a time went so far as claiming ownership of Okinawa in early 2013.  

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                                                                NOTES

[1] http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/n-america/us/q&a/ref/1.htm

[1] Military policeman’s ‘hobby’ documented 1970 Okinawa rioting”, The Japan times, December 17, 2011

[1] http://closethebase.org/us-military-bases/incidents-involving-us-military-in-okinawa/

[1] Court sides with Oe over mass suicides, The Japan Times, March 29, 2008

[1] Okinawa’s future lies in Chinese tourists, not Philippine experiences, Global Times, September 23, 2013

[1] http://m.state.gov/md215070.htm

[1] America’s Military Pivot to Asia: Obama Wants Japan to be “Able to Wage War” against China, Global Research, November 08, 2013

[1] http://community.middlebury.edu/~scs/docs/ScienceDirect%20-%20Marine%20Policy%20%20A%20Chinese%20Perspective.htm

[1] http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/eez.htm last modified in July 2012

[1] Financial times. com June 2, 2013, Chinese navy begins US economic zone patrols, by Kathrin Hille in Singapore

[1] http://www.uscc.gov/Annual_Reports/2009-annual-report-congress

[1] http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/11/01/chinas-achilles-heel-in-southeast-asia/

[1] http://www.indianexpress.com/news/china-proposed-division-of-pacific-indian-ocean-regions-we-declined-us-admiral/459851/

[1] Maritime Power and the Law of the Sea, Oxford University Press, 2011

A Tsunami In A Teacup

A tsunami in a teacup: when Tokyo goes nuclear against a French newspaper

                                                         by Jack Fourrier

 Since the landslide victory of the Liberal Democratic Party (LPD) in December 2012 and Shinzo Abe’s return to power thereafter, the Japanese government has upped the ante with regards to communication. Yoshihide Suga, the Chief Cabinet Secretary, is the de facto spokesperson of this government and communicator extraordinaire. The 65-year old politician is in charge of promoting and publicising Abenomics, reining in vocal members of the Abe administration as well as coalition partners and allies, and making sure that Japan’s perceived best interests are protected.

 There has been a growing sense of unease as the Abe government is faced with major challenges. On the home front, the aftermath of the March 2011 Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami and the subsequent handling of the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant has been a PR disaster for the former Administration and continues to plague the present government. Abenomics, a set of economic policies advocated by Prime Minister Abe and designed to put Japan back on track after the Lost Decade, is drawing criticisms and some circles voice concern as some of Abe’s initiatives threaten the sustainability of Japan’s economy. The country’s foreign policy is experiencing major shifts, what with Washington new Asia pivot policy and the territorial disputes on a backdrop of a more assertive China. Understandably, pressure is mounting on Abe and the government is pulling out all the stops to explain and justify its every move and decision.

 In its September 11 edition, the French satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaîné published two controversial cartoons, one of them showing two emaciated sumo wrestlers with extra limbs competing next to a crippled nuclear plant and a sports commentator saying:

                Marvellous! Thanks to Fukushima, sumo wrestling has become an Olympic discipline.

Le Canard Enchaîné - Sumo Contest - Sept 11, 2013.jpg

 Yoshihide Suga reacted promptly, calling the cartoon insensitive and misleading.

 This article will show that while Japan wants to play a bigger international role, its communication strategy remains demagogic, at odds with what is expected from a world power.

All pumped up against Le Canard Enchaîné

 It wasn’t the first time: Le Canard Enchaîné took a few shots at Japan after the Fukushima disaster. The French satirical newspaper was created in 1915 and has been the bane of the political and cultural elite since then. It prides itself of a loyal readership, mainly through subscription, which in turn guarantees its independence and freedom of expression. The newspaper has a tradition of uncovering scandals through investigative journalism and leaks from officials. Le Canard Enchaîné is known for its impertinence and its cartoons, but also for its constant use of puns and spoonerisms, impossible to translate in a foreign language.

In its June 15, 2011 edition, three months after the Fukushima disaster, Le Canard Enchaîné published an article underscoring the findings made by the French Nuclear Safety Authority (IRSN). Abnormal quantities of iodine-131 and cesium-134 and cesium-137 originating from the crippled reactors were found in vegetables and goat’s milk in large areas of France. While the Authority claimed that these levels wouldn’t harm public health, an independent French research centre (Criirad) highlighted errors and inconsistencies in these measurements, pointing at higher levels of toxicity.

In its September 7, 2011 edition, the newspaper stressed that while international media focus has shifted from Fukushima, the situation is far from being solved. More importantly, it concludes :

 The Japanese have started asking questions and have voiced their anger on Internet blogs: how have we come to believe the promises of such arrogant people? How have we allowed them to cheat us?

 In its March 7, 2012 edition, Le Canard Enchaîné published an in-depth report on France’s fourth generation nuclear reactors. As the caption put it, “for the nuclear lobby, Fukushima is already a thing of the past…Whatever they say, the population has to take their word for it.”

 

In its September 26, 2012 edition, the newspaper jibed :

 In Fukushima, everything’s fine. There’s a slight impediment though. The pool. Reactor number 4… Its roof has collapsed. A nondescript tarpaulin covers it.

According to experts, as quoted by the newspaper, a typhoon or a new earthquake would cause a disaster. It would be the “end of modern Japan.”

 Two major events occurred in Japan after this date: the PLD won the general election on a bold economic platform in December 2012 and secured a majority in the House of Councillors, the upper house of the Diet in July 2013. Two months later, Tokyo was chosen to host the 2020 Olympics. Enter a more assertive Japan on the diplomatic arena. High on this agenda are the issues of territorial integrity and national sovereignty, the review of the military alliance with the Washington and the revision of the Constitution (Article 9) leading to the establishment of a full-fledged army. Moreover, Japan is looking outside its borders: Tokyo has been very active in strengthening economic cooperation and promoting trade with South East Asian countries and Africa. This all-out diplomatic offensive is echoed by a rhetoric verging on the irrational and openly nationalistic. Deputy Prime minister and Finance minister Taro Aso’s comments on the Constitution are an example of the actual mindset of Japan’s new rulers. On July 29, 2013, Aso declared that Japan’s government should learn from Nazi Germany, when the country’s “Weimar Constitution was changed before anyone noticing it.” He partially retracted his remark a couple of days after, saying that he wasn’t condoning Nazi Germany and that they were lessons to be learned from the failure of the Weimar republic. Prominent politicians in Japan have a tendency to refer to Nazi Germany, WW2 and controversial historical issues in a compulsive fashion. They suffer from the Basil Faulty’s syndrome (Faulty Towers). The more they say to themselves “don’t mention the war”, the more they feel compelled to mention it, either explicitly or implicitly. When Prime Minister Abe, in blue military jacket, wriggled into the cockpit of a T-4 training jet fighter of the Air Self-Defence Force on May 12, 2013, the number 731 was clearly visible in the fuselage of the aircraft.  For most people in China and Korea, this number brings back memory of the notorious Unit 731, a covert biological and chemical warfare unit of the Imperial Japanese Army in China.  This number should have evoked past atrocities to anyone present, but the Prime Minister chose to climb onto the jet.

Japanese leaders bitterly reminisce a fabled time when Japan was strong and they hanker after a new dawn for the country. Chairing the “Restoration of Sovereignty Day” on April 28, 2013 to mark the day in 1952 when the San Francisco Peace Treaty took effect, Shinzo Abe said:

 We have a responsibility to make Japan a strong and resolute country that others across the world can rely on.

 Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko attended this highly symbolic ceremony and both were greeted by cheers from the participants, as they threw theirs hands up in the air shouting “Long Live the Emperor.” This rallying cry is a throwback of a nationalistic and militaristic Japan that most want to forget but still insidiously rears its ugly head in one of this world’s most advanced society.

 Next on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s agenda is controlling its public communication, first and foremost the media. He proposed the nomination of five close allies at the board of governors of the NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster. The Diet approved their nominations on November 8. The board of governors will appoint NHK’s new president in January. There is little doubt as to the fate of what was left of editorial independence and critical reporting in this organization.

 On the public relations front, the hyperactive Prime Minister and his cabinet have decided to be as reactive as possible for two reasons. First, there is undoubtedly a public malaise following the government’s response to the March 11 disaster and the responsibility of TEPCO in the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown. The government also continues to face criticism over the US presence in Okinawa. Other thorny issues related to the proposed free trade Transpacific Partnership, the recent tax hike and the country’s nuclear policy have prompted concern and reignited discontent in a broad swathe of the population. As the Japanese grow wary of their political elite, abstention in recent elections has reached record high proportions, leaving the grassroots political ground to activists, die-hard extremists and above all a large disillusioned electorate. The constant need to explain and justify decisions in the media highlights the lack of democratic debate. Who needs a democratic debate after all when the government appears to be doing its best on national television ? Who needs a democratic debate when officials relentlessly explain that nuclear power is safe ? Who needs a debate when the media are banging on about the China threat ?

This burst of activity in the media goes hand in hand with a proactive approach to public relations. The government needs to stoke up public indignation and resentment, resorting to fallacious argument. 

  On two occasions in September and October 2013, mainstream French media indulged in cheap jibes at Japan’s expenses. First, on September 11, Le Canard Enchaîné published the two cartoons, prompting the Japanese government to announce that a formal complaint will be lodged.  According to Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, said that one of the cartoons is :

(…) inappropriate and gives a wrong impression of the Fukushima contaminated water issue.

 Needless to say, apart from the temporary hullabaloo, the government decided to leave it to rest and didn’t lodge any formal complaint.

 In another instance of typical French satire, on October 12, Laurent Ruquier, the host of one of France’s most popular TV talk show “On n’est pas couché”, ran a countdown of the ten best blunders of the week. According to Ruquier, the top one blunder of the week was the defeat of the French football squad against Japan 1-0. Ruquier went on to praise Konno, Japan’s defender, whose name in French means “idiot” (connaud) and the goalkeeper Eiji Kawashima. In the punch line, he attributed Japan’s victory to the “Fukushima effect” while a doctored picture of a four-armed Kawashima appeared on the screen.

Following the show, the Japanese government asked its embassy in France to protest. Jean Reveillon, the president of TV public channel France 2, apologized the following week on behalf of Ruquier for having “hurt the feelings of the Japanese people.”

Much ado about pumping

 The first cartoon published by Le Canard Enchaîné on September 11, 2013, illustrated an article work in progress in Fukushima. Its main caption says:

 Meanwhile in Fukushima, the Shadoks keep pumping…

More than two years after the disaster, the crippled plant is still heating up and leaking everywhere. Technicians cool it down and pump out the water at the same time. It could last for years. 

The Shadoks is an animated TV series broadcast from 1968 to 1974 created by French cartoonist Jacques Rouxel. The series has gained cult status over the years for its post-1968 absurd take on human behaviour. The Shadoks are bird-like ruthless and stupid creatures living in a two-dimensional world.  In their world, pumping was everything. Paraphrasing Descartes, they would say: “I pump, therefore I am.” One of the most famous absurd lines of this TV series was:

 It’s best to pump even if nothing happens than risk something worse happening by not pumping.

 The reference to the Shadoks is a case in point. Had the Fukushima incident been handled by the Shadoks, the situation wouldn’t have been different.  Again the Shadoks:

 Only when you pump can you get the job done, but even if you fail, at the end of the day, it’s not that terrible !

 In this article, Le Canard Enchaîné makes a list of the inconsistencies and the blunders that have occured since the beginning of the incident. Even though Abe tried to reassure the International Olympic Committee in Buenos Aires on September 7, swearing, cross my heart, and hope to die, that everything was under control, the situation would be bordering on the grotesque if it wasn’t so tragic. This is what Le Canard Enchaîné wanted to convey, and what made the Japanese government so tetchy.

 In the same edition of the newspaper, another cartoon greeted Tokyo’s hosting the 2020 Olympics in the same satirical fashion.

 2020 Olympics in Japan: the swimming pool has already been built.

Le Canard Enchaîné - Olympic Swimming Pool - Sept 11, 2013.jpg

 The cartoon shows two technicians donned in protective gear and standing by the pool, one of them holding a Geiger counter. The caption says:

 They will probably allow swimsuits again in the swimming competitions !

 Louis-Marie Horeau, the editor-in-chief of Le Canard Enchaîné, commented on the Japanese govenrment’s response, telling the AFP on September 12:

 It’s not because we have a go at humour that we hurt the feelings of the victims. Here (in France), we can report on a tragedy in jest, but apparently, in Japan, that is not the case. We are absolutely stunned by this outburst and by the fact that such harmless cartoons have been so hyped. What is really outrageous is the way the Japanese government has managed the crisis.

We haven’t received any formal complaint yet, but a Japanese chargé d’affaires called us to say that things were fine in Fukushima.

 Posturing has always been a strategic PR move in authoritatrian countries, but Japan has a democratic tradition – or has it really- that allows its government to take such harmless jibes with a pinch of salt and adopt a more dignified attitude.

 Pump up the volume : Chinese posturing

 In a recent example of posturing and feigned indignation, China has recently reacted to the ABC show Jimmy Kimmel! Live!

Aired on October 16, the show asked children how to solve the debt problem in the US. America owes China a lot of money, he said, how should we pay them back ? One of the children replied: “Kill everyone in China. ” A young Asian American girl, sitting next to him, them burst out laughing. Jimmy Kimmel echoed the answer, saying “That’s an interesting idea” in a tone that suggested how ridiculous it was. The show went on as all the children voice their opinion.

The reaction to the show was vociferous. Hundreds of American Chinese took to the streets and demanded that Jimmy Kimmel be dismissed. On October 19, a petition calling for the suppression of the program was posted on the White House website. Despite Jimmy Kimmel’s heartfelt apologies, the controversy showed no signs of ebbing. Enter Qin Gang, spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. What was an harmless and unintentional skit was treading into the troubled waters of diplomacy and business (diplobusiness), ABC being involved in the Disney Park project in Shanghai. On November 11, Qin Gang said :

 Overseas Chinese in the US have spontaneously held demonstrations to protest the ABC’s offensive remarks against China. It must be pointed out that disseminating racial discrimination and hatred is against the social responsibility of the media. The ABC should squarely face its own mistake, make sincere response to the legitimate requirements of the overseas Chinese in the US and avoid the reoccurrence of similar incidents.

 Notwithstanding the vagueness and the evasiveness of such a response, it is important to note that such trivial issues are now being discussed at the highest levels of the Chinese State in an exercise of demagogic point-scoring.

 If you want something done wrong, do it yourself (The Shadoks)

 China and Japan are respectively the world second and third largest economies but its leaders haven’t yet acknowledged that in an era of 24/7 rolling news, digital information and social media, these damage-control exercises are a vicious trap. Governments are now so intent on communicating that they are risking negative outcomes. There is obviously a disproportion of sorts between the stern rebuke of Japan’s Cabinet Chief and some inoffensive cartoons in an obscure French satirical newspaper. How could China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs even comment on a late-night talk show broadcast in the US ?

In both instances, they have spun a yarn by distorting, deleting and generalizing. Now that readers and viewers have the means and the wherewithal to check directly for themselves and make up their own minds, governments need to refrain from comments that are nakedly beyond the pale. Why did Suga said that everything was fine in Fukushima when it’s a blatant lie? Why did Qin Gang ever evoke the worn rhetorical chestnut of racial discrimination and hatred ? If these two countries want to be seen as key players in the international diplomatic arena, they will have to consider more subtle ways of communicating or else, they might be at risk of losing any credibility or provoking unwanted outbursts of public anger.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Challenges Facing Chinese Enterprises In Africa

                            by Philippe Valdois

                                                                    April 30th, 2013

Doing research work and trying to give an honest opinion about the constraints and challenges facing Chinese-funded enterprises in China, and how best to fight misconceptions among the public about the real positive or negative effects of China’s presence on the Continent, has been an enlightening and challenging experience.

I had in front of me very different sets of data supporting more than often opposite conclusions. This forced me, in the absence of enough primary sources, to question even my own ideas as the product of a not so objective thought process.

In fact, as I was concluding this redaction of this report, Professor Deborah Brautigam, the author of The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa (Oxford U. Press, 2009, 2011), posted online a very interesting article on 30 April, 2013, untitled Rubbery Numbers on Chinese Aid in which she criticized a new paper and media-based dataset on Chinese aid/finance released by the AidData project in an event at the Center for Global Development.

Although her article was about a paper on official development finance in Africa, it confirmed what I had been writing so far in my report about misconceptions regarding the activities of Chinese enterprises in Africa.

I based my essay on extensive readings and used four different types of sources: Chinese government and various agencies, medias, experts and African countries citizens (both online and face to face.)

If as mentioned before published papers and analysis have to be carefully scrutinized, articles and opinions emanating from the three other types of sources are even more doubtful because of the contradictions they present. I did not want to be as categorical as most authors, which lead me to conclude this somewhat unusual but necessary introduction about the pitfalls of sloppy research by saying that there is still a lot work to be done to dispel myths now prevailing. Chinese enterprises have already done a lot of efforts as we will see later to answer Africans’ concerns, the kind of efforts I would have myself encouraged them to make, but as long as the veils of myth are in place, concealing reality in its complexity, those efforts will not be recognized.

Is the honeymoon really over?

Chinese-funded enterprises are facing a number of challenges in Africa and a growing competition from both new and traditional business players on the continent. Many medias are asking if the honeymoon is over between China and Africa basing their gloomy predictions on recent speeches by some African leaders criticizing China.

If the recent African tour of Chinese President Xi Jinping was a way for China to reaffirm its commitment to this continent it was also to respond to the criticism emanating from countries like Zambia and South Africa regarding China’s trade strategy in Africa. But as we will see, there are many misconceptions regarding the nature and extent of this criticism and the mass media adopt a very different approach from that of most experts and economists who have a more moderate view and tend to see in a more positive way the dynamics of change at work in Africa.

We will see to what extent the image of China has really changed, how this change in perception might affect Chinese interests in Africa and what could be done to remedy those difficulties.

Durban, a turning point

If the visit of Xi Jinping marks continuity for Chinese diplomacy, Chinese leaders having made the decision in recent years to choose the African continent as the destination of their first trip of the year, the Durban’s BRICS Summit was the theater of a major change of direction in China-Africa relations, in particular with the emergence of multilateralism.

Africa recognizes the positive role China has played in its economic growth, but discontent is also expressed regarding a lack of transparency in some contracts and the fear that China’s imports might put a break to the industrialization of countries like South Africa. But are those fears based on reality? For example, we hear about China buying land everywhere and exporting massively its labor force to Africa. Those fears are greatly amplified by the medias. Regarding the supposed land grabs by China, we must note that Middle-East countries are the main buyer of land in Africa and not China by far. Professor Deborah Brautigam also wrote about “Zombie” Chinese land grabs! I will come back later to the question of Chinese labor.

When Xi Jinping visited Tanzania at the end of March 2013, as the first stop on his African tour before the Durban Summit, observers speculated that his main job would be to tone down the feeling of discontent associated with the idea China was not playing fair. He did that by reminding Tanzania of their common revolutionary past and achievements as exemplified by the building of the Tanzam railway, not only as a way to put forward China’s anti-colonialist, anti-imperialistic tradition, but also to express China’s gratitude towards African nations for having made it possible for the country, through their votes, to join the UN Organization.

But has an African journalist told me, Africans have changed. They are looking towards the future and a more mature relationship, at business relations not tainted with nostalgia. Talking about China, the Zimbabwean Finance Minister Tendai Biti told bluntly the Reuters Africa Investment Summit in April 2013 “The sad reality is that they are not comrades. Their companies are there to make profits like everyone else.” I personally think that evoking the ghosts of colonialism in a new multipolar world, where many Chinese-funded enterprises are in fact working in Africa under contract with large Western companies, could become a negative factor in the development of trade. Listening to the President of Algeria talk at the United Nations University a few years ago and knowing how high the youth unemployment rate was in this country (a future factor of discontent and even revolt in North Africa) I was surprised to hear him talk mostly about the Algerian War and the fight against France as an (ex-)colonial power, something as far as can be from the preoccupations of young people without a job. The youth of Africa likewise are focusing on what China is bringing them today, a new lifestyle with the possibility of owning their own mobile phone, their own car, etc. China at the political level should point at those benefits its enterprises are bringing to Africa and not too much at its past accomplishments in the continent.

Criticism and reality

The main criticism we are hearing regarding China right now is that Africa is exporting raw materials while spending on imported finished consumer goods from China. This model was prevalent during the colonial era and it would be easy for a journalist to see a correspondence there and offer an oversimplified analysis. However, we should remember that under colonial rule, there was no African sovereignty. Now, on the contrary, African States can negotiate their own terms contracts and treaties as they wish and ask for technology transfers and assistance in forming their own specialized work force. The quality of each relation depends for the most part on the political will of the nation involved, with its laws and regulations. In addition, we have to take into account the fact there is a diversity of African States and not all have the same type of relations with China. This makes it impossible to generalize, when some countries with better governance can experience a real win-win relation with China, while others with a less than transparent way of conducting business will see investments going to useless projects. The African policy-makers are here to blame, or to praise. An opinion shared by more and more African business and civil society leaders.

It is true that some African countries have suffered from the importation of Chinese goods, in particular textiles, at one time or the other. However as the president of China Institute of International Studies Qu Xing wrote in the Zambia Daily Mail, the African consumers are free to choose what to buy. Regarding textiles, he continues, “Several years ago, in response to Africa’s concern, China willingly restricted its textile exports to certain African countries. As a result, the market share of Chinese textile declined with the market taken by other countries’ products instead of African countries.” More important, according to The Economist, if the value of China’s annual exports to the continent more than doubled between 2007 and 2012, the values of its imports from African countries rose even faster. This dynamic translates in fact into a growing trade unbalance in favor of Africa. So China is not the invader we sometimes hear about.

The fact that the Durban Summit was for the most part an initiative of South Africa, Brazil and India reflects moreover the reality of the new multipolar world we mentioned, with China being only one among many partners of Africa, China represents in fact only 10 to 15 percent of the total African trade. It is difficult in these conditions to talk about an asymmetrical neocolonialist model.

There are also many signs of positive changes and in particular, of a better understanding of the situation and the nature of the problems on both sides. For example, and contrary to what some out of context quotes might let us think, when Lamido Sanusi, the governor of Nigeria’s central bank wrote in the Financial Times on March 11th 2013 an article untitled “Africa must get real about Chinese ties” about China taking Africa’s primary goods and selling them in return for manufactured ones, a mechanism described by him as “the essence of colonialism” and a “new form of imperialism,” he was mostly directing his criticism at the Africans themselves, those governments unable to manage efficiently their own trade relations, and bargain as they should do.

The reality is that China’s role as we mentioned previously has been extremely positive in Africa, starting an import-led growth, which benefited countries with few industries and limited buying power. I already mentioned mobiles phones imported from China without which there would not have been a telecommunications revolution in Africa, with all the associated benefits like mobile banking for example. Also, new developments in China itself are contributing to the industrialization of its African partners. For example, growing labor costs and pollution at home make it necessary for Chinese concerns to integrate their production facilities in Africa with the building of factories. This of course could be a double-edged sword for the local populations in the absence of environmental regulations and good governance.

To put to rest another preconceived idea, it is necessary to note that China, in terms of trade and investments, is not in a position of power in most countries in Africa. Chinese enterprises have to compete in most African markets with powerful adversaries, which have however the potential to become along the way partners in this new world of triangular relations.

Competitors and partners

As a major competitor of China in Africa, we must first mention India, geographically closer to Africa and with a stronger presence in the Middle East. Investors from this region are as we saw previously the main buyers of land in Africa, and Indians are strongly positioned as the main managerial power in the Middle East. India offers also different more frugal solutions to Africa compared with the Chinese model of mass-production, in particular by favoring the access of African cities to cheap telecommunications models. However both China and India have a similar ability to expand the market towards the base of the buying power pyramid by making available to most people the products only the elite could previously afford. This is all benefit for Africa and again, this knowledge should be strongly emphasized at the political level.

Another competitor is Japan, the first country to offer, with its TICAD, the Tokyo International Conference for African Development, a forum for investments in Africa. China actually followed with its own version, the Forum for Investors in Africa, in Beijing. The 2-day preparatory meeting for the TICAD took place in Addis Ababa, in Ethiopia in March 2013 and delegates from about 50 African nations and Japan developed a draft of the Yokohama Declaration to be adopted at the TICAD in June 2013. The focus of Japan’s support is to be on private investments and trade. But if Japan shows a strong interest in Africa, the fact that it has to respect certain rules about transparency and governance greatly limits its business opportunities compared with China. We should see however a growing presence of Japanese enterprises in Africa, offering for example high tech products like solar energy systems, etc. With a growing number of potential consumers on the continent, there might be a shift in Africa towards buying more high-tech products with less concern for price.

The traditional foreign partners, the United States, France and Great-Britain, had somewhat neglected not long ago Africa because of financial constraints, leaving behind a vacuum China and other countries have been filling up. Interestingly, it is because relatively new comers like China, India, etc., are showing their interest, with large investments and loans, that the ex-colonial powers are coming back to the Continent to reinvest, rediscovering the many resources Africa has to offer. However, relations have changed, from North-South to South-South to now triangular ones without, as I mentioned previously, the bilateral and asymmetrical models we saw in the past. Again, this became obvious at Durban.

We hear other critics related to the Chinese labor force taking over the jobs of the Africans but here too the situation is quickly changing with Chinese companies opening joint-ventures not only with African partners, but also signing contracts and working on projects in Africa with foreign companies. While some critics like Codrin Arsene in Congo Forum talk about only 30 % of the people hired in Chinese infrastructure projects being Africans, the reality is that the Chinese government is encouraging when possible the hiring of local personnel and that the proportion of Chinese and African working on specific projects depends on many factors: labor laws, immigration laws, availability of skilled labor, cost, etc. Again, Professor Deborah Brautigam offers very different and more realistic numbers for some specific projects. Chinese-funded enterprises are also facing similar challenges with the use of imported equipment sometimes unavailable.

In some African countries, mostly those where there is a better freedom of the press and unions have their say, some Chinese companies have been accused of mistreating their employees and not respecting working safety rules. According to some medias, China is exporting to Africa its own practices which are criticized at home by the Chinese population itself. The president of Zambia Michael Sata was known before he won the election in 2011 as a fervent critic of Chinese corporate practices in his country and abuses at Chinese-operated mines. But as an illustration of what we might expect for the future in terms of relations between Chinese enterprises and African States, pragmatism prevailed on both sides and as Alexander Mutale of the Christian Monitor wrote “… the general mood is one of rapprochement, with Sata voicing moderation and Chinese investors promising good corporate behavior.”

Problems have also been reported with accusations of racism, and various violent incidents have taken place in the work place, but Chinese companies are showing pragmatism here too and multiculturalism is emerging with more interaction between individuals. The number of mixed marriages is for example growing.

It should be noted however that for the time being, the most positive comments towards China are coming from the well-to-do African elite in power in the countries where corruption is rampant and who benefit from some doubtful infrastructure projects. But it shows again that the solution to most of those problems has to come from Africans themselves, not only from political leaders but also from the civil society. China itself has distanced itself from such regimes in recent years (in the case of Angolan and Sudan for example.) But here, we have to mention another great challenge for Chinese enterprises: security. Many terrorist groups are active in Africa and conflicts are opposing not only nations but also ethnic groups in regions where China operates. It does not help the image of China that it is also selling a huge number of small arms to belligerents in places like Sudan and RDC. With the turns of political and military fortune, any past deal or association with warlords might damage the ability for Chinese individuals and small and medium companies to safely conduct business in the future.

Another challenge for Chinese companies will be to respond to criticism from Chinese themselves who think the money spent on investments in Africa could be better spent at home. The government will have to thread carefully but the employment potential for Chinese in Africa should help counter such criticism.

I could survey here only just a few of the challenges facing Chinese-funded enterprises in Africa. I mentioned already the large diversity of countries, political regimes, opinions, etc., which have all to be taken into consideration before making any major corporate level decision. I had written in a previous paper about the necessity for the Chinese in Africa to know the local languages and better understand the local cultures. But most importantly, it is necessary for China to actively participate in the academic debate about its presence in Africa by openly sharing data to put to rest the phantasms propagated by the mass media and facilitate the work of its enterprises on the continent.

Finally, I would suggest a more active participation of Chinese executives in forums such as VC4A (vc4africa.biz.) described as “The launchpad for emerging technology and trends.” I became a member when it started a few years ago and saw it become an international forum for innovation with meetings in many large cities around the World, a system of mentorship and business angels. Identifying and helping funding ventures started by talented young African entrepreneurs (the business leaders of tomorrow,) is a good way to invest in the future and make sure that Chinese small and medium-size enterprises will have a positive influence on the future of Africa and find the right human resources for their growing business in Africa.

References:

http://www.chinaafricarealstory.com/2013/04/rubbery-numbers-on-chinese-aid.html

http://www.chinaafricarealstory.com/p/chinese-workers-in-africa-anecdotes.html

http://www.daily-mail.co.zm/?p=2778 (Applause for China-Africa Cooperation, April 3rd, 2013, Zambia Daily Mail)

International Monetary Fund, Podcast, Growing Chinese Investment in Africa, 2012

France Culture, Les Enjeux Internationaux, podcast

Radio France International, Géopolitique, le Débat, podcast

China in Africa: The Real Story: “Zombie” Chinese Land Grabs in Africa Rise Again in New Database!

http://web.archive.org/web/20070805023113/http://www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=408&issue_id=3390&article_id=2369974 (Zimbabwe: China’s African Ally, The Jamestone Foundation)

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2011/0928/Zambia-s-new-President-Sata-sets-new-mining-rules-for-China

http://vc4africa.biz

Photo:Government ZA via flickr