The most dangerous flashpoint in the South China Sea could be a Japanese warship, not a disputed isle. Last month, Japan’s defense ministry requested a record budget of about $51 billion for fiscal 2017. At the top of its security worries China’s maritime aggression. Japan has reason to worry. In both the East China Sea and South China
Sea, Tokyo faces an increasingly assertive China that looks determined
to become an unfettered maritime powerhouse—and is beefing up its naval capabilities accordingly. China’s moves threaten to disrupt Japan’s economy and erode its sense of security. The South China Sea is not the only sea route, but it offers the
cheapest, most direct way for energy supplies from the Persian Gulf (and other commodities from
elsewhere) to reach northeast Asia. As a nation with few natural
resources, Japan has a clear interest in keeping sea routes open.
With that in mind, Japan is strengthening alliances, spending more on defense, and letting its position be known.
“I am seriously concerned with the continuing attempts to change
unilaterally the status quo in the East and South China Sea,” Japanese
prime minister Shinzo Abe told Asian leaders at an ASEAN summit in Laos this month.Vulnerable to disruption
China has been rapidly militarizing in the South China Sea in recent years. That has included establishing bases on artificial islands built atop reefs. Some warn that Beijing wants to turn the sea into a “Chinese lake,” and that it is not far off from creating a “strategic triangle” of bases in the sea that would help it exert more control over the vital waterway.The South China Sea is the one of the world’s chokepoints for oil and natural gas. Nearly 60% of Japan’s energy supplies pass through the sea, largely from the Middle East nations including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and, increasingly, Iran. Coal from Indonesia also passes through, as does corn, wheat, and barley from Australia and the Black Sea region.
That makes Japan’s economy vulnerable to disruptions, should China ever block shipments through that route, whether in peacetime or in some future conflict.
And conflict isn’t out of the question. China still resents Japan’s wartime atrocities during World War II and believes Tokyo has yet to express enough remorse for its sins. This week an exhibition opened in northeast China focusing on the disposal of Japan’s abandoned chemical weapons in China. According to the Pew Research Center, 81% of Chinese hold unfavorable views about Japan, up from 70% a decade ago. Meanwhile, 86% of Japanese hold unfavorable views of the Chinese, from 71% a decade ago.
It’s hardly surprising, then, that Japan is wary of China potentially controlling a waterway as important as the South China Sea. The building of militarized artificial islands by China in the sea’s Spratly archipelago seems to be a step in that direction. As Yoji Koda, a former vice admiral in the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, wrote in the journal Asia Policy in January:
These man-made islands, when fully completed, would provide China
with strong footholds in the Spratly Islands for controlling most of
the sea lines of communication and for monitoring foreign naval and
air activities.
China has warned that such operations are “dangerous and irresponsible” and could end “in disaster.” Yet nations have the right to make “innocent passage” through even territorial waters, which extend out 12 nautical miles from a coast, as per the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
In July, an international tribunal made a comprehensive ruling under UNCLOS that invalidated China’s sweeping claim to most of the South China Sea. That claim is based on Beijing’s dubious “nine-dash line,” which the tribunal decided had no legal basis. China responded by vowing to ignore the ruling and trying to discredit the tribunal.
Last week, Japanese defense minister Tomomi Inada, speaking at the Center for Strategic & International Studies think tank in Washington,indicated Japan’s agreement with freedom-of-navigation operations. If the world condoned attempts to change the rule of law, she said, the consequences could extend well beyond the South China Sea.
“In this context, I strongly support the US Navy’s freedom-of-navigation operations, which go a long way to upholding the rules-based international maritime order,” she said.
Joining forces against China
One way Japan can help deter this is by backing, assisting, or even joining the US Navy’s “freedom of navigation” operations, with which the US asserts its right to sail through certain waters under international law, even if other nations warn it not to. In May, for instance, the USS William P. Lawrence sailed close to the Spratly archipelago’s Fiery Cross Reef, where China has built a militarized island.China has warned that such operations are “dangerous and irresponsible” and could end “in disaster.” Yet nations have the right to make “innocent passage” through even territorial waters, which extend out 12 nautical miles from a coast, as per the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
In July, an international tribunal made a comprehensive ruling under UNCLOS that invalidated China’s sweeping claim to most of the South China Sea. That claim is based on Beijing’s dubious “nine-dash line,” which the tribunal decided had no legal basis. China responded by vowing to ignore the ruling and trying to discredit the tribunal.
Last week, Japanese defense minister Tomomi Inada, speaking at the Center for Strategic & International Studies think tank in Washington,indicated Japan’s agreement with freedom-of-navigation operations. If the world condoned attempts to change the rule of law, she said, the consequences could extend well beyond the South China Sea.
“In this context, I strongly support the US Navy’s freedom-of-navigation operations, which go a long way to upholding the rules-based international maritime order,” she said.
