A Foreign Policy Crisis in Japan

A Foreign Policy Crisis in Japan A Critical Analysis of why Japan yielded to Chinese pressure in September 2010 Corey Landon Perkins

Master’s Thesis – Peace and Conflict Studies University of Oslo May 2012

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A Foreign Policy Crisis in Japan A Critical Analysis of why Japan yielded to Chinese pressure in September 2010 Corey Landon Perkins

Master’s Thesis – Peace and Conflict Studies University of Oslo May 2012 iii

Š Corey Landon Perkins 2012 A Foreign Policy Crisis in Japan A Critical Analysis of why Japan yielded to Chinese pressure in September 2010 http://www.duo.uio.no/ Trykk: Reprosentralen, Universitetet i Oslo iv

Summary The overall purpose of this thesis is to contribute to knowledge on non-military dispute escalation and de-escalation, the ever changing and complex nature of Sino-Japanese relations, and on decision making within the Japanese government. The specific task of this thesis is to analyze contributing factors which influenced the Japanese government in a dispute with China in September 2010. There are two research objectives in this case study. The primary objective is to uncover the reasons why Japan yielded to Chinese pressure after over two weeks of ignoring China's demands to release an arrested Chinese fishing boat captain. The secondary objective that precedes the primary research objective is to analyze what kept Japanese decision makers from yielding earlier than they did.

Evidence from online news sources, scholars, and personal interviews with Japanese foreign policy experts suggests that while there were a number of important factors in the minds of Japanese decision makers, the importance of Japan’s economic dependence on China, as perceived by Japanese decision makers, played the largest role in influencing the Japanese government to yield. Secondarily, but still largely important in influencing the Japanese government, was the role Chinese assertiveness played in exploiting Japan's economic vulnerabilities and dependence through various forms of unofficial economic sanctions.

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Acronyms ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations DPJ

Democratic Party of Japan

EEZ

Exclusive Economic Zone

JCG

Japanese Coast Guard

GDP

Gross Domestic Product

JETRO Japan External Trade Organization LDP

Liberal Democratic Party

NDPG

National Defense Program Guidelines

NIE

Newly Industrialized Economies

PLA

People's Liberation Army

PLAN

People's Liberation Army Navy

PM

Prime Minister

PRC

People's Republic of China

ROC

Republic of China

SDF

Self-Defense Forces

UNCLOS US

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea

United States

Figures Figure 4.1: “GDP and trade statistics for China and Japan (1980-2010)”....................69-70

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Acknowledgments This thesis would not have been possible without the wonderful patience, knowledge, constructive criticism, and experience of my thesis supervisor Dr. Stein D. Tønnesson.

From Oslo, Norway he would faithfully meet me on Skype to assist me in my research which was being conducted from Nashville, Tennessee. Unfortunately, as I usually had to wake up very early because of the time difference, he had to endure the dreaded 'morning Corey' particularly when I would roll straight out of bed to meet online.

I would also like to thank Dan Sneider & Dr. Min Gyo Koo for taking the time to answer my questions during phone interviews. Your expert opinions and responses greatly informed my thesis. Also an additional thanks to Dr. Christopher Hughes, Dr. Michael Yahuda, Dr. Ryosei Kokubun, Dr. Glenn Hook, Dr. Hugo Dobson, Dr. Julie Gilson, and Dr. Paul O'Shea for responding to emails with insight and opinions.

I would finally like to thank my wonderful, beautiful love Helena for patiently waiting on me while I was constantly busy throughout this time. Summer is finally here. I would also like to thank my friends and family who have been there for me during this process to ask questions and motivate me. Last but not least, I would like to apologize to my guitar... whom I've neglected.

Corey Perkins Nashville, 10 May 2012 vii

Table of Contents 1. Introduction.....................................................................................................................1 1.2 Hypothesis......................................................................................................................6 1.3 Relevant Japanese Foreign Policy Literature..................................................................9 1.4 Theory...........................................................................................................................11 1.5 Methodology.................................................................................................................13 2. The September 2010 Crisis..........................................................................................18 2.1 Conflicting Views.........................................................................................................18 2.2 Japan's Argument..........................................................................................................21 2.3 China's Argument..........................................................................................................23 2.4 A Concluding Precursor to the Crisis............................................................................25 2.5 Escalation of Events......................................................................................................26 3. Why the Wait?..............................................................................................................37 3.1 Introduction...................................................................................................................37 3.2 The 1st Phase – Before the Election..............................................................................38 3.3 The 2nd Phase – After the Election................................................................................42 3.4 Conclusion – Weighing the Factors..............................................................................50 4. Why did Japan Yield?..................................................................................................54 4.1 Introduction..................................................................................................................54 4.2 The Timing of the Yield................................................................................................55 4.3 Why Factors..................................................................................................................57 4.4 Conclusion – Weighing the Factors..............................................................................75 5. Conclusion.....................................................................................................................78 6. Works Cited...................................................................................................................86

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1. Introduction In September 2010, a serious but non-militarized dispute occurred between Japan and China. It began on September 7th when the Japanese Coast Guard (JCG) arrested a crew of Chinese fishermen in the East China Sea, near the Senkaku Island of Kubajima after reported collisions took place between the JCG and the fishing trawler (Yoshida 2010). The Senkaku Islands in Japanese, or Diaoyu Islands in Chinese, are claimed by both Japan and China and have been and continue to be a source of friction between the two countries. The Chinese government quickly protested the Japanese Coast Guard's arrest and continuously increased the pressure on the Japanese government to release the captives as time passed through political and economical threats, sanctions, and leverage.

Eventually, on September 24th, Japan yielded to Chinese pressure and released the fishing trawler captain with no legal indictment (Kubota 2010b).

Yet, at the beginning of the dispute, Japanese officials calmly and cogently informed the Chinese government that the arrest of the Chinese citizens would “strictly” be processed in accordance with Japanese domestic law (Wada 2010). In doing so, Japanese officials not only ignored Chinese protests but also implicitly communicated that they do not respect Chinese claims to sovereignty over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands. The islands are Japan's, according to Japanese official statements. For over two weeks the Japanese government did not budge and release the captain of the fishing trawler, despite strong protests and tension ratcheting from China. My two research questions were born from the seemingly paradoxical nature of Japan’s crisis behavior. The overall most important question to answer is after communicating to China that it would handle the matter domestically, and after holding the captain of the Chinese fishing trawler for over two weeks – why did Japan then yield to Chinese pressure? In order to answer this question, another question must first be asked as well. What kept decision makers from yielding earlier in the dispute?

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Case study research into this specific incident and incidents like it are immensely relevant in today's international climate. It has become almost common knowledge that the focus of power, politics, and economics is moving from the 'West' (North America & Europe) towards and across the Pacific – leading many to predict this century will become the 'Pacific Century'. At the heart of this shift are East Asia's two major powers: China and Japan. The importance of a non-militarized Sino-Japanese crisis comes from the fact that one is a rising superpower and the other a major power allied with the biggest superpower and when one side yields in a dispute, it is remembered. It can cause resentment and may lead to more toughness next time around. And, it is safe to predict that there will be further incidents between China and Japan concerning both the Senkaku Islands and the maritime border, as China’s economic and naval power continues to rise.

Understanding the complexity of cooperation and rivalry between these two states remains an imperative for International Relations and Peace and Conflict Studies scholars.

The relationship between China and Japan will be of great significance to not only peace and stability in the East Asian region, but also the future of Sino-American relations. No overarching and general study of Japanese security policy can ignore the role of the United States, who is greatly involved in the region and remains bound under a security treaty to protect Japan from military infringements to Japanese sovereignty. The 'nuclear umbrella' of the United States is no small consideration in policy making circles in Japan.

Complexities with multiple actors to national and regional security demand a corresponding complexity in scholarship. International Relations as a study was thrust to life during the bi-polar order of the Cold War, where 'traditional' dyadic studies of power, diplomacy, and military capabilities ruled the day. However, in today's Post Cold War International Relations circles, things have changed. There are a majority of scholars who believe we are headed from the uni-polar order of the first Cold War period towards a multi-polar order (often thought of as the most dangerous), although some dispute this notion and argue that we now have or are entering a no-polar system. Regardless of 2

which side of the debate one is on, as we all know, China is 'on the rise'. Consider this economic forecast: “By 2020 there will be a major shift in the global balance of economic power compared to 2010….Emerging economies will rise in importance and China will have overtaken the USA to lead the list of the world’s top ten largest economies by GDP measured in PPP terms.” (Euromonitor.com 2010).

Case studies that examine different elements of behavior in the Post Cold War era can shed light upon states' actions and help to strengthen more generalizable theories.

Specifically, this case study will analyze why Japan at first stood firm, and then yielded to Chinese pressure in September 2010. This could be used to establish more generalizable theories on the types of conditions that make states stand firm or yield so as not to escalate interstate disputes to military conflicts. This case study could also be used on more specific studies and theories on Sino-Japanese relations. Thus this case study can be potentially useful for dyadic analysis of foreign policy crisis behavior, and could be important for sensitive foreign policy decision making.

With a wide variety of definitions for what a crisis is, it is important to define what I mean when referring to the Senkaku Islands crisis as a non-militarized foreign policy crisis. Singer and Diehl note: “Not all such disputes reach the level of belligerence that we associate with a militarized interstate crisis. If, for example, one state reacts forcefully to a perceived transgression by another, and the matter is quickly resolved with an apology from the presumed transgressor or through a clarification of a misunderstanding, there is no interstate crisis, although the situation may become a foreign policy crisis” (1990:228)

Most interstate crisis research has focused on conflicts that escalate into a situation where states are prepared for war. Russell Leng's influential book Interstate crisis 3

behavior, 1816-1980: realism versus reciprocity, systematically analyzes militarized interstate crises where both parties have clearly indicated their willingness to go to war, or “the last stop on the road to war” (1993:1). Yet if there is a tense escalation that stops short of directly indicated warfare willingness or preparation can this not be a nonmilitarized crisis in its own right? This question is very important for crisis studies because as militarized escalation increases the potential for “national decision-makers to respond to crises in a non-rational manner” could also increase (1993:11). A point can also be reached where “costs and risks can no longer be justified by the initial stakes, not just because so much already has been committed to the effort and there is hope for success..., but also because the political stakes now are much higher” (Leng 1993:16).

Other questions surface as well. Can one side not experience the urgency of a crisis more than the other – or, can one side experience a crisis while the other does not?

This takes us to a type of classification that is not highly researched. Brecher and Wilkenfeld define a foreign policy crisis as a crisis for an “individual state” that requires three conditions based on the perceptions of “the highest level decision makers” (2000:3).

These three conditions are: (A) “a threat to one or more basic values, (B) an awareness of finite time for response to the value threat, and (C) a heightened probability of involvement in military hostilities” (2000:3). This type of study then “concentrates on the perceptions and behavior of a single state” and its “decision makers” while it also looks at interstate interaction as well since “crisis decisions are usually made in response to threatening physical and/or verbal acts by another state” (2000:3).

Regarding the three conditions listed above, much attention is given to clarifying the third condition – a heightened probability of involvement in military hostilities – which is of great importance here. Brecher and Wilkenfeld state that: “This probability can range from virtually nil to near certainty. For a crisis to erupt, however, perception of war likelihood need not be high. Rather, it must be qualitatively higher than the norm in the specific adversarial

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relationship. This applies both to states for which the 'normal' expectation of war is 'high' and to those for which it is 'low'” (2000:3).

Since this paper examines Japanese decision making and not Chinese, I will be using Brecher and Wilkenfeld's definition of a foreign policy crisis when I refer to the events and tension escalation that occurred in September 2010 as a crisis. This definition enables the urgency of a crisis and the benefit of focusing on one party to the dispute without necessarily having to be militarized. This will allow for a necessary distinction with literature like Leng's which draws its conclusions from militarized crises. However, this will be done with two important conceptual caveats. The first is that unlike Brecher and Wilkenfeld's interest in placing the behavior of one state's leaders and decision makers at a premium for analysis, which could come at the potential expense of not analyzing the interaction between states more thoroughly, this study will not structurally downplay the potential that state-to-state interaction could hold in the explanation of why Japan yielded to Chinese pressure. In other words, I will be using their three-point definition listed above to enable the label of a crisis, but will analytically choose and focus on which areas of the crisis that seem to best give answers to my research questions.

It is because there are many conceptions of how to define a crisis that this section and definition was added. I will not follow Brecher and Wilkenfeld's framework for analysis and am only using their definition for a foreign policy crisis, as the purpose of this study is to analyze Japanese decision making while integrating theory throughout the process.

Second, much of the scholarship done in even Brecher and Wilkenfeld's book, other studies, and even other works by Brecher on foreign policy crises seems to center on disputes that move from non-military to militarized. Here again I will take this concept down a narrower path. As Enterline and Williams point out, some foreign policy crises can also be characterized as “non-military in nature” (2010:12). The Senkaku crisis of 2010 did not become militarized – the dispute eventually became a crisis. By the end of the twenty-four day episode there were open-ended threats from the highest levels in 5

Beijing to Japanese decision makers that China would stop at nothing to ensure its citizens would not be prosecuted by Japanese authorities. Yet at the beginning there were only low-level diplomatic protests. In this sense what started as a dispute became a nonmilitarized crisis. Thus, I will define this as a non-militarized foreign policy crisis for Japan in which the escalation and perception of war likelihood became higher than the norm between the two countries even though the overall perception of war likelihood probably remained relatively low.

1.2 Hypothesis In order to test why Japanese leaders first held firm for over two weeks, and then yielded, I will gather evidence and analyze a set of factors to answer the above stated research questions. After evidence has been collected, I will critically analyze these sets of factors in Chapters 3 and 4 to see which of them most support an explanation. The method will be the classical one of seeking to falsify each explanation, and see which ones survive the test. In Chapter 3 I will explain what kept Japan from yielding earlier in the dispute, and then why it yielded in Chapter 4. Part of the benefit of this structure is that it allows a focus on variables, or perceptions, that may have changed over time with implications for their effect on decision making.1 The factors to be analyzed in Chapter 3 for what kept Japan from yielding earlier are as follows: 1) Japan's leadership elections 2) Legal procedures 3) The level of Chinese pressure on the Japanese government 4) Public opinion 5) The concern for not weakening the Japanese legal argument in the sovereignty 1 - More information about the structural process of my research can be found in my methodology section below.

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dispute over the Senkakus 6) A Japanese desire to improve on its legal title in the sovereignty dispute.

The first factor is the role of the Democratic Party of Japan's leadership election and how it may have affected a willingness to yield. The second factor is legal procedures that may have prevented decision makers from yielding. The third factor is the effect of China's assertive pressure on Japanese decision makers. The fourth is the role of domestic public opinion in Japan. The fifth is a potential concern for defending the Japanese legal title to the Senkaku Islands and their surrounding waters. The sixth factor is a possible actual desire to utilize the dispute to gain leverage in the legal dispute, or improve on Japan’s legal title.

The following factors will be analyzed to see why Japan eventually did yield to Chinese pressure: 1) US non-support 2) Japan's fear of China's military modernization and US security abandonment 3) The level and credibility of China's threats 4) A genuine desire for peaceful relations due to the complexities and resentments left over from the historical legacies of imperial Japan 5) A desire or need to get back the four Japanese citizens detained in China and whether China could use this as leverage 6) Economic dependence These six potential explanatory factors will be investigated, analyzed, and weighed before a general answer is given. The first is the influence of the US. Could the USA have dissuaded Japan from further upping the ante? The second factor is Japan's fear of China's military modernization and the US abandoning their security treaty with Japan.

These two fears are so strongly related to each other that they cannot be discussed in 7

separation. The third is a Japanese assumption that the detention of four Japanese citizens in China might be connected to the Senkaku crisis. The fourth is the level and credibility of China's threats. The fifth is a general Japanese desire for peaceful relations in view of the two countries’ violent past. Finally, the sixth factor is Japan’s economic dependence on China.

My overall hypothesis as to why Japan yielded to Chinese pressure places the most emphasis on number six above – the economic dependence on China. This was my assumption from the start, and this is also the factor that proved to best withstand my test of each hypothesis – or evaluation of each explanatory factor. Both countries heavily invest in and trade with each other, yet the continuation of this relationship for Japan seems more vitally important for the Japanese economy than it is for China. Allowing a military conflict to disrupt trade would in the view of Japanese decision makers hurt the Japanese economy more than holding firm over the fishing trawler dispute would benefit Japan in other ways. In essence, we must assume that decision makers in Tokyo weighed the costs and benefits of each action – escalating the dispute further or yielding to protect the Japanese economy – and decided that their lucrative and productive financial ties to China were too valuable to allow them to be damaged.

Skeptics of economic interdependence’s pacifying effects point out that often when a country’s leaders feel dependent on another country they will act in a “defiant” manner (1993:13). Russell Leng cites this “psychological reactance” when his study finds “a strong tendency on the part of states to react in a defiant manner to attempts at coercion, particularly military coercion” (1993:13). Indeed there are many studies to support this theory. Yet, when China continuously raised its threats until Prime Minister Wen Jiabao openly stated China would not back down no matter what the costs and China unofficially economically sanctioned Japan in numerous ways, Japan was not defiant – it was compliant. Thus the argument of my hypothesis is that it was this perceived dependence on economic ties with China that led decision makers to yield to Chinese pressure.

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1.3 Relevant Japanese Foreign Policy Literature Since I am doing a specific case study of one foreign policy crisis in Japan, it is necessary to provide some background on its international relations and foreign policy.

There is a massive body of scholarship covering these topics, so for brevity's sake I will only briefly draw on some of the most relevant literature. There is no better place to start an overview of Japanese relations than with Michael Yahuda's textbook, The International Politics of the Asia-Pacific – Third and Revised Edition (2011).

Yahuda traces the beginnings of an emerging, “active,” “independent” Japanese foreign policy back to the Cold War period of 1971–1989 (2011:169). Largely in response to the 1973 oil crisis and the “relative decline” of “American hegemonic power” – including the abolition of the American gold standard – Japan sought out the “access to as many markets and sources of supply as possible” to “minimize vulnerability in the event of closure of any one source” (2011:169-170). The promise of American security, however, remained the major fulcrum in Japanese security (174). With the division of the Cold War era and the threat of Soviet expansion, Japan was able to normalize independent relations with China and Southeast Asia through “modified,” “neomercantilist policies” including economic assistance and development aid, and trade (170-174). These policies would energize the Japanese economy to becoming one of the largest in the world.

The Post Cold War era brought many changes and challenges for Japanese foreign policy, yet one major staple remains relatively the same – the importance of the American security guarantee (337). There are still notable challenges to the present day JapaneseAmerican relationship. Chief among these challenges are the fears of US security abandonment and the weariness of “being entrapped by American demands that it participate actively” in American wars like in Iraq and Afghanistan (337). North Korean nuclear weapons and the intensification of Chinese “military modernization” also bring insecurity to Japanese foreign policy (337). Since the end of the Cold War Japan has 9

attempted to “balance” the increased economic “interdepen[dence]” with the guarantee of American security (324). China has become Japan's biggest trading partner. Yet, China’s rising power and military modernization have coincided with a deterioration of trust between the two nations, a flaring of nationalistic sentiments on both sides, and Japanese public opinion of China has significantly worsened since the early 1990s (324-326).

Caroline Rose traces many of the problems of the Sino-Japanese historical legacy in her book Sino-Japanese Relations: Facing the past, looking to the future? (2005). In it, she examines the reconciliation between the two states and the problems of the Yasukuni Shrine and Japanese textbook and historical revisionism which have caused major protests, outrage, and concerns in China. She concludes by noting a disconnect between government policies and grassroots movements “who see their struggle as incomplete,” and that although reconciliation has been effective on some levels, “there is still a long way to go” (127). Without a doubt the atrocities of World War II, the expansion of Japan's Self Defense Forces (SDF) and the Chinese military; and the issues of whether Japan has adequately apologized, whether China uses the apology card for foreign policy leverage, and the amount of bitterness and resentments these sentiments in turn have on the younger generation of Japanese officials and citizens create a significant strain on relations and bilateral perceptions (Yahuda 2011:324-328).

Another textbook which is vast and comprehensive is the third edition of Japan's International Relations:Politics, economics and security by Hook, Gilson, Hughes, and Dobson (2012). Throughout this essential resource Japan and its international relations are examined through its US, East Asian, European, and global institutions relations. The authors interestingly address the often argued view that Japan's foreign policies are described as “capricious” (6-7). Yet they find that Japan's foreign policy: “can be best understood as a range of consistently low-risk and low-profile international initiatives, leading to the characterization of Japanese diplomacy as “quiet”. This choice of 'quiet diplomacy' as characteristic of Japan's behavior goes hand in hand with the continuing influence of the

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United States on Japanese government policy. Japan is thus a normal state, with normal modes and means of deploying differing forms of power, given the structure of the international system and the role of the United Sates, the policy-making agents and other political actors involved, and the domestic and international norms which inform their behaviour” (70).

Finally, Mike Mochizuki's article Japan's shifting strategy towards the rise of China describes the end of what he refers to as 'friendship diplomacy' as Japan's China security policy now generally oscillates between “cooperative engagement with a soft hedge” and “competitive engagement with a hard hedge” (2007:739). He argues that the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989, China’s 1992 territorial seas law suggesting it could use force over the Senkaku Islands, a “series of nuclear tests in 1995,” and “military exercises in the Taiwan Strait” in 1996, “caused Japan to question whether China really had benign intentions” (749-750). Thus, “Japan started to shift away from ‘commercial liberalism’ toward ‘reluctant realism’ in its China policy” (750). However, this reluctance did not keep Japan from heavily engaging in China's economy (750-752). Mochizuki's theory of an oscillation between levels of cooperative and competitive economic engagement on the one hand, and soft and hard security hedging with US on the other, gives us a tool to conceptualize Japan's general China security policy as time and different events and administrations pass.

1.4 Theory The theory most relevant to my main hypothesis is that of economic interdependence. The general theories are presented well in Dale Copeland's article, "Economic Interdependence and War: A Theory of Trade Expectations," and will be borrowed, cited, and fashioned in a similar way here. The “core” of the liberal argument is that through deepening ties of trade states will generally become closer and will not want to use military force to achieve their objectives because they have become dependent 11

upon each other for well being (Copeland 1996:8). As Copeland states, “A dependent state should therefore seek to avoid war, since peaceful trading gives it all the benefits of close ties without any of the costs and risks of war” (1996:8). While Immanuel Kant wrote about the potential for trade to pacify states, Richard Cobden's theory is more relevant and efficient for this section. He asserted in the mid-1800s that trade “unites, by the strongest motives of which our nature is susceptible, two remote communities, rendering the interest of the one the only true policy of the other, and making each equally anxious for the prosperity and happiness of both” (Cobden 1878:127). If two states are connected in trade then “how can the extension of our commerce call for an increase in our armaments,” he inquired (1878:127).

Realists argue that contrary to liberal arguments on the peaceful effects of trade on states, an increased dependence on another state can actually lead states into war (Copeland 1996:9). The general argument that realists such as Kenneth Waltz and John Mearsheimer would no doubt agree with is that: “States concerned about security will dislike dependence, since it means that crucial imported goods could be cut off during a crisis. This problem is particularly acute for imports like oil and raw materials; while they may be only a small percentage of the total import bill, without them most modern economies would collapse. Consequently, states dependent on others for vital goods have an increased incentive to go to war to assure themselves of continued access of supply.” (Copeland 1996:9)

This argument is rooted in the mercantilist imperialism writings of the 17 th century, which assert that mercantilist powers will be “locked into a competition of relative power” which will drive them to expand their imperial empires to gain more control over international supply and demand (Copeland 1996:9). Copeland summarizes this argument well by stating “imperial expansion – the acquisition of colonies – is driven by the state's need to secure greater control over sources of supply and markets for its goods, and to 12

build relative power in the process” (1996:9).

It is near impossible for there to be a completely equal relationship of interdependence, meaning that one state will almost always be more dependent than the other – or perceive itself to be more or less dependent than the other. Such factual and perceived asymmetries in dependence are an important focus in both the realist and liberal theories (Copeland 1996:9-10). Copeland summarizes this difference in the direction at the point of departure from the two schools of thought by stating, “liberals argue that the more dependent state is less likely to initiate conflict, since it has more to lose from breaking economic ties; realists maintain that this state is more likely to initiate conflict, to escape its vulnerability” (Copeland 1996:9-10).

The debate between the two schools of thought has continued since Copeland wrote his article in 1996. Many authors have since argued that there are a plethora of conditions under which either the realist or liberal theories can be confirmed, and much research has gone into attempting to identify these conditions. The theory of economic interdependence also informs other theories such as the Democratic Peace Theory and the Capitalist Peace Theory. While the debate has moved into other fields to match the fluidity of international events, the question remains however – was it a feeling of perceived economic dependence on trade with China that caused Japan to yield to Chinese pressure?

1.5 Methodology The idea behind the method used in this thesis is to first examine collected evidence and then continuously create an explanatory theory from that evidence to answer the question of 'why did Japan yield to Chinese pressure'? If the evidence is first examined without applying a prior overarching theory, then more accurate conclusions can be drawn as to why actors behave in certain ways. While it is nearly impossible for one to personally avoid the use of theory while first examining evidence, dogmatically 13

relying on a specific theory as a lens to interpret events puts the researcher at risk of missing important factors which could have an impact on findings. Thus it is with the intention of creating an original and meaningful analysis that I chose this research design.

I also intentionally picked a foreign policy crisis which had a short lifespan and had a definite ending. This is opposed to a protracted conflict which could continue for years.

There are multiple benefits of examining a short-lived event with a definite ending. A protracted or lengthy conflict or crisis requires a larger amount of generalization for one researcher's theory to explain events or decisions in a meaningful way. However, a shorter event allows the researcher to explore more detailed evidence which has a potential bearing on the strength of his or her theory. Since the researcher is able to go into more detail, he or she is also able to bring up evidence that has not already been analyzed by other political scientists. Thus, I hope to contribute to new knowledge. This more detailed evidence could in turn influence conclusions drawn particularly from studies that use more generalized and less specific theories. The case study informs the theory. Finally, having an event that has a definite conclusion to analyze allows one to focus energy on specifically researching why that event happened as it did. If one chooses to analyze the aspects of an ongoing, fluid process then the researcher is left with the tricky decision of picking which spot of the event is most important to start the analysis from and which spot serves as a useful stopping point for analysis. Fortunately, I was not faced with this dilemma.

The bulk of the evidential source material for this paper comes from online newspaper articles, where there is an abundance of easily accessible material. This will be readily apparent in Chapter 2 where I trace the history of the crisis. This approach was beneficial because I was able to quickly consume and organize large amounts of information – making the research process more efficient and chronology of events easier to compile and organize. A personal weakness to this approach stems from the fact that I can not read Japanese or Chinese sources, so my insights are left to information that has been translated by others. Admittedly, this can lead to false conclusions if a translation 14

was slightly misleading or overly biased. Another weakness came from the lack of finances that prevented me from traveling to do interviews with Japanese decision makers. Of the online newspaper sources, the Reuters news database had the largest accessible archive for events during this time period and seemed most reliable in presenting consistent objective information. Thus it is used heavily in Chapter 2. Also heavily used in this paper will be The New York Times, BBC News, and The Japan Times - among others.

Despite these weaknesses however, I still should be able to provide an interesting study on Japanese decision making given the evidence that I was able to compile. Online newspaper sources are good at reporting physical events and governmental statements, both of which lend themselves to interpretation by researchers. To supplement the online newspaper articles I purchased and read through as many of the most relevant and influential books on Japanese foreign policy and Japanese China policy that I was able to find within the constraints of the thesis time period. Inevitably, there will be other sources that I was not able to read due to time constraints that might have provided a different angle or insight.

I also tried to compensate for the above by emailing a few experts and authors on opinions related to my research topic. This allowed me to construct a precise question, was quickly fashioned behind the computer, and proved to be cost-effective. The downside to this, however, is that responses are not guaranteed, the format is impersonal, and often respondents may not answer your question or answers may not be relevant and usable in your paper. These types of occurrences also happened when for instance I received a reply but was referred to someone else or the respondents said they were not knowledgeable about the specifics of my research topic. However, on the other hand, in this case it is positive to be informed by experts on their ignorance to the specifics of my research question because that means that I can successfully contribute to knowledge on this subject. Only some of the responses I received via email have influenced my conclusions, and in those cases I explicitly refer to their opinions with reference to our e15

mail exchange.

The other method I used was to set up phone interviews with experts. This method actually worked quite well. While it would be easy to imagine that some experts could be hard to reach, both people that I called were easy to reach (their numbers were listed online), and were extremely friendly and more than happy to help and be interviewed. A phone interview is a strong method because you can have a list of questions in hand to ask the expert, but you can as well allow the conversation to go in natural directions if you find an interesting topic and the interviewee seems like he or she wants to talk about it in more detail. This happened both times and both sets of responses were very helpful and informative. It was also a bonus to interview one expert on Japanese foreign policy because he (Dan Sneider) had personally interviewed many members of the Democratic Party of Japan about very similar topics, so his insight from the interview became invaluable and also compensated for my weakness in not being able to read and speak Japanese fluently to conduct these types of interviews myself.

The fact that one can use online media sources to examine state behavior says much about the intensification of social interconnectedness. Even social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook have become an important mobilizer for collective action across the world. Yet, even with as much information that exists on the web, academics must remain scientifically rigorous and must always seek to use valid sources and supplement valid web-based information with other credible, academic sources. Thus the method employed in this thesis is to use online news sources for evidential research, and wellreviewed, relevant, and informative scholarly books and interviews with experts to allow firm and credible reflections on causality.

The structure of the thesis was fashioned in a neat, simple, straight-forward manner at the request of my supervisor. While many of his straight-forward structural ideas at first seemed different to how I have structured papers in the past – and how I imagined structuring this one before hand – I have found his suggested methods to be very approachable, easily manageable, and most important, very wise and efficient. Much can 16

be lost with senseless complexity.

Finally, I chose to use the Peace and Conflict studies' recommended method of citing so that the university standard could be quickly recognized by those grading this thesis. In the process of doing so, however, there were some ideas which came to mind that would have made citing more simple and logical. Yet, since the university has a recommended template, I chose to follow the guidelines of citation even at the expense of perhaps some novel ideas in presenting and fashioning my citations in more creative and efficient ways.

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2. The September 2010 Foreign Policy Crisis 2.1 Conflicting Views The Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands are located around 110 square nautical miles (nms) from both the coast of Taiwan and the Japanese islands of Yonaguni and Ishigaki which are part of the Ryukyu Islands chain in the East China Sea (Drifte 2008:6; McCormack 2011). This is about 215 nms southwest of Naha, which is Okinawa’s main island (Drifte 2008:6; McCormack 2011). The Senkakus themselves “consist of five uninhabited islets and three barren rocks” (Drifte 2008:6). While Japan 'exercises administrative control' (Wada 2010) over the Senkaku Islands, both China and Japan claim sovereignty over them and their 12 nm territorial sea, and sovereign rights to resources in any additional maritime zone that might be generated from them (Tanaka 2010).

Based on these assertions of sovereignty, when the fishing boat was arrested the Japanese government claimed that it had been fishing illegally in Japanese territorial waters and had obstructed the coast guard from doing its duties (Tanaka 2010). Territory in this case refers to “the area of the sea within twelve nautical miles of [the Senkaku island] Kubajima,” as this was the island closest to the fishing boat (2010). However, from the Chinese official perspective a Chinese boat was arrested in China’s own territorial waters by a Japanese patrol boat (2010). Thus it is easy to see the nature of the dispute between the contending parties. Taiwan also claims sovereignty over the islands.

The ROC (Taiwan) has the same claim as the PRC, but since Taiwan was not actively involved in the September 2010 dispute, and in order not to complicate matters too much, I will barely discuss the role of Taiwan.

The dispute over the Senkaku Islands, the question of whether or not they can generate an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and continental shelf of their own, and also the maritime border demarcation between the Ryukuyu Island chain and the Chinese coast

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in the East China Sea (following either the median line or the natural prolongation principle) are complicated by the fact that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) leaves room for debate about which side has the most persuasive legal argument on the last two matters (Emmers 2010:51). Under UNCLOS, features that qualify as “islands” can generate not just a 12-nautical mile territorial sea, but a 12nautical-mile contiguous zone, a 200-nautical-mile EEZ, and a continental shelf as well, but “rocks” that cannot sustain human habitation or an economic life of their own cannot have more than a 12 nm territorial sea. An important part of the dispute over the Senkakus is thus whether in a legal sense they are an “island” or a “rock” (Tønnesson 2012 [personal correspondence]). If they are given a right to extended maritime zones and Japan has sovereignty to them, then this would extend Japan's maritime border further westward from the Ryukyu Islands. Emmers (2010: 51) has an informative, precise, and well worded summary of this complex situation: “Japan argues that the Senkaku/Diao yus can be considered as [habitable] islands capable of generating both an EEZ and a continental shelf. Tokyo extends its claims to the East China Sea by using the islands as its base points and takes the Okinawa Trough as merely an incidental depression in the East China Sea's continental shelf. As a result, it advocates that a median-line division be used to determine the maritime boundary between itself and China. Significantly, while the Senkaku/Diao yus are beyond the territorial seas of China and Japan they lie on the western side of the trough...[I]f the islands are rightfully Japanese, the trough would 'probably not pose an obstacle to linking the maritime zones generated from the Ryukyus and the Senkakus'. Sovereignty over the islands is therefore imperative to Japan's larger seabed claims” (Emmers 2010:51).

China claims that the Diaoyu Islands are uninhabitable rocks (Emmers 2010:51).

If this were to be legally supported, the islands would not have a right to their own extended maritime zones. In that case the sea area around the Senkakus would end up in 19

China’s (or Taiwan’s) EEZ, and the seabed might become a part of China/Taiwan’s continental shelf either because of its distance from Taiwan or because China’s continental shelf is naturally prolonged all the way to the Okinawa Trough – which is to the east of the Senkakus (Tønnesson 2012 [personal correspondence]) . This indeed would push the maritime border much closer to Japan than Japan itself envisages while giving China (or Taiwan) a greater share of the East China Sea. China claims that its continental shelf should be based on the concept of natural prolongation, which allows states to claim sovereign rights to the resources under the seabed out to a distance of 200 nm – and under certain geomorphological conditions (to be determined by the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf) even further out than that (Tønnesson 2012 [personal correspondence]). Japan in turn “argues that the EEZ of both sides overlap because the width of the ECS [East China Sea] is less than 400 nm,” and thus once again, a median-line should be drawn equidistant between the two (Drifte 2008:9) both for the EEZ and the continental shelf.

At the heart of the debate is a competition over the potential oil and energy resources located in the central area of the East China Sea. Both Japan and China are massive economies which consume and desire large amounts of oil and gas. Particularly tempting is the perceived “possibility of the hydrocarbon potential” of the seabed surrounding the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands (Pan 2007:72). An agreement has been reached on joint development of resources in disputed parts of the East China Sea – although no joint exploration has yet materialized (Drifte 2008:4). Japan has protested China's “relentless exploration” of hydrocarbon and extraction of oil and gas in the “immediate vicinity of Japan's proposed maritime border” (Drifte 2008:4) and has expressed fear that “China's exploration for natural gas in the East China Sea threatens gas beds extending under what it deems Japan's maritime zone” (Buckley 2010). Japan has also accused China of violating the joint development agreement (Blanchard & Sieg 2010).

As stated above, the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands are claimed by both China and Japan.

The disputed sovereignty to the Senkakus could have an impact on maritime zone 20

delimitation, but only if the Senkakus are given a right to their own EEZ and continental shelf. This could then have implications for gas and also for the ability of the Chinese Navy to exit through the East China Sea within China’s own EEZ (Drifte 2008:10; Hsiao 2010; McCormack 2011; Wada 2010). These “overlapping” maritime zone claims and interests have “made finding an acceptable solution to the sovereignty controversy more challenging” (Pan 2007:72). This makes what was potentially at stake in the crisis of September 2010 all the more important and does much to explain the relevance and tensions of the events from Sept. 7th-24th 2010. Before providing a detailed account of the crisis, I will first briefly present the differing perspectives on the contrasting historical claims to sovereignty over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands as such. As is usual both sides use historical evidence to underpin their claims.

2.2 Japan's Argument One of Japan's arguments is that the islands were uninhabited at the time of discovery in 1884 by Koga Tatsushiro and still “not occupied by any power, or terra nullius,” when Japan formally claimed sovereignty over them in 1895 (Lee 2011; Wada 2010). The hesitation to formally act during the eleven year gap between the supposed discovery and formal claims to sovereignty was due to the Japanese government's apparent uncertainty as to whether the islands could have belonged to China at some point in the past (Lee 2011). It is argued that the Japanese government at this time undertook a “thorough 10-year investigation...that started in 1885...,” and “...confirmed that the islands had been uninhabited and showed no trace of having been under the control of China” (Kawaguchi 2010).

It is also noteworthy that when the government of Japan decided to officially incorporate the Senkaku Islands Japan was winning the Sino-Japanese war – a time that “Japan no longer felt any need to consider the reaction of China” (Wada 2010).

While there are ancient Chinese documents which are used to support the claim that the 21

Diaoyu Islands were used for Chinese fishing routes long before 1884, these documents do not necessarily substantiate claims of effective control over the territory (Kawaguchi 2010; Wada 2010). Furthermore, according to Wada and most legal scholars (2010) what “matters more is how these islands have been handled in the modern period, which gave birth to the concept of national territory.”

After the end of WWII, the “Senkaku Islands were not returned together with Taiwan to China [because of the Japanese perception of the Senkaku Islands as being terra nullius when discovered]” (Wada 2010) and “were administered by the US as part of their occupation of Okinawa” (Drifte 2008:6). The islands “were returned to Japan along with Okinawa” in the 1972 reversion, and have been under Japan's administrative control since then (The Japan Times 2010). Though the US did not specifically state that it was transferring sovereignty when they returned administrative rights of the islands to Japan, Japan's government passed a resolution in 1970 to declare the islands part of its sovereign territory (Lee 2011). This led to protests from Taiwan and China (Lee 2011). Such protests are important because they weaken the Japanese claim. If there had been no protests the Japanese claim would have gained much in validity.

Drifte (2008:6) notes that China's interest in the South China Sea Island disputes seemed greater than in the East China Sea dispute, as China made formal claims over the Spratly and Paracel Islands as early as in the 19th century. Many on the Japanese side of the dispute assert that the Chinese government did not claim sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands until 1970, and issued its first official documentation of that claim in 1971 (Drifte 2008:6). This was only after “Japan and Taiwan had started talks on jointly exploring the energy resources around the Senkaku Islands..., the US had agreed to return the islands...,” and perhaps most importantly, after a committee under the auspices of the United Nations “conducted a geophysical survey in 1968” and reported that “the continental shelf between Taiwan and Japan may be extremely rich in oil reserves” (Drifte 2008:6).

Thus, the other main point of the pro-Japanese argument is that the government of China, since the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895, through WWII, and all the way up to 22

1971 did not “object to Japan’s acquisition of the Senkaku Islands” (Kawaguchi 2010). It was only after the UN report of 1968 which said there might be large economic resources to be harvested that China officially protested Japan's claims to sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands. The historical argument that the Senkaku Islands were “terra nullius” when discovered, combined with the argument of China's inaction in regards to officially protesting claims up until 1971 leads Japanese officials to often officially claim that there is no dispute over the sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands – implying that they are simply a part of Japan (McCormack 2011; Wada 2010).

2.3 China's Argument The Chinese argument contends that, far from being “terra nullius” when the Japanese supposedly discovered and incorporated the islands, China had controlled the Diaoyu Islands as part of its sovereign territory for centuries (Lee 2011; McCormack 2011; Pan 2007:77). Chinese historical records “detailed the discovery and geographical feature of the Diaoyu Islands as early as in 1372,” and “incorporated” the islands for “maritime defense” in 1556 (Pan 2007:77). Lee (2011) contends that the first mention of the Diaoyu Islands is recorded “in a 15th-century document now held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.” Also according to Lee (2011), by the 17th century Chinese documents and sources had already “clearly named the maritime boundary between the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands and the Ryukyus as the Heishuigou (‘Black Water Trench’), an area of high turbulence which we now know marks the edge of the continental shelf.”

Also important is that in 1893, “just two years before Japan's claim” (Pan 2007:77), Empress Dowager Cixi “awarded three of the disputed islands” to a pharmaceutical businessman who was harvesting herbs which the Chinese then used to “manufacture pills to prevent high blood pressure and relieve pain because of dampness” (Lohmeyer 2008:63-64).

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While Kawaguchi and other pro-Japanese commentators and historians assert that Japan undertook a thorough investigation and came to the conclusion that there was no evidence of China or Taiwan's claim to ownership of the islands, there are documents which suggest that at least a few people in Japan were concerned that China might have already claimed the islands (Lohmeyer 2008:58-64). In a letter to the National Home Secretary from the Magistrate of Okinawa in 1885, Nishimura Sutezo expressed his concerns over Japan potentially incorporating the islands by stating: “...due to their differences in terms of topography from the earlier reported islands Daitojima, the possibility must not be ignored that they are the same islands recorded as Diaoyutai, Huangweiyu, and Chiweiyu in the Zhongshan Records. If they truly are the same islands, then it is obviously the case that the details of the islands have already been well-known to Qing envoy ships dispatched to crown the former Zhongshan King and already given fixed (Chinese) names and used as navigation aids en route to the Ryukyu Islands.”

(Lohmeyer 2008:60-61).

Those who support the Chinese side also claim that China was in no position to protest the Japanese acquisition of the Diaoyu Islands because this happened at a time when China was losing the 1895 war (McCormack 2011). Thus it “was understandable for the Chinese side to acquiesce to any unfair and irrational requests of imperial Japan” (Pan 2007:78). China was also forced to cede the whole of Taiwan to Japan at the time (2007:78). It is implicitly argued however that China did protest Japan's ownership when it protested against not being invited to the San Francisco Peace conference in 1952, which resolved a number of sovereignty issues in the aftermath of WWII and “provided the basis for their [Senkaku Islands] inclusion in Japan’s territories” (Pan 2007:79; Wada 2010).

Pro-Chinese supporters also point out that even some Japanese historians have concluded that the Diaoyu Islands should be under Chinese sovereignty (Pan 2007:78).

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One such historian, Inoue Kiyoshi, after reviewing the history of the dispute is quoted to have said, “Even though the [Senkaku] islands were not wrested from China under a treaty, they were grabbed from it by stealth, without treaty or negotiations, taking advantage of victory in war” (McCormack 2011). Thus, according to the Chinese author Pan (second name) Kiyoshi reasoned that, “these islands are territory of the People’s Republic of China,” and the “People’s Republic of China alone has title to them” (Pan 2007:78).

Finally, while pro-Japanese analysts are quick to note that China only began protesting after the UN announced that there could be potentially lucrative deposits of oil and other resources in the East China Sea, the Chinese side begs to differ. Pan (2007:79) asserts that it was not the prospect of finding oil in the East China Sea that brought Chinese protests to the forefront, but the fact that the US handed over the administration of the Senkaku Islands to Japan, which was in China’s view an illegal act. Moreover, in the Reversion Act of 1972, the US avoided stating that the Senkaku Islands were Japanese territory, leaving the issue in an ambiguous limbo (Lee 2011).

2.4 A Concluding Precursor to the Crisis In 1978, four years after they had normalized their relations, Japan and the People’s Republic of China signed a Peace Treaty, but in the process both parties agreed to ignore the Senkakus topic for the time being – a gesture due to each side’s wish to have beneficial, peaceful relations (Wada 2010). The issue was somewhat successfully 'shelved' until the 1990s, where after arguments, nationalistic protests, and spats over attempts at erecting sovereignty markers on the islands by both sides have periodically if not consistently erupted (Pan 2007:75). The tensions between the two sides have been charged by nationalistic sentiments and references to the historical legacies of WWII. Japanese policy makers have become more anxious over China's military modernization (“Asia-Pacific” 2011:348). In April 2010, China's navy dispatched a large flotilla to 25

waters near the islands of Okinawa. In May 2010, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) protested “China’s pursuit of a Japanese research ship operating near the median line of the two countries’ disputed overlapping Exclusive Economic Zones” (“Asia-Pacific” 2011:348). It is also important to point out that Sino-Japanese relations had already been significantly strained by quarrels concerning the history of Japanese atrocities in WWII and visits by Japan’s prime minister to the Yasukuni Shrine (Wiegand 2011:95). Under these circumstances and with the historical memories and perspectives above, I will now turn to the events of September 2010.

2.5 The September 2010 Events The events which eventually triggered an escalating crisis began on September 7 th when the Japanese Coast Guard reportedly had multiple collisions with a Chinese fishing trawler (Yoshida 2010). The event occurred 6 to 8 nm north of one of the Senkaku islands known in Japanese as Kubajima in the East China Sea, thus well inside the territorial sea of the Senkakus (Tanaka 2010; Yoshida 2010). According to The Japan Times Online, the coast guard ship warned the fishing trawler that it should leave, and, after the two vessels were involved in a small collision of sorts, three coast guard boats had to chase the fleeing trawler before another collision occurred and the trawler captain, the trawler itself, and his crew were taken into Japanese custody (Yoshida 2010). The captain, Zhan Qixiong (The New York Times 2010), was arrested under suspicion of obstructing official coast guard duties and was taken to Ishigaki Island of the Ryukyu Islands for questioning (Ito 2010). His fishing trawler and fourteen member crew, who were not arrested, were moved to the Ishigaki port to wait for their captain and the ensuing investigation (Ito 2010). As other reports began to surface, there were more than a few suggestions and suspicions that one of the Japanese Coast Guard boats was 'rammed' intentionally by the fishing trawler, (Tanaka 2010; Wada 2010).

Foreign ministry official Akitaka Saiki quickly stated the common stance the 26

Japanese government would repeat for much of the crisis – that the Japanese government would handle the situation according to its own domestic laws (Asia Pacific News 2010).

Foreign Minister Okada Katsuda also claimed early on that because the incident occurred in Japanese territorial waters it would be handled “strictly by domestic law” (Wada 2010).

This is a particularly important point because it supports the official Japanese position that “a territorial problem does not exist,” echoed by Chief Cabinet Secretary Sengoku on September 8th (Asia Pacific News 2010; McCormack 2011). Seiji Maehara, the then “Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport” was responsible for the arrest of Mr. Zhan as the coast guard was under his command at that time (Cheng 2011:254; Wada 2010). 2 Despite the Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku calling on China to remain calm and also claiming that no dispute existed, both the Chinese government and large groups of nationalist Chinese citizens quickly began to show their disapproval and condemnation of the arrest through protests (Asia Pacific News 2010). The government in Beijing quickly “urged” the Japanese ambassador to halt what it called an 'illegal interception' of a Chinese fishing boat (BBC News 2010). On Thursday September 9th, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu began diplomatically warning and threatening Japan to release the fishermen by stating that Sino-Japanese relations could be hurt if the situation were not resolved (Buckley & Graham-Harrison 2010). She went on to also say that, “The Diaoyu islands are China's inseparable territory and the Japanese side applying domestic law to Chinese fishing boats operating in this area is absurd, illegal and invalid, and China will never accept that” (2010). She also stated that a “law enforcement ship” had been sent to protect Chinese fishermen in the area (Zeenews 2010).

Expert on Sino-Japanese relations at Renmin University, Huang Dahui, prophetically observed that, “The Chinese public will feel it’s wrong to make any concessions, as will Japanese opinion, and that could make this a difficult point of 2 Maehara would become an important figure later as he was appointed foreign minister in Naoto Kan's new cabinet after the September 14 DPJ leadership election.

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friction'” (Buckley & Graham-Harrison 2010). Indeed, by the end of the crisis, the nationalistic pressure from both sides' domestic publics made concessions difficult.

Already by September 9th considerable sections of the general public began passionately voicing their disapproval in various media outlets, and Chinese protests started outside the Japanese embassy with fifty Chinese citizens protesting Japan's arrest of Chinese citizens (Masami 2010; Zeenews 2010). On that same Thursday amidst the worsening tensions Japan released a white paper on defense which stated Japan's growing concerns over China’s rapid military modernization and lack of transparency (Takenaka 2010).

Cheng (2011: 254) points out that the arrest was perceived by the Chinese government “as an attempt to create a judicial case to force China to accept the legality of Japan’s occupation of the islands.” In other words, in the Chinese perception, allowing the fishermen to be prosecuted in Japan “would tacitly signal Chinese acceptance that the disputed islands are, in fact, Japanese” (Wiegand 2011:106). On Friday, September 10th the Chinese Foreign Minister demanded that the Japanese government release Mr. Zhan, his crew, and the trawler and “emphasized” China's “firm and steadfast” determination to stand by its sovereignty claims (The New York Times 2010b). By this time the Chinese government had already summoned the Japanese ambassador three times to implore Japan to release the fishermen and warned of a “serious impact” on Sino-Japanese relations if the situation could not be resolved quickly (BBC 2010b; The New York Times 2010b).

Yet, hours after the demands were made, a Japanese court ruled that Mr. Zhan would be held in custody to decide whether or not to officially press charges over the fishing incident (BBC 2010b).

China's Foreign Ministry reacted on Saturday, September 11th by calling off talks that were scheduled with the Japanese government intended to “settle their dispute over East China Sea gas fields” (Buckley 2010). China also once again issued diplomatic threats by stating, “If Japan continues in this reckless fashion, it will taste its own bitter fruit” (Buckley 2010). Japan's only reaction was that a source in the prime minister's office expressed regret at China's 'unilateral' action to cancel the gas meeting and a 28

Foreign Ministry official said Tokyo “cannot accept (China's move) to link the incident to the gas field issue'" (The Japan Times 2010b).

Also on September 11th a Chinese Oceanic Administration vessel requested that a Japanese Coast Guard (JCG) vessel “stop” its operations 151 nm northwest of Naha Island (Buckley 2010b). The coast guard vessel informed the Chinese vessel of its “operations”, overlooked its request for it to stop its “activities”, and continued in the area for another two hours (The Japan Times 2010c). The Chinese Foreign Ministry accused the JCG of trying to recreate the events of September 7th to “furnish evidence” (Buckley 2010b). Japan in return lodged its “protest” to China regarding the incident through “diplomatic channels” (The Japan Times 2010c).

The escalation continued on Sunday, September 12th, when Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo, who advises China's leaders on foreign policy and outranks the foreign minister within the Communist Party, got involved and demanded the release of the crew and the captain (BBC News 2010c). He for the fourth time summoned the Japanese ambassador, and the BBC reported that it was very rare for someone as senior as the state councilor to intercede (BBC News 2010c). The continued escalation of events began to stir more nationalist sentiments in China, as a group of Chinese citizens, who were planning to take a boat from the coastal city of Xiamen to the disputed islands, had to be stopped by the Chinese government (Buckley 2010b).

Japanese ambassador Uichiro Niwa reaffirmed to China that Japan would handle the situation according to its domestic laws, and urged China to act 'calmly and carefully' so as not to affect overall bilateral relations, citing the principle of maintaining 'strategic relations of mutual benefit' (Buckley 2010b; The Japan Times 2010d). On the same day the Japanese Coast Guard took the boat and its crew out to sea to recreate the circumstances of the collision to help investigators (BBC News 2010c). Also on the same day, Japan's chief cabinet secretary, Yoshito Sengoku, criticized the Chinese government for linking the arrests with the issue of jointly developing resources in the East China Sea (The New York Times 2010d).

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On Monday, September 13th, Japan released the crew of the fishing boat, along with sending it back to China but held on to the captain, Mr. Zhan (Blanchard & Kubota 2010).

According to Japanese law, Japanese prosecutors could order the police to hold Mr. Zhan for up to 20 more days while deciding whether or not to press charges (Blanchard & Kubota 2010). The Chinese Foreign Ministry, however, stated that releasing the crew but not the captain “was not good enough,” and urged Japan to “immediately release him” (Blanchard & Kubota 2010).

The DPJ government had been rather quiet and unresponsive presumably because the DPJ was focusing on its party leadership election on September 14th which would determine the choice of a new prime minister since the DPJ was in power (Fujioka & Sieg 2010). Prime Minister Naoto Kan won the election and retained his post as the most powerful man in Japan. The leadership race, which had been under way since before the September 7th incident dealt heavily with economics. Japan was struggling with a divided parliament, a strong yen, weak economy, and a huge public debt already twice the size of the $5 trillion economy (Sieg 2010), by far the highest in the world. Kan's platform, along with stimulating the economy and battling the yen deflation with hints of a potential currency intervention, also dealt with the issue of strengthening Japan-US ties and the location of the US military bases in Okinawa (Nishikawa 2010). Dealing with the rising tensions with China did not, however, seem to be evident in the topics surrounding the leadership race. When asked what “message” he wanted to give regarding the building dispute, Kan only said, “'It is necessary for both Japan and China to make an effort to securely advance our strategic, mutually beneficial ties'” (Blanchard & Kubota 2010).

On the same day Prime Minister Kan maintained his position in Japan's driver’s seat, Chinese protests once again intensified. On Tuesday, September 14th, the Chinese government canceled an official visit to Japan by the vice chair of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, Li Jianguo, who had been invited to the Japanese lower house of parliament (BBC News 2010d). Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku replied by saying that the decision to cancel the meeting was 'very 30

regrettable' (BBC News 2010d). He also said, 'in times like these, lawmakers should be able to talk frankly' (BBC News 2010d). Also on the same day the Japanese Coast Guard stopped and sent a boat back to Taiwan full of protesters who were headed for the islands (Blanchard 2010) . When they returned home they protested in front of the Japanese embassy where part of their protest involved the burning of Japanese flags (Blanchard 2010).

On Prime Minister Kan's first day after he won the leadership election, the ministry of finance intervened in the foreign exchange market and “sold yen and bought dollars to weaken Japan’s currency,” against the dollar to protect Japan's export economy (Reuters 2010; Takenaka 2010b). Kan stated afterward that the yen's rise forced the intervention and the government acted with a “sense of urgency” to protect the economy (Takenaka 2010b).

It was also in a sense of urgency that many in China demanded the Japanese government to release Mr. Zhan. On the 15th, Chinese activists through a special website dedicated to the Diaoyu Islands began organizing larger protests against Japan's actions, and on the 16th the Chinese media began demanding from Prime Minister Kan the fishing captain's release (Buckley 2010c; The Japan Times 2010e). On Friday the 17 th, China expressed its right to do as it pleases in Chinese territorial waters and shipped drilling equipment to a disputed gas field called Chunxiao in Chinese and Shirakaba in Japanese (BBC News 2010e; Kubota 2010). Japan's Foreign Ministry was told by officials in China that the shipments were for “'repair work'” (BBC News 2010e).

Japan's newly appointed foreign minister, Seiji Maehara, who had previously, as mentioned, been Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and responsible for the trawler captain’s arrest, said he would be watching the Chunxiao gas fields carefully (Kubota 2010; The Japan Times 2010g). He also “urged Beijing to implement a bilateral agreement to jointly develop maritime gas fields” (Kubota 2010), expressed concern over China's rapid military modernization, and suggested the Chinese government ease regional fears by being more accountable with their military expenses (The Japan Times 31

2010h). Just a day before, Maehara inspected the boats involved in the incident in Ishigaki and claimed both of the boats “were hit very strongly” (The Japan Times 2010f).

He also once again denied any existence of a territorial dispute with China over the Senkaku Islands (The Japan Times 2010f).

Maehara, who according to Kubota (2010) is known as a “proponent of strong ties with Japan's security ally Washington...” and as a “China Hawk,” replaced Katsuya Okada as foreign minister in a massive cabinet reshuffling by Prime Minister Naoto Kan (The Japan Times 2010g). Kan replaced 10 of his 17 cabinet members on September 17th (The Japan Times 2010g). Important among those he retained were “his right-hand man”, Yoshito Sengoku as Chief Cabinet Secretary and Yoshihiko Noda who was the finance minister (The Japan Times 2010g). PM Naoto Kan and newly appointed Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara stated that Japan would take 'countervailing steps' if China started drilling in the Chunxiao gas field (Blanchard & Sieg 2010b).

After the new Cabinet was in place, the pressure from China continued to strengthen. By Sunday, September 19th, Chinese companies canceled tours to Japan for about 10,000 tourists (Fackler & Johnson 2010). China suspended all diplomatic contacts on the provincial and central levels. This included suspending meetings for the expansion of aviation, cooperation on coal (2010), and on increasing the number of commercial flights between China and Japan (Cheng 2011:254). The Chinese Foreign Ministry stated that “Japan had 'seriously damaged Sino-Japan bilateral relations'” (Fackler & Johnson 2010). A spokesman from the Foreign Ministry gave a strong warning that if Japan continued down the same path, “'China will take strong[er] countermeasures and Japan will bear all the consequences'” (2010).

The Chinese government also summoned the Japanese ambassador for the sixth time, one of which was in the middle of the night (Fackler & Johnson 2010). Small protests continued on Saturday in front of the Japanese embassy on the 79th anniversary of Japan’s invasion of Manchuria (Fackler & Johnson 2010). Despite the worsening relations between the two, a Japanese court once again approved the prosecutors’ request 32

to extend the boat captain's detention while decision was being made as to whether or not charges would be pressed (Sieg 2010b). On Monday, September 20th the intensification continued when China's national youth association decided to postpone the visit of 1,000 Japanese youths in Shanghai (Buckley & Yan 2010).

Meanwhile, nationalist sentiments became more intense both in China and Japan as one Chinese website's poll (The Global Times Tabloid) showed 95% percent of its contributors “backed armed force” to settle the dispute (Buckley & Yan 2010). In Japan, Tokyo's “ultraconservative” Governor Shintaro Ishihara also publicly asserted that Japan should use military force to respond to the hostile pressure China was exerting, comparing the Chinese to “yakuza” and calling the country “unpleasant” (PanOrient News 2010).

However, Chief Cabinet Secretary Sengoku, a close adviser to the Prime Minister Kan. called for “calm” and a level headed approach (PanOrient News 2010).

With tensions ever growing, eyes turned to a UN Summit later that week that would take place in New York and involve both the Japanese and Chinese leaders. While “Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshito Sengoku, publicly stated that talks between the two countries' governments would be desirable (Blanchard & Fujioka 2010), Chinese leadership took the escalation further. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao not only stated he would not meet with Prime Minister Naoto Kan to talk, but also stated in New York on Tuesday September 21st that China would pursue “further action” if Japan did not “unconditionally release the fishing captain” (Wong 2010). Prime Minister Kan on the other hand once again only called for “calm” (Blanchard & Fujioka 2010). The Chinese government had also strongly denounced the growing American involvement in the East Asian Region, as the US carried out naval exercises with South Korea in order to help Seoul rebuff threats from North Korea (Wong 2010).

The Japanese government attempted to use the UN Summit as a platform to get assurance from the US that it guaranteed the security of Japan also in the Senkakus (Dobson et. al. 2012:184). As Naoto Kan was unable to meet with the Chinese leaders because of China's diplomatic ban, the Japanese government quickly sought reassurances 33

of alliance protection from the US (“Asia-Pacific” 2011:347; Dobson et. al. 2012:183184). Seiji Maehara, the newly appointed foreign minister was able to extract a statement from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Article 5 of the US–Japan security treaty guaranteed Japanese security in the Senkaku Islands as well (“Asia-Pacific” 2011:347).

Clinton urged the two sides to settle the dispute through “dialogue,” and Clinton's spokesman Phillip Crowley stated that the US does not take a stance on the sovereignty to the islands (Carmichael 2010). He also said that “because the Senkaku islands are under Japanese jurisdiction, that it is covered by the US-Japan security treaty” (Carmichael 2010). This stance was reaffirmed publicly by US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on the same day (“Asia-Pacific” 2011:347). Before this agreement, whether the security treaty counted for the Senkaku Islands remained somewhat “ambiguous” (Sneider 2012 [personal interview]).

While this was happening and after Premier Wen Jiabao threatened “further actions”, the New York Times reported that on Wednesday, September 22nd, the Chinese government halted exports to Japan of “a crucial category of minerals used in products like hybrid cars, wind turbines and guided missiles,” frequently referred to as 'rare-earth minerals' (Bradsher 2010). Japan had been one of China's largest importers of rare-earth, accounting for 17% of the entire market (Gordon 2010). China, according to Bradsher's (2010) New York Times report, mined 93% of the world's rare-earths at the time. The ban on exports of these elements reportedly started on Wednesday, when Chinese companies said they could not make shipments to Japan, although rare-earth exports continued as normal on the same Tuesday to “Hong Kong, Singapore and other destinations” (Bradsher 2010; Bradsher 2010b). Despite Chinese officials denying that there was a ban, businessmen and government officials alike in Japan confirmed that shipments of rareearths had come to a halt (Bradsher 2010; Bradsher 2010b). Rare-earth elements are used to manufacture products like cell phones, automobiles, weapons, “electronics, batteries for electric and hybrid cars..., magnets for electric car motors, computers, DVD players, wind turbines, catalysts in cars and oil refineries, computer monitors, televisions, lighting, 34

lasers,” and even fiber optics and superconductors (Gordan 2010b). These types of product “keep Western economies ticking” (Gordon 2010).

Also on Wednesday, September 22nd, Chinese pressure continued to mount when four Japanese nationals were arrested in China “on suspicion of violating Chinese law regarding the protection of military facilities” (Fujioka & White 2010). Sengoku would not acknowledge any linkage between the arrests and the trawler row, and only once again repeated, “We place great importance on strategic, mutually beneficial relations and authorities should make efforts to enhance that relationship” (Fujioka & White 2010). On the importance of mutually beneficial relations, Japanese Economics Minister Banri Kaieda said, “The Japanese economy's future performance seems to depend on whether the problem is solved quickly” (Fujioka & White 2010).

Finally, after China had cut off diplomatic contacts and international flights from Japan which are used for business, further economic sanctions of vital imports, arresting four Japanese citizens, issuing dozens of diplomatic threats, and canceling vital meetings which were important to Japanese national interests – Japan yielded to Chinese pressure, and released the captain without pressing charges (Kubota 2010b). This was after Japanese government officials confidently asserted that there was no sovereignty dispute, and that the case would be handled strictly according to Japan’s own domestic laws.

Multiple scholars and commentators viewed this as a “retreat,” or a “buckling” under the pressure, since the government reportedly “intervened politically behind the scenes in the judicial process to ensure the release of the trawler captain” (“Asia-Pacific” 2011:349; Dobson et. al. 2012:183; Fackler & Johnson 2010). Chief Cabinet Secretary Sengoku admitted there was always a possibility relations could sour, but once again exclaimed that “Our ties are important and both sides must work to enhance our strategic and mutually beneficial relations” (BBC News 2010f). A spokesman from the US State Department expressed a feeling of relief and said that the US was pleased tensions between the two would lessen (Kubota 2010b).

Japanese officials stated that the reason for releasing Mr. Zhan was that the 35

investigation had been conducted and there was no evidence to support Mr. Zhan had intentionally caused any damage to the Japanese Coast Guard boats (BBC News 2010f).

Yet, soon after the release of the boat captain a Japanese Coast Guard video was leaked on youtube depicting what appears to be the Japanese Coast Guard capturing Captain Zhan's fishing trawler ramming the coast guard vessel on September 7th (“Asia-Pacific” 2011:349; Dobson et. al. 2012:183). The video, leaked by a Japanese Coast Guard officer, “showed that the trawler had repeatedly attempted to ram the JCG vessels, contrary to Chinese claims that the JCG had taken aggressive action against the trawler” (“AsiaPacific” 2011:349). Yet the Japanese government refused to release the video before it was leaked (“Asia-Pacific” 2011:349). While it is beyond my ability to prove or falsify, and while there is a possibility of the video being a fake, multiple leading Japan scholars tend to presume the video is genuine (“Asia-Pacific” 2011:349; Dobson et. al. 2012:183).

With the history and the events of the dispute now covered in detail I can now analyze what factors kept the Japanese government from yielding earlier in the dispute.

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3. Why the Wait?

3.1 Introduction Deciphering reasons behind decision making is always an arduous task, especially when decision makers are faced with various changing levels of complications and interests. Which interests have priority over others and for how long? Which decision makers have more say or respect than others? Without proper historical contextualization explanations can easily go wrong. Before I can sufficiently argue why Japanese decision makers yielded to Chinese pressure on September 24th, first this question must be examined: what kept decision makers from yielding earlier in the dispute?

There is another puzzle that must be added as well. While it will be more thoroughly examined later in this chapter, it is important to note that there was a great concern at the top levels of decision making within the Japanese government over not allowing nationalism on either side to reach a point that could become detrimental to Sino-Japanese relations. A related and additional perplexity to the above stated question is if the concern for nationalism was a top priority for the Japanese government, why then did it allow both the extension of the fishing trawler captain's confinement and the entire dispute to last until September 24th instead of resolving it much earlier when nationalist tensions and protests were not as high? With this concern in mind, it becomes more puzzling that Japan did not yield earlier. Analyzing and answering these questions will logically guide this paper to chapter four, where I will then address the overall thesis question of why Japan yielded to Chinese pressure.

There are six potential reasons, or factors, to analyze for why Japan did not yield until September 24th. The first is the Democratic Party of Japan's leadership elections, which happened during the dispute. They may have encouraged leaders not to yield. The second is legal procedures. The third is the level of Chinese pressure on the Japanese

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government. The fourth is public opinion. The fifth possible reason is the concern for not weakening the Japanese legal argument in the sovereignty dispute to the Senkakus.

Finally, a sixth factor might be a Japanese desire to improve on its legal title in the sovereignty dispute.

The analysis will be broken into two phases. This is because the leadership elections, once they had been held, ceased to be a factor. The first phase, Before the Election, is the one week period from September 7th to the 14th. The discussion of this phase will concentrate on the first two possible factors. The second phase, After the Election, is the ten day period from September 14th to the 24th. The question to be discussed here is why the Japanese government continued to wait to yield to Chinese pressure for so long? The discussion of this phase will concentrate on the remaining possible factors listed above. After analyzing each of the two phases, the chapter will conclude by weighing the relative importance of all factors to decide which have the most explanatory force.

3.2 The 1st Phase – Before the Election The most important event in Japanese domestic politics during September 2010 was the leadership election in the governing Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). The sitting Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, eventually won a comfortable victory by 721 points to 491 against his rival Ichiro Ozawa in a poll including party local and national law makers and other members. In advance the expectation had been that there was a real chance the race would be tight since Ozawa had a large support base within the party (BBC News 2010g).

Kan is therefore likely to have felt a need to appear steadfast and strong towards China so as not to come under attack from Japanese conservatives. Leaders do not wish to appear “vulnerable” at a time of upcoming elections, and will avoid topics and policies that lead to “mass dissatisfaction” (Wiegand 2011:33). Rich and “well-funded” conservatives in Japan might utilize any signs of weakness – such as “concessions on sovereignty claims” 38

(Emmers 2010:56). This made openly giving anything that could appear as a concession to China near “impossible” (Emmers 2010:56). Before Prime Minister Kan's re-election on the 14th, public statements from the administration were generally short and nonconciliatory, and it does not appear that either candidate used the sovereignty dispute issue at all to gather points against the other.3 Towards the beginning when Japanese officials did respond to Chinese protests, statements typically only reminded the Chinese of the same Japanese stance that there is no territorial dispute and the issues would be handled according to domestic law. On September 8th, one day after the collisions and the arrest, and after protests in Beijing had already begun, Naoto Kan simply stated, “We will deal with this in a fair manner in line with Japanese laws” (Blanchard & Nishikawa 2010).

Despite “well-funded” conservative pressure, at the end of the campaign on September 13th, perhaps when most voters would have already made up their mind, Japan released the fishing trawler crew from detainment. Naoto Kan arguably showed concern by saying, “It is necessary for both Japan and China to make an effort to securely advance our strategic, mutually beneficial ties” (Blanchard & Kubota 2010). Yet, Japanese policy analyst Ennis describes releasing the crew as “routine” for investigations (Ennis 2010).

Furthermore, on September 13th the prosecutors extended the fishing trawler skipper's detainment period so authorities could further investigate the matter. Although these were judicial decisions they could be seen as political moves to first appease Chinese sentiments by releasing the crew, and then satisfy Japanese nationalists by keeping the captain under arrest. Regardless, an awareness of the impact the Japanese DPJ leadership elections had on Japanese action was commented on by Liu Jiangyong of Tsinghua University in Beijing who stated, “I don't see [the detainment of the Chinese fishing crew] having a major impact on trade and economic relations. But if Japan drags this out for long after the outcome of the Democratic Party election, the repercussions could be more 3

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This could be as a result of only being able to access English translated news articles on the election. It is possible the issue was brought up in campaign debates and vote salesmanship even if I was unable to find or access this information.

serious” (Blanchard & Kubota 2010).

In conclusion, the leadership election seems almost a sufficient explanation for why the Japanese government did not yield during this phase. Neither Kan nor Ozawa – or the DPJ in general for that matter – wanted to appear weak while much of the national attention was focused on them. Since we know that Chief Cabinet Secretary Sengoku was greatly concerned with avoiding actions that might exacerbate nationalism both in Japan and China, it seems even more likely that it was the leadership election that kept him from realizing his wish to get the fishing boat incident off the table before it could cause any crisis in the Sino-Japanese relationship. The elections kept Kan’s government from taking the act needed to prevent the rising tensions.

Another possible explanation is that legal procedures prevented Japanese government from doing what its leading bureaucrat wanted it to do. In a phone interview with Japanese foreign policy expert and Stanford University researcher Dan Sneider – who has interviewed many members of the Kan administration including Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku about this time period – I asked him why decision makers would wait so long to release the captain in the face of rising nationalism. One factor, he theorized, may have been that once the Chinese fishing trawler rammed the Japan Coast Guard boats and the JCG decided to arrest the captain, “then it became a different issue – because once it went into the Japanese legal system...it’s not that they couldn't find a way around [the legal system], but it made it a lot more difficult. There is a whole legal procedure that goes into effect in Japan with gathering evidence and deciding when to indict.

They have to hold someone for quite a while before they decide to indict” (Sneider 2012 [Telephone interview]).

As in other democratic countries, the Japanese judicial system operates under the rule that if someone is under suspicion of a crime, the police will make sure they can interrogate the suspect and conduct an investigation (“The Japanese Judicial System” 40

1999). Once the investigation is over the public prosecutor is in charge of deciding whether or not to indict the suspect based on the examination of evidence. These investigations can take time and thus the prosecutor can extend the time of detention for suspects that might be susceptible to fleeing while deliberating on whether there is sufficient evidence to indict (“The Japanese Judicial System� 1999).

Thus the factor why Japan did not yield in the phase up to September 14th could be that it was difficult for the executive to intervene in what the judiciary was doing.

Decision makers had to respect the legal process. Once the fishing trawler captain was arrested, the Japanese government faced the issue of having to publicly stand by its domestic legal norms and procedures. Once there is an arrest the suspect must be detained and an investigation must take place to decide what the charges should be if any.

This process takes time.

In conclusion, this explanation for why Japan did not yield seems to lose strength as time progresses. Sneider's response is certainly relevant for the beginning of the crisis, but without knowing exactly what was happening behind the scenes, it is hard to tell at what point the respect for the legal system was no longer a major determining factor in the continuation of the trawler captain's detainment. Not only could the legal system be circumvented, in the end it was circumvented. How long did the top government decision makers need to wait in order for the release of the captain to not violate the judiciary’s independence? One rival explanation could be that in the context of the territorial dispute it was important to allow the domestic legal process to work its way towards an end before intervening so as to give the impression that Japan was not going out of its way to yield to Chinese pressure. In that case it would not be the legal procedures as such, but the need to not appear weak that was important (This will be discussed in more depth below). However if this were the case, would it really have been necessary to extend his detention twice in the face of rising pressures? Why not intervene in the judiciary earlier and release him at the end of the first naturally occurring process instead of extending his detention twice if the DPJ leadership was concerned with nationalism rising? Since we 41

can have no definitive answers to these questions without hearing directly from the leaders themselves, it is safe to say that the respect for the legal process was a legitimate concern at the beginning of the crisis (Phase 1). However, it is difficult to tell how strongly respect for the legal system factored in the minds of the PM Kan and Chief Cabinet Secretary Sengoku since they eventually manipulated it for political interests.

In conclusion, the two factors cited, i.e., the DPJ party elections and respect for judicial procedures might be considered to provide a sufficient explanation for why Japan did not end the crisis by releasing the captain before September 14th. The fact that Japan did not yield in this period does not necessarily mean that it deliberately upped the ante in order to strengthen its claim to sovereignty over the Senkakus. Yet there still remains a bigger mystery – why did Japan continue to wait for ten more days before it yielded and released the captain?

3.3 The 2nd Phase – After the Election The DPJ leadership elections were over by September 14th, yet Japan did not yield until the 24th. Why? During the crisis, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku, along with Prime Minister Kan, played the most important role in decision making and he also became the “most powerful” figure in the Kan administration (Ennis 2010; Sneider 2011:119; Sneider 2012 [Personal interview]). Dr. Christopher Hughes – a Japanese foreign policy expert and one of the authors of Japan's International Relations – also stated in an email interview that it is “fairly common knowledge” that Chief Cabinet Secretary Sengoku led the intervention into the judicial process to ensure the fishing trawler captain was released without prosecution (2012 [Personal correspondence]).

One of the biggest concerns in continuing Sino-Japanese relations for policy makers on both ends is how to handle nationalism, since it can be a double edged sword that can make it both desirable and difficult to yield. This sentiment can be observed in Chief Cabinet Secretary Sengoku's comment on September 21, 2010: “What is most 42

important is that government officials in Japan, China and other countries try not to fuel narrow-minded, extreme nationalism” (Branigan & McCurry 2010; Sneider 2011:117120). Chief Cabinet Secretary Sengoku, on December 15th in a Wall Street Journal video blog where he was reflecting on the past events also mentioned that he was quite concerned with how “nationalism tends to flare up easily even with a small spark” (Wall Street Journal 2010).

The first factor to analyze in this 2nd phase is whether and how the level of Chinese pressure forced Japan into not yielding. By the time the elections were over, when PM Kan reshuffled his cabinet and may have been able to deescalate tensions – as stated above – large anti-Japanese protests had occurred, China sent a vessel to the East China Sea to “protect Chinese fishermen” (Zeenews 2010), diplomatic demands by higher ranking Chinese officials were made to release the trawler skipper and open ended threats were given if those demands were not met, diplomatic talks over the joint development of resources in the East China sea were canceled, a Chinese vessel attempted to stop a Japanese Coast Guard boat from doing its duties, the Japanese ambassador had been summoned four times to the foreign ministry in Beijing, and Chinese nationalists had to be restrained from attempting to take boats to the Japanese controlled islands.

The other theory that Dan Sneider gave as to why Japanese decision makers would wait so long, which forms the basis of my argument, is that they were “caught off guard” by the assertiveness of how China quickly “started escalating on them” (Sneider 2012 [Personal interview]). “That's what really threw them off. I think they would have settled this out more quickly if the Chinese hadn't started escalating on them.” He also stated that Sengoku and Kan were “trapped” by the “cascading” levels of pressure China was causing. From rhetoric, media coverage, and to cutting off diplomatic talks, tourism, and rare earth minerals to Japan – these things “made it far more difficult for them to quietly back out of this in a quick way” (Sneider 2012 [Personal interview]).

Japan often handles its international relations through a 'quiet diplomacy' where diplomats can find solutions and policies that do not upset the delicate balance of seeking 43

a security alliance from the United States while economically engaging China for its own security and development (Dobson et. al. 2012:70; Sneider 2012 [Personal interview]).

This allows policy makers to 'quietly' “lay the groundwork for the pursuit of their norms and interests in an international setting” (Dobson et. al. 2012:71). Sneider believes that “from the beginning” Kan and Sengoku's goal was to try to “solve the problem the way problems have been solved in the past – talking quietly and finding a face-saving way out ... But they were surprised by how quickly things spun out of control” (Sneider 2012 [Personal interview]). “In the midst” of the crisis Sengoku 'quietly' sent a Senior DPJ official to China to try to find a face-saving way to “ease tensions” through “back door channels,” but to no avail (Sneider 2011:119; Sneider 2012 [Personal interview]).

In conclusion, this factor seems convincing. Not only did the level of pressure politically and publicly asserted by China force Japanese decision makers into a political quandary of sorts, but it was so high that it took away the quiet option of settling the dispute and forced Japanese officials to not yield for the time being. Although Japanese leaders have shown a proclivity to find quiet back-door solutions to political problems and even unsuccessfully tried it in this instance, Chinese assertiveness simply made finding a quiet solution impossible. Yet while it is convincing in explaining the inability to find a quiet way out, alone, it does not fully explain why Japanese decision makers waited until September 24th.

The next factor is intimately linked to the previous one, although they are separated here for conceptual clarity. This second factor is public opinion. The two factors are linked because without a quiet face-saving diplomatic solution, the DPJ had to deal with the noise that was growing publicly. In the leadership elections that ended on September 14th, the DPJ faced an issue of needing to “project an image of decisive leadership” and Naoto Kan needed to build “public trust” (Rosenbluth 2011:49). By the time Prime Minister Kan was re-elected and able to reshuffle his cabinet on the 17th, just ten days after the arrest of the captain and his crew, as related in the previous chapter, large antiJapanese protests had occurred, China sent a vessel to the East China Sea to “protect 44

Chinese fishermen” (Zeenews 2010), diplomatic demands were made to release the trawler skipper, open ended threats were given if those demands were not met, diplomatic talks over the joint development of resources in the East China sea were canceled, a Chinese vessel attempted to stop a Japanese Coast Guard boat from doing its duties, and Chinese nationalists had to be restrained from attempting to take boats to the Japanese controlled islands. With increasing globalization and greater pluralism in Chinese society, containing nationalist sentiments is becoming more difficult and this “likely contributed to the harshness of the measures taken by the government against Japan” (Strategic Survey 2011:367-369). Regardless, these provocations sparked strong Japanese nationalist sentiments in return.

In democracies, public opinion and audience costs play a large role in decision making. Democratic leaders are forced to pay careful attention to public opinion because if a leader pursues unpopular policies, particularly in symbolic territorial disputes, he or she can be subject to “domestic punishment” and risk losing the next election (Wiegand 2011:31). Thus, democratic leaders “have higher audience costs because the public may remove leaders after policy failures” (Hegre 2005:26). Audience costs can keep leaders from pursuing unpopular aggressive policies. Yet this same logic means that if powerful conservative elites and a significant portion of the populace favor a show of strength, then democratic leaders who ignore such sentiments and instead pursue a more conciliatory policy would be viewed as weak and lose support. Emmers (2010:56) asserts that “Japan's democratic nature may work to escalate the [Senkaku] dispute.” This is because “politicians must cater to the demands of their constituencies. This allows nationalist interest to gain a larger voice” (2010:56).

I have not found any polls that were taken in the midst of the crisis on the percentage of Japanese public opinion that were directly for or against prosecuting the Chinese skipper. Yet there is enough evidence to assume Naoto Kan faced considerable domestic pressure to signal Japan's resolve once Beijing began to make demands and impose sanctions. A poll that was taken directly after Prime Minister Kan reshuffled his 45

cabinet on the 17th showed that PM Kan's approval rating was around a favorable 66% (Daily Yomiuri 2010). After the resolution of the crisis when Kan was “berated” from opposition groups and the general public for “buckling” to Chinese “assertiveness,” his approval rating dropped to 35% by early November and around 20% by the end of the year (Daily Yomiuri 2010b; Strategic Survey 2011:346-349). Evidence shows public opinion has played an important role in Japanese decision making and has even kept elites from militaristic foreign policy overseas (Midford 2011:190). However the “defensive realist” nature of the Japanese public favors territorial defense and support for the Japanese Self Defense Forces and has been weary of the rise of China (Midford 2011:190; Mochizuki 2007:749). This does not mean Japanese citizens favor military conflict with China, but it is relevant since the dispute over the Senkaku Islands is an issue of territorial defense based on claims to sovereignty. Since the Tiananmen Square tragedy, Japanese public opinion on China has steadily become more unfavorable as China has become more powerful politically, economically, and militarily (Mochizuki 2007:749). In 1996, after China was conducting military exercises in the Taiwan Strait and fired a missile which landed fairly close to one of the islands of Okinawa, for the first time since such polls were annually collected in 1978, the majority of Japanese people had a negative view of China (Mochizuki 2007:749-750). In October of 2010, a record high “84 percent of respondents said they did not trust China” (Daily Yomiuri 2010).

In conclusion, taken together with the first argument in Phase 2, public opinion's effect on decision making seemed to play a major role in why decision makers waited until September 24th. With blatant Chinese escalations, this caused large portions of the Japanese public to demand a show of strength. Not only did Chinese actions muzzle any hopes of settling the dispute quietly, but it also exploited the Kan administration's stated concern for public opinion. Large portions of people were calling for Japan to stand firm in the face of Chinese pressure. While all democratic leaders to some regard have to be concerned with public opinion, some leaders without a doubt are more concerned than others. It is obvious however that Chief Cabinet Secretary Sengoku was largely concerned 46

and influenced by public opinion because he openly said one of his main concerns was over rising and detrimental nationalism on both sides. This also explains why Chief Cabinet Sengoku tried to find a back-door, 'quiet' solution in the first place – because he was concerned over how the public would perceive yielding to pressure. Once that option was no longer on the table, PM Kan had to face the rising public nationalist sentiments to remain strong and firm in the face of Chinese pressure, with which he was greatly concerned.

The third possible reason to analyze is whether and how the concern for not weakening the Japanese legal argument in the sovereignty dispute pushed decision makers to stand firm. One of the main arguments in favor of Japanese sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands has been that it effectively controls the islands. This is why the Japanese stance is that there is 'no dispute', and if a chance to demonstrate Japan’s effective control is not utilized then this weakens the legal argument. The Kan administration was forced into the difficult situation of needing to publicly demonstrate to China, the media, and domestic as well as international audiences that they were in sovereign control of the Senkakus and their territorial waters while at the same time not overly exacerbating tensions with China.

They did this by calmly and independently making decisions in disregard of Chinese protests. Long time Japanese foreign policy analyst Peter Ennis (2010) argues that Japan effectively “emphasized” Japanese territorial sovereignty through the assertion of domestic law enforcement. The Kan administration “quietly pointed out that it remains in firm administrative control of the Senkakus” by demonstrating its power to extend the skipper's detainment and release him according to claims of domestic law (Ennis 2010).

Ennis (2010) argues that Sengoku at the same time doubted that the Chinese government had planned to ram the JCB boats. Thus he wanted to find a face-saving way out for both parties. The government needed a reason to release the skipper that did not undermine Japan’s claim to control the Senkakus. Ennis (2010) makes the point that “remaining calm” and consistency claiming that there is 'no dispute', extending the skipper's 47

detention, and releasing him according to claims of domestic law after significant time had passed can be viewed as quietly signaling independence and resolve.

It also can be argued that Japan's patience to wait until the UN Summit on the 22 nd to extract a security guarantee was a strategic maneuver to demonstrate this independent resolve. Under the guise of not being rushed and seeming calm and unmoved by Chinese provocations, waiting for a convenient moment to speak with the US about defense issues sent the public signal that Chinese escalation was not urgent enough in the Japanese government’s opinion to call the US sooner.4 Appearing anxious and rushed by Chinese pressure could have given China the impression that Japan was spineless and docile. An argument against this theory could be that it was not until the end of the dispute that Chinese pressure was strong enough to cause Japanese leaders to think of yielding and contacting the US. Another argument against this theory might be that Japan needed this time from the beginning of the dispute to get the US to adopt a new line regarding the USJapan security pact. However, neither argument holds when assessing the fact that Japan already but unsuccessfully tried to find back door channels to quietly solve the dispute.

Resolving the dispute had been on their minds perhaps the entire time. There is no evidence to support that Japan wanted an escalation. It is more likely that once Chinese pressure was so strong and back door channels were unavailable, Japan needed to show that it was calm and resolute in its stance on the sovereignty dispute.

In conclusion, much of this reasoning for the third factor seems highly relevant and likely as well. By the time Kan had been reelected as party leader Chinese escalations and pressures were high enough that simply yielding would not have boded well given the need to assert their legal argument to the sovereignty of the islands. Remaining calm with consistent claims that there was 'no dispute', extending the skipper's detention, releasing him according to claims of domestic law after significant time had passed, and signaling that being covered by the US's security guarantee was no urgent matter all – even if in 4 Even though as mentioned evidence seems to show that privately, not publicly, they are quite concerned and not so calm.

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reality it may have been just that – all were done to demonstrate Japan's effective control over the islands and their territorial waters to keep a strengthened legal title. This orchestrated independence of action went against China's interests so that if this case were brought before an international court, Japan could successfully argue that China's claims to sovereignty did not dissuade or inform Japanese decisions.

The last and fourth factor regards whether and how Japan's desire to actually gain a significant amount of leverage in the legal dispute caused them to bide their time and look for an opportunity to somehow gain a foothold to strengthening their legal title in the Senkakus. If Japan had seriously intended to gain legally persuasive ground in its legal dispute it would have had to prosecute the trawler captain. To simply detain the skipper for a while might well have been seen as not enough. The Chinese government was openly concerned that “allowing a Chinese national to be tried in Japan would tacitly signal Chinese acceptance that the disputed islands are, in fact, Japanese” (Wiegand 2011:94). So while China was never going to sit quietly and seem compliant if there had been an indictment, Japan never acted in a way which would signal it was actively thinking about gaining significant legal leverage in the sovereignty dispute, especially since Yoshito Sengoku tried to find a back-door way out of the dispute much earlier than the 24th. Obtaining a US security guarantee, including the Senkaku Islands gave a boost to Japan’s claim, since the US extended the security guarantee to the Senkakus (while still not commenting on the sovereignty of the islands). But evidence still points to the fact that this was a manifestation of being forced into that situation rather than a premeditated strategy from the beginning, since the DPJ attempted to solve the dispute beforehand through back-door channels and since the government appeared to be shocked by Chinese actions – expecting to be able to talk their way out of the situation. In conclusion, this factor fails to match the evidence. While Japanese decision makers did have an active concern to ensure their actions did not weaken Japan's legal stance, the only way in which Japan could have improved upon its legal title in the dispute was by indicting the skipper – something they did not do.

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The above four factors were presented to assess why Japanese decision makers waited to yield t until September 24th when the leadership elections ended on the 14th. The first three factors hold significant weight, while the fourth fails to match with obvious evidence presented in the chapter. Interestingly, the first, second, and third argument all seem to hang on the fact that the quick amount of Chinese pressure and escalation put the three factors of – losing a quiet back-door solution, being concerned with a public that wanted a show of Japanese strength, and carefully ensuring all actions were made in a way which maintained the imagine of Japanese effective control – into play. All three factors then should be considered to amply satisfy the reasons for why Japan did not yield until September 24th.

3.4 Conclusion – Weighing the Factors To weigh the various hypotheses discussed above, I will analyze how the factors compare with the statements made by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku regarding his concern for nationalism. In doing so, a more realistic and credible picture will be painted to understand what may have been going on in the minds of the decision makers.

Both Chinese and Japanese officials have “at times relied on nationalistic rhetoric to gain domestic support,” yet at the same time they try to “monitor patriotic nationalism” to ensure it does not get to a level that harms “diplomatic and economic relations” (Emmers 2010:48). The historical legacy of World War II quickly amplifies nationalistic sentiments in relation to matters of territorial sovereignty (Emmers 2010:48-56). On the Chinese side, the sovereignty dispute represents an ongoing battle to recover what imperial Japan “stole” from China (Koo 2009:194). On the Japanese side, Chinese attempts to dispute the sovereignty of the islands represent further Chinese expansionist “irredentism” and unlawful propaganda (Koo 2009:194). Each side's nationalistic actions also tend to inflame the other side’s “agenda” (Hagström 2008:238). For example, Koizumi's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine while he was prime minister incited Chinese protests and activism 50

and that activism in turn encouraged the Japanese nationalistic rhetoric that followed (Hagström 2008:238). Yet, since both sides' governments have been shown to value cooperative diplomatic relations, excessive nationalism is often “perceived to present more of a problem” that stands in the way of national interests (Emmers 2010:55).

With the obvious concern for how nationalism can become detrimental to SinoJapanese relations, I will now use these sentiments to weigh which arguments have more explanatory power. The first factor considered in the period before the leadership election on September 14th is that the candidates, including PM Kan, were in the midst of a leadership campaign to be elected. Neither Ichiro Ozawa nor Naoto Kan wanted to appear weak on a territorial issue with China because influential conservatives could be expected to exploit and use it against them. The second factor is that once the fishing trawler captain had been arrested, it became difficult for the executive to intervene in the judicial process. In the end, Sengoku ensured that the legal process was manipulated to obtain the trawler skipper’s release without indictment.

When comparing these factors, it seems clear that the first was most important up until September 14th. Concern for nationalist sentiments at that time made it more or less impossible to yield, regardless of the urge felt by government officials to prevent further escalation of nationalist sentiments by seeking some backdoor solution. If Yoshito Sengoku and Naoto Kan were concerned about nationalism rising in general, then it seems likely that they were also concerned with conservative public opinion within their own party as well as within the opposition. Strapped by fear of the conservative vote exploitation, Prime Minister Kan (and Ichiro Ozawa) were forced to avoid public signs of weakness in the territorial dispute and generally avoided public commentary on the subject because they wanted to be seen as unmoved and untroubled by rising Chinese discontent. Kan simply could not yield if he also wanted to win the election. Yet, if concerned with nationalism, then he also would have been concerned with the rising Chinese nationalistic discontent. He was walking a tight rope between acting politically to win votes, while at the same time trying not to incite more Chinese tension by making 51

inflammatory statements. If this were the case, it would be easy to imagine that by releasing the trawler crew and the boat on September 13th, while extending the skipper's detainment, Kan was trying to politically appease both the Japanese nationalists and the Chinese at once.

In the second phase of the dispute, four conceivable reasons have been discussed for why Japan did not yield for as much as ten days. The first was that by the time the elections ended, Chinese protests and demands had become so loud that Prime Minister Kan was unable to quietly resolve the dispute behind closed doors in a face-saving way.

Closely related to the first, the second factor was that the Kan administration was unable to yield because of its concern for public opinion. The third factor discussed was that once China upped the ante, by September 14th there was a concern in Tokyo to avoid any action that could reenforce China’s, or weaken Japan's, legal arguments in the territorial dispute. The fourth and final factor discussed was that since Japan released the fisherman, they were not able to actually gain significant leverage in the sovereignty dispute with China, and never appeared to have actually considered trying to do so from the beginning.

While the first three of the four factors in this phase seem to effectively explain why Japan did not yield during this ten day period, factors one and two – which are intimately linked – better match Sengoku's concerns over rising nationalistic tensions. By September 14th when Japanese decision makers should have been able to diffuse the situation more easily since the DJP leadership question had been resolved, and also since the captain had already spent some time under arrest, Japan should have been able to yield and release the captain. Yet the level of escalation and perceived and actual pressure from Beijing had become so high that Japanese decision makers instead decided to send signals of resoluteness both to China and to their own domestic audiences. In other words, while concern with limiting nationalism was among the top priorities in the Kan administration, by the time the leadership election was over, much of what they were trying to avoid had already happened. The nationalism Sengoku wanted to avoid had manifested itself, and the government would not look good if it yielded at once when Kan’s premiership had 52

been secured. A concern for public opinion became a reason not to yield. An easy and “quiet” exit strategy was simply not available. Thus the Kan administration was forced into the difficult situation of publicly demonstrating to China and domestic audiences that they were resolute without overly exacerbating tensions.

Together, factors one and two constitute an explanation to why Japan did not yield in the second phase of the dispute. It cannot be overlooked however that despite having a 66% approval rating on September 17th when Kan publicly acted as if he was unshaken by Chinese provocations, the Kan administration also had to think of a way out of the dispute that would first not be seen as a foreign policy failure failure by domestic audiences, that would second send a message of resoluteness to China, and that would third serve to uphold the strength and position of Japan's legal argument in the sovereignty dispute – all without overly inciting detrimental tension. Soon after, his approval rating rapidly dropped because the much of the public was angry and disappointed that Kan's decision to yield in the face of Chinese pressure appeared to have, in their opinion, made Japan look weak. While public opinion may have been a priority of the Kan administration, concern to ensure their legal argument was not weakened was probably equally as strong.

Concocting a story that the skipper was released according to the legal process and potentially covering up a video verifying the trawler captain's guilt fits with the theory that Japan wanted to ensure its actions could be argued to have displayed elements of effective control in the dispute. Thus, the first three factors in this regard (1, 2, and 3) work together to explain why Japan did not yield in the second phase of the dispute – with factors two and three holding the most weight. Chinese pressure muzzled any attempt to find a quiet way out. Once the Kan administration had to face the noise of a disgruntled public, concern for nationalism and public opinion explains why they were forced to wait so long, and the concern for the legal argument describes why they took the steps they did while they were waiting.

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4. Why did Japan Yield?

4.1 Introduction Although in the Kan administration there seemed to be much concern over the growing levels of nationalism and the audience costs of yielding to China, on September 24th the Chinese trawler skipper was released without an indictment. And indeed, upon his release there was a predictably great level of public dissatisfaction and anger for a decision which, to many, made the Japanese government seem spineless in the face of Chinese pressure. This concern for public opinion, along with the concern for precisely acting in ways which would not hurt the Japanese sovereignty dispute legal argument, kept Japanese leaders from yielding earlier in the dispute. With this investigation complete, the question can now be fully asked: why did Japan still yield in the end?

Six potential explanatory factors will be investigated, analyzed, and weighed before a general conclusion is made. The first is US influence. Could the USA have dissuaded Japan from further upping the ante? The second factor is Japan's fear of China's military modernization and US security abandonment. The third is the level and credibility of China's threats. The fourth is a genuine desire for peaceful relations due to the complexities and resentments left over from the historical legacies of imperial Japan.

The fifth is a desire or need to get the the four Japanese citizens detained in China on September 23rd and whether China could use this as leverage. Finally, the sixth factor is the one that constitutes my main hypothesis: economic dependence.

Before the analysis an important issue needs to be addressed. Chapter 3 explained why Japan waited to yield. However, in order to answer the general question of why Japan yielded to Chinese pressure, the question of why the yield happened exactly on September 24th – naturally arises and must also be discussed. Thus, I will first briefly

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present an explanation as to why the yield happened on September 24th and not earlier or later. This will provide a necessary background for addressing the main research question of why Japan yielded at all.

4.2 The Timing of the Yield While there is no definitive evidence to explain exactly why Japan released the fishing trawler captain on the 24th as opposed to a day earlier or later, there are two reasons which might paint a persuasive picture as to the timing. The first carries over from Chapter 3 in that by September 24th it is plausible to assume that Japanese leaders felt they had done enough to demonstrate Japan's legal title to the Senkaku Islands and their adjacent waters. Once Japan adequately displayed that it was in control over the situation through its independent actions, it could turn to its pressing interest – which was to end the dispute. Yet, why was the 24th instrumental in carrying this out?

As explained above, at the UN Summit on September 22nd Japanese leaders were able to meet with US leaders and extract a guarantee that the Senkaku Islands were covered by the US Japan defense treaty. It is common knowledge that the alliance with the US is the cornerstone of Japanese defense. Although obtaining this US guarantee does not fully answer why the fishing trawler captain was released exactly on the 24th, it is probably no coincidence that Japan yielded directly after the UN Summit. The US statements on guaranteed security served to re-enforce Japan's legal title to the sovereignty of the islands. Hagström (2005:178) asserts that, “The longer Japan manages to maintain the status quo...” via active measures demonstrating effective control over the islands, “...the more probable it is that its ‘control’ will become internationally recognized and legally consolidated.” Having the US declare that the US Japan defense treaty applies to the Senkaku Islands, since it remains under Japan's administrative control, firmly demonstrates Japan's effective control of the Senkaku Islands and thus serves to at least adequately reenforce, and perhaps slightly strengthen Japan's legal title. Although the 55

USA did not explicitly support Japan’s sovereignty claim, the coverage of the Senkakus by the treaty could be seen as the final touch, or the cherry on top, that Japanese leaders placed on their legal title. With little further that could have been done after adequately displaying effective control over the islands, acquiring the US's security backing, and reenforcing the argument to their legal title for seventeen days, September 24th seemed a natural date to release the fishing trawler captain. Once the security guarantee from the US had been explicitly expressed the Japanese leaders probably saw no need to let the dispute escalate any further.

A second reason behind the timing of the captain’s release was probably that the level of pressure from China had steadily and significantly increased. Although the rising levels of nationalism made it difficult to yield for fear of audience costs, the Chinese threats and sanctions were also rapidly becoming stronger and more serious as time passed, and this could, if not contained, have seriously damage Sino-Japanese relations.

In essence, this means the Japanese leaders felt they could not allow the dispute to escalate beyond the 24th for fear of what else China might do. It is perhaps not a coincidence that only two days earlier the New York Times article was published revealing China's unofficial ban on exports of rare-earth minerals to Japan. To make matters worse for the Japanese government, by the time of the UN Summit Chinese threats were no longer simply coming from Chinese diplomats. Premier Wen Jiabao himself made public demands on the 21st and 22nd that Japan unconditionally release the trawler skipper. Wen Jiabao threatened worse retaliation if Japan did not take heed to his demands. Furthermore, since Japanese leaders have been known to attempt to carry out behind-closed-doors 'quiet diplomacy' to prevent open conflict, the UN Summit most likely represented a place for a final attempt at doing just that. But, Chinese leaders in attendance continued their diplomatic ban of political contact with Japan, slamming the door on any talks and with it any hope for settling the dispute behind the scenes. Thus, with an obvious amount of credible pressure and detrimental punishment mounting from China, and after Chinese leaders refused dialogue with Japanese leaders, September 24 th 56

was probably seen as the best time to yield. With the analysis of evidence explaining why the crisis lasted as long as it did, and why it ended exactly on September 24th, the bigger question can now be asked: why did Japan yield to Chinese pressure at all?

4.3 Why Factors The first factor to analyze is the potential influence of the US. While Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reassured Japan that the USJapan security treaty applied to the Senkaku Islands, the US's stance was not exactly an encouragement of escalation. In fact, Clinton's spokesman Phillip Crowley on September 23rd publicly confirmed the US stance by saying, “We continue to encourage both sides to do everything to resolve [the dispute] and certainly not to escalate it” (Carmichael 2010).

He also said, “We do want to see calm and restraint on both sides, we do want to see them resolve it diplomatically soon” (Carmichael 2010). Crowley also said that at the Summit held on the 22nd, Clinton, in a meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara, “encourage[d] dialogue and hope that the issue can be resolved soon,” since SinoJapanese relations “are vitally important to regional stability” (Carmichael 2010). Was the US obvious distaste for an escalation the reason why Japan yielded?

In the preceding months Prime Minister Naoto Kan had worked hard to establish closer relations with the US. They had been somewhat strained due to previous Prime Minister Hayotama's stubbornness over an issue regarding a potential relocation of the US military base Futenma in Okinawa (Strategic Survey 2011:347). Yet, during an interview with Dan Sneider on September 16, 2010, former PM Hatoyama himself emphasized that while there were some issues of disagreement with the US, the Japan-US security treaty still remained the “keystone and foundation of Japanese international relations” (Sneider 2011:127). Naoto Kan, who moved closer in this regard towards the US than his predecessor, also highly valued the “keystone” of Japanese security and should have been highly sensitive to US concerns. Indeed, most of the conversation between Clinton and 57

Maehara at the UN Summit will remain secret, yet it is fair to say based on public statements that the US was not keen to be in a situation where they would be required to engage in a military conflict with China for the sake of Japan. It is also fair to say that Japan is in a position where it would have to listen to the US's opinion, since the US guarantees Japanese security.

However, as an explanation as to why Japan yielded to Chinese pressure, there are multiple reasons to not give this factor, US influence, too much weight. For one, if the US's opinion on how to handle the dispute was a top priority for the Kan administration, certainly it would have called members of the Obama administration prior to the UN Summit before extending the trawler skipper's detention twice and ignoring Chinese protests. The US would then presumably have encouraged Japan to settle the dispute as quickly as possible – much sooner than the 24th. More importantly, there is not any evidence to indicate that Japan actually wanted to escalate the dispute in the first place.

The Japanese government seems to have fully shared the US concerns. Thus no pressure was needed, only consultations. There is instead evidence to indicate that the Kan administration wanted to find a quick way out of the dispute from the beginning and did not have escalation as a part of its political plans. It is always difficult to estimate the importance of external influence when it works in the same direction as a government itself desires. While there was a concern to avoid anything that would undermine the Japanese legal title, this concern was not as pressingly relevant until after China thoroughly escalated and applied pressure to the Japanese government. This then forced Japanese decision makers to be more aware of the legal preciseness over Japanese [in]actions so that it would not seem as though Japan acted in a way that gave China any legal leverage. Kan also tried to settle the dispute through back door diplomacy before the Summit actually took place and the US declared its disdain. Thus, the question of 'why' still remains.

The second factor to investigate is Japan's fear of Chinese military modernization and of a US security abandonment. As China continues to rise economically, so too does 58

the size and capability of its military. There has been a growing worry among Japanese strategists and politicians over the speed at which China's military has been modernizing.

Japan has been trying to further engage China in more transparent security dialogues since the 1980s (Dobson et. al. 2012:241). In 2005 Foreign Minister Taro Aso publicly referred to China as a growing threat, and the National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPG) in Japan have gone from referring to a need to be 'attentive' to Chinese security concerns in 2004 to describing “China's military modernization as an 'issue of concern for regional and global society'” in 2010 (Dobson et. al. 2012:241).

As Emmers (2010:63) says, the “power asymmetry has gradually shifted in the post-Cold War era” as China has increased its “naval capabilities.” One way in which the concern over the shifting balance of powers in East Asia and the rise of China has been voiced is through analyzing the rapid rise of Chinese military expenditures (Bush 2010:26). While these expenditures continue to rise in the present, this concern was explicitly voiced in 2005 by Prime Minister Naoto Kan's later appointed (September 17th, 2010) foreign minister, Seiji Maehara. As mentioned in Chapter 2, Seiji Maehara is also the one who ordered the arrest of the trawler captain and is commonly referred to as a China 'hawk' due to his realist policy recommendations (McCormack 2010; Sneider 2011:107). In a speech in Washington in 2005 listed on the Democratic Party of Japan's website, the then party President Maehara made his concerns over the rise of China's military known by stating: “There is no question that China is growing more powerful - both economically and militarily - at an astronomical rate. China's rapid economic growth and strength has allowed it to maintain a growth rate of more than 10% in military spending for nearly 20 years. Some say that amount is perhaps 2 or even 3 times the Chinese government's official figures.

Nonetheless, it continues to strengthen and modernize its military power.

This is a very real concern” (Maehara 2005).

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Japan's Defense White Paper in September stated the need to strengthen the security alliance with the US (Cheng 2011:261). In an interview conducted by Sneider (2011:107) on September 16th, 2010, former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama spoke of China being a “real threat” and the need to “cooperate” with surrounding states to “constrain China.” Yet, not only had the modernization of the Chinese military caused concern, but there was also the issue of fear of the US abandoning its role in guaranteeing Japan’s security as China's capabilities grow. Kevin Cooney argued in 2007 that Japan had a “very real fear of abandonment” because its significance for the US had gone down since the end of the Cold War (Cooney 2007:103). It was also “ambiguous whether the US Japan security treaty applied to the disputed islands [prior to September 22nd]” (Sneider 2012 [personal interview]). Thus, Japan is balancing a rising China in the East China Sea with a fear that the US might not be there if push comes to shove.

The fear of Chinese military modernization and US abandonment, while certainly relevant in foreign policy discussions, does not, however, work as an explanation why the Kan administration yielded to Chinese pressure. It could have worked both ways. Fear may motivate yield, but could just as well be a reason for standing up against a mounting threat. Despite China’s rapidly growing military power, “Japan's military strength is [still] far superior to that of the PRC” since it has enough military strength to deter the Chinese military even without the US deterrence (Emmers 2010:61). With the US nuclear deterrence, obviously Japan's military force is more than capable of defending itself.

While Japan may be “numerically” outnumbered by the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), Japan's Self Defense Force fleet is for now “far more technologically advanced” and their air defense remains “also greatly superior to their Chinese counterpart – with a high number of F-15s and F-2 fighters available for combat” and many hours of logged in training time for pilots (Emmers 2010:61). While it seems likely that there will be a continuing and perhaps growing naval competition in the East China Sea, this factor could explain steadfastness just as well as a yield and cannot therefore be the reason why Prime Minister Kan yielded to China.

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The same goes for the fear over a US security abandonment. Simply put, if the fear of a US abandonment was keeping the Kan administration from achieving its policy objectives in the Senkaku dispute of 2010, certainly having the US guaranteeing their security on the 22nd at the UN Summit would have eased those fears. In other words, if the fear of abandonment was a reason to yield, after the 22nd when the US publicly declared its security promise to Japan, there would no longer necessarily have been an incentive to yield. While the balance of powers in East Asia have been gradually shifting with the rise of China, this did not stop the DPJ's first prime minister, and the DPJ as a party, to be voted in on a platform of finding a more independent foreign policy that further engaged China and slightly stepped away from the US alliance (Sneider 2011:104128). In fact, when the DPJ was first elected into office in Japan, one of the pillars of its platform was to assert that Japan had relied too heavily on the US alliance and thus “sought to make Japanese foreign policy more autonomous” (Sneider 2011:104). If only the shifting balance of power and military insecurity in Japan were paramount in explaining Japan's security posture, there should have been a move closer towards the US alliance sooner than September 22nd, 2010. In fact, through interviews with a number of DPJ Diet members, Sneider found that “early in the crisis ... there was an expectation that the matter would be settled quickly and without further deterioration in relations” and they were “frankly stunned by China's escalatory behavior” (Sneider 2011:117). Thus, put together, these insecurities, while obviously real, do not in themselves explain why the Kan administration yielded to Chinese pressure.

Even though there is plenty of overlap between the second factor just discussed and the one to be discussed now, they have been separated for analytical clarity. The third factor is China’s assertiveness during the crisis, which, as stated “stunned” the DPJ Diet members. Multiple scholars have described the actions of China in the Senkaku dispute as 'assertive'. Strategic Survey (2011:353) writes that “China's more assertive stance in 2010 raised concerns...” and described Chinese actions as “intimidating...”. Dobson et. al.

(2012:183) write that China initiated: 61

“...intense diplomatic and economic pressure on Japan. China suspended all high-level contacts, which accounted for Prime Minister Kan's inability to meet with his Chinese counterparts at international summits, and suspended working-level talks, including negotiations on the gas fields in the East China Sea. China also flexed its economic muscles by suspending exports of vital rare earth minerals to Japanese industry.”

China had also shown signs of an increasing assertiveness prior to the dispute in September 2010 by letting not just fishing vessels but also its navy enter Japanese or disputed waters in the East China Sea. In 2004 a Chinese nuclear powered submarine which China claimed had “accidentally veered off course” was detected in Japanese waters (Dobson et. al. 2012:241). In 2005 five Chinese military vessels, including one “Sovremenny class destroyer designed to attack aircraft carriers,” were spotted near the disputed gas fields. In 2006 a Chinese submarine surfaced close to the American aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk “in international waters close to Okinawa.” Four Chinese military vessels passed through the strait between Honshu (the main island) and Hokkaido (the biggest Japanese island north of Honshu) and headed into the Pacific Ocean in October 2008. Finally, in April 2010, only five months before the Senkaku crisis, China sent a “squadron of 10 ships deep into the East China Sea, passing in international waters between Okinawa and Miyako,” creating further tensions with and fears in Japan (Dobson et. al. 2012:240-241).

It seems there is plenty of evidence to conclude that China's assertive coercive diplomacy played a significant role in influencing Japanese decision makers during the crisis. Despite the increased assertiveness in the East China Sea prior to the September dispute, DPJ members within the Kan cabinet were still “stunned” by the “cascading” and strong escalations from China – meaning that prior historical events did not necessarily tarnish their intentions to engage China diplomatically and economically. They were not prepared for such a situation since they obviously did not predict being in this type of 62

situation and expected China to behave more responsibly. Yet, as mentioned in previous chapters, by the time the leadership elections had finished on the 14th the Kan administration and his new cabinet already faced significant pressure and punishment from China. By the time the UN Summit was over on the 23rd, there were economic sanctions, diplomatic bans, and four Japanese citizens were being held in Chinese custody.

The assertiveness of an adversary in a crisis is also a factor that can either provoke a defiant reaction or have its intended intimidating effect. China's assertiveness is likely to have changed the perception and actions of the Kan government. Although it is not easy to pinpoint exactly which ways, there is one obvious example that shows China's assertiveness influenced Japanese policy.

The most obvious example of how China’s assertiveness affected Japanese decision makers is perhaps the way in which the DPJ backtracked on its stated policies of wanting to be more autonomous from the US alliance. A clear effect of China’s assertiveness was to drive Japan decisively back into the US fold. The DPJ in 2009 was quite adamant in stating that it wanted to reduce the US military presence in Japan, since easing China's fears and simultaneously engaging China economically was the method to form a more autonomous regional security framework. After China had surprised Japanese decision makers with its assertive diplomatic pressure in September 2010, the Japanese government “move[d] back closer to Washington” (Strategic Survey 2011:253). As part of the process of extracting a security guarantee – in itself a clear indication of DPJ backtracking – Japanese diplomats agreed to “maintain the same level” of support to the American military bases instead of reducing the US military presence in Japan – which they had previously pledged to do.

Here is also the overlap between the second and the third factors. Alone, the insecurity from China's rapid military modernization is insufficient in explaining Japan's yield. Yet it did come into play after China's assertive policy, since “by the fall, stunned by the Senkaku clash ... the Kan cabinet had almost entirely ended talk of shifting Japan's foreign policy focus to Asia” (Sneider 2011:101). The fact that the DPJ moved away from 63

its stated goal of reducing Japan’s reliance on the US and engaging China more proves that China’s coercive diplomacy did have a clear effect on Japan’s sense of insecurity. As China continuously and rapidly escalated the conflict, the Kan administration for a short period until extracting the security guarantee was in a doubly difficult position where it did not have a good strategy to respond to China's escalation while at the same time maintaining its defiant stance vis-a-vis the USA in the dispute concerning the Futenma base in Okinawa (Min Gyo Koo 2012 [personal interview]). The picture still remains muddy when asking what part of Chinese assertiveness influenced Tokyo’s decision making the most, since military security issues have already been discussed and were significantly resolved when the security guarantee was extracted in a way that may also have strengthened Japan's legal title to the Senkaku Islands. Thus while China's assertiveness certainly had an effect on Japanese decision makers, this does not fully explain why Japan yielded to China.

The fourth factor to discuss is the most common response I have received when asking friends and colleagues why they think Japan yielded to Chinese pressure. This factor is Japan's desire for peaceful relations due to its historical legacy of conflict with China. Japan annexed Taiwan in its war with China in 1895, took over Germany’s colonies in China during WW1, occupied Manchuria in 1931, and committed many atrocities during its “war for Greater Asia” 1937-1945 (Tønnesson 2012 [personal correspondence]). These events have stained Sino-Japanese relations and Japan has had to live in the shadow of these acts. There are many in Japan who wish to resolve the country’s historical guilt through dialogue and engagement. In an interview with Ichiro Ozawa of the Democratic Party of Japan in 2009, he was quoted as saying, “There are issues between Japan and China that need to be resolved through frank discussion: the historical issue and the territorial issue... Until we sit down and honestly discuss these issues, we can not resolve them” (Sneider 2011:117). This also corresponds with the DPJ's stated intention to strengthen bilateral relations with China through engagement and more open channels for communication.

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This factor can quickly be dismissed as having had little or no influence on Japanese decision makers during the Senkaku crisis. It is true that there is probably an honest desire for peaceful relations among most Japanese, yet this does not explain why Japan yielded. If this were the case, why would Japan have acted in its own interest and against Chinese interest in the first place? Why would the Japanese government have extended the skipper's detainment twice? When does a general desire for peace and reconciliation turn into appeasement, and why? The desire in itself cannot explain such a turn. If Japan really wanted peaceful relations with China, why did it not concede the Senkaku Islands and offer a thorough apology for its war atrocities? There can be no doubt that other factors and interests were of greater significance than the general desire for peaceful relations with China. Despite the DPJ's initial desire for dialogue over such issues, after China's first escalatory moves, “hopes for such dialogue were dashed” and were perhaps “naive” in the first place (Sneider 2011:117). Moreover, it is common knowledge that some of the younger generations of Japanese politicians have become resentful that China keeps pressing Japan over atrocities that their ancestors committed and which they feel they have been shamed for enough already.

The fifth factor to discuss is a desire or need to get the the four Japanese citizens detained in China on September 23rd and whether China could use this as leverage. As the dispute continued to escalate China's diplomatic threats and economic sanctions had yet to influence the Japanese government to budge on detaining the Chinese skipper at the time when these arrests were made. The UK newspaper The Telegraph commented on this type of diplomacy by stating the situation was “likely to be seen as a tit-for-tat response

by China to Japan's arrest of its trawler captain who remains detained despite calls from China's premier Wen Jiabao to 'unconditionally' release him” (Foster 2010). Once the four Japanese citizens were detained in China, however, Japanese decision makers would have known that China could use these citizens for political leverage. At this point, Chief Cabinet Secretary Sengoku and Prime Minister Kan might have released the fishing boat captain as a way of communicating to the Chinese government that although the Japanese 65

government felt it had done nothing wrong by acting according to its domestic laws and procedures, it was willing to release the skipper in order to get the four Japanese citizens back before things would get worse.

While it does seem likely that the fate of the four Japanese citizens was on Prime Minister Kan's mind by September 24th, it does not seem sufficient in and of itself to explain why Japan yielded. Once again, since Japan attempted unsuccessfully to settle the dispute through backdoor channels before the 23rd, there must have been other reasons which were already significantly pressing to Japanese decision makers. Yet, it is possible that the four arrests motivated Naoto Kan and Yoshito Sengoku to act more swiftly than they would otherwise have done. Interestingly, this seemed to have been downplayed by Cabinet Chief Sengoku when he refused to publicly acknowledge that the arrests in China were related to the Senkaku crisis. Given his own strong desire to prevent the growth of excessive Japanese nationalism, and taking into consideration that the arrests took place one day before Japan yielded, it seems likely that Sengoku did not want Japanese public outrage to become even worse at precisely the time when Japan planned to release the fishing trawler captain. This did after all – as mentioned above – lead to much public anger directed at PM Kan and his cabinet. In other words, Chief Cabinet Secretary Sengoku probably already knew that Japan was about to yield at the time when he learned about the four arrests. He wanted to make the fall from the audience cost as soft as possible and thus played down the significance of the four arrests. Thus, the arrests are not likely to have affected the decision to yield, but instead represented a nuisance that could have provoked strong protests in Japanese public opinion and thus have made it more difficult for the Japanese government to realize its intention to yield.

The sixth and final factor to analyze is Japan’s economic dependence on China. By 2009 China had become Japan's biggest trading partner in terms of both exports and imports, surpassing trade with the US (Dobson et. al. 2012:218-219). Trade with China was roughly 20% of all Japanese trade, and nearly 20% of Japan's exports went to China (Sieg 2010c). This is an important statistic for a country that needs its export economy.

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Japanese investments in China had also increased. Japan's foreign direct investments (FDI) in China accounted for “9 per cent of Japan's worldwide FDI” in 2009, which was higher than the percentage invested in ASEAN-4 and NIEs-4 (newly industrialized economies) and represented a “shift” in Japan's “geographical focus” (Dobson et. al.

2012:217). It also exceeded “70 percent of its investment” in North America (Sieg 2010c).

Japan is also China's largest trading partner, and the heavy amount of trade between the two has led many to characterize their relationship as one of interdependence making it too costly to “allow negative consequences” to affect “their economic relationship” by permitting “a militarized territorial dispute to interfere” (Wiegand 2011:96). While there is an increased amount of economic cooperation, this has been combined with a tendency (called cold politics, hot economics) for political disputes which generally 'cool off' in the aftermath as “each side reappraises the identity” of the “other” (Dobson et. al. 2012:177).

Despite political disputes that have emerged over the last 40 years after the discovery of potentially lucrative oil reserves in the East China Sea, each government has shown that it has been willing to 'shelve' disputes at the expense of its own “nationalist credentials” in order to enhance economic benefits. This is the case although each government has often stirred up its own population’s patriotism. The two countries’ leaders have still seen it as more important to “maintain stable diplomatic and economic relations” (Emmers 2010:63).

This was evident in 1978 when Deng Xiaoping famously decided to shelve the sovereignty dispute over the Senkaku Islands in the name of cooperation for China's “economic development” and for his own “domestic power position” (Koo 2009:211).

Earlier that year, Japanese ultra-nationalist political groups had pushed China to concede sovereignty in the Senkaku Islands while they thought China would be vulnerable and in need of Japanese support for an anti-hegemony clause aimed at preventing Soviet expansionism (Koo 2009:217). The newly elected Deng Xiaoping responded by sending a large fleet of ships to the islands, which stoked the conflict even further. Yet, despite the 67

tension, both Japan and China decided to de-escalate the conflict because of economic considerations (Koo 2009:211-218).

In 1990 and 1996, intense diplomatic disputes erupted when nationalist groups took independent action to claim sovereignty over the disputed islands (Koo 2009:208). In both of these disputes, the main party to stoke nationalism was Japan. Yet, in both incidents, Japan and China were able to de-escalate the disputes and downplay the events to prevent too much nationalist sentiment on either side (Wiegand 2011:113). China wanted at the time to “accommodate” Japan in order “to guarantee the resumption of Japanese and international loans that had been sanctioned due to the 1989 treatment of student protesters” in Beijing (Wiegand 2011:113). In both disputes, the de-escalation of the disputes and the continuation of diplomatic relations with Japan, even at the expense of domestic anger aimed at Japanese provocations, was critical to China because Japanese loans and assistance were needed for China’s modernization (Koo 2009:220-224).

In 2004 Chinese nationalists were arrested by the Japanese Coast Guard after they landed on Uotsuri Island. They were quickly deported to Shanghai (Koo 2009:225).

Later that year China began “construction of a natural gas drilling facility” in waters that Japan considers to be within its EEZ. Japan responded by launching survey ships to look for potential natural gas locations. The event sparked large levels of nationalism on both sides and climaxed when large-scale, violent, anti-Japanese protests erupted across China in 2005 causing damage to the Japanese embassy and consulates in other Chinese cities (Koo 2009:226). Yet once again, “economic considerations ... fostered the de-escalation of Sino Japanese conflict over territorial and maritime rights” in 2005 when Japan and China began negotiating terms for the joint development of resources in the East China Sea which was eventually agreed upon in 2008. Even if there has not been any forward progress on actual joint development, the negotiations represented economic consideration facilitating a cooling down of the territorial dispute.

Since interdependence is a two-way street, assessing Japan's amount of dependence on China is quite illuminating. Koo writes that: 68

“rising interdependence provides greater economic incentives for both parties to avoid costly conflict. On the other hand, rapidly increasing Japan’s dependence on China means that Japan’s bargaining power vis-a-vis China has declined significantly. China may feel less constrained to challenge Japan than any time hitherto. Hence their bilateral relationship could get worse before it gets better” (Koo 2009:227).

Japanese policy makers are aware of the fact that the economic growth in China in 2002-2003 “pulled along Japan's [economy]” and in 2003-2004 “the slowing down” of the Chinese economy in turn slowed down “the Japanese economic recovery” (Dobson et. al.

2012:226). This 'truck and trailer' effect has made Japanese policy makers realize that they should “promote a dynamic China for the sake of its [Japan’s] own future development” and yet still worry about being “overly dependent” on the rise of China (Dobson et. al. 2012:226).

While China has been relatively more dependent on Japan overall than vice versa, Koo shows that Japan's level of dependence on both exports and imports with China has rapidly increased. In a phone interview with Koo, he stated that the “general trend over the last decade” is that “China's dependence on Japan has decreased while Japan's dependence on China has increased” (Koo 2012 [personal interview]). Further assessing their trade dependencies he said, “For China, Japan is increasingly becoming a less important trading partner whereas for Japan, China is increasingly becoming an important trading partner. So there's an asymmetric relationship between China and Japan as trading partners” (Koo 2012 [personal interview]).

Table 4.1 GDP and trade statistics for China and Japan (1980-2010)

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China

Japan Export Import Trade Trade Dependency Export to Import from Trade Trade Dependency Year GDP to Japan From Japan Balance on Japan (%) Year GDP China China Balance on China (%) 1980 188,242 4,032 5169 -1,137 4.89 1980 1062752 5109 4346 763 0.89 1981 192,952 4747 6183 -1,436 5.66 1981 1174567 5076 5283 -207 0.88 1982 202,088 4806 3902 904 4.31 1982 1091583 3500 5338 -1838 0.81 1983 227,376 4517 5495 -978 4.4 1983 1190692 4918 5089 -171 0.84 1984 256,107 5155 8057 -2,902 5.16 1984 1266999 7199 5943 1256 1.04 1985 304,912 6091 15178 -9,087 6.98 1985 1356363 12500 6534 5966 1.4 1986 295,716 5079 12463 -7,384 5.93 1986 2009699 9936 5727 4209 0.78 1987 268,218 6392 10087 -3,695 6.14 1987 2437335 8337 7478 859 0.65 1988 307,167 8046 11062 -3,016 6.22 1988 2959386 9486 9861 -375 0.65 1989 342,292 8395 10534 -2,139 5.53 1989 2961160 8477 11083 -2606 0.66 1990 354,644 9210 7656 1,554 4.76 1990 3039693 6145 12057 -5912 0.6 1991 376,617 10252 10032 220 5.39 1991 3475955 8605 14248 -5643 0.66 1992 418,181 11699 13686 -1,987 6.07 1992 3793819 11967 16972 -5005 0.76 1993 431,780 15782 23303 -7,521 9.05 1993 4354707 17353 20651 -3298 0.87 1994 542,534 21490 26319 -4,829 8.81 1994 4794206 18687 27569 -8882 0.96 1995 700,278 28466 29007 -541 8.21 1995 5283057 21934 35922 -13988 1.1 1996 816,490 30888 29190 1,698 7.36 1996 4688254 21827 40405 -18578 1.33 1997 898,244 31820 28990 2,830 6.77 1997 4305591 21692 41827 -20135 1.48 1998 946,301 29718 28307 1,411 6.13 1998 3931051 20182 37079 -16897 1.46 1999 331,356 32399 33768 -1,369 19.97 1999 4452977 23450 43070 -19620 1.49 2000 1,080,741 41654 40083 1,571 7.56 2000 4746068 30356 55156 -24800 1.8 2001 1,175,716 45078 42810 2,268 7.48 2001 4162363 30948 57780 -26832 2.13 2002 1,271,000 48483 53489 -5,006 8.02 2002 3972485 39958 61792 -21834 2.56 2003 1,417,000 59423 74151 -14,728 9.43 2003 4300858 57480 75559 -18079 3.09 2004 1,650,000 73514 94372 -20,858 10.17 2004 4668420 73818 94227 -20409 3.6 2005 1,843,120 84027 100412 -16,385 10.01 2005 4799060 80340 109104 -28764 3.95 2006 2,040,330 91600 115700 -24,100 10.16 2006 4897370 92851 118516 -25665 4.32 2007 3,494,056 127643 109060 18,583 6.77 2007 4377943 109060 127643 -18583 5.41 2008 4,521,827 142337 124035 18,302 5.89 2008 4879861 124035 142337 -18302 5.46 2009 4,991,256 122545 109630 12,915 4.65 2009 5,032,983 109630 122545 -12915 4.61 2010 5,926,612 152800 149086 3,714 5.09 2010 5458837 149086 152800 -3714 5.53

Source: Statistics from 1980-2006 developed from Koo (2009:214-215), while 2007-2010 statistics were compiled from the World Bank's online statistics (GDP (Current US$)) and from the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) (Japan Trade and Investment Statistics). See Works Cited Below.

Table 4.1 measures the percentage of trade dependence each state has on the other by taking the percentage of overall trade of the respective GDP of each state. Koo's statistics run through 2006, and show there has been a general trend of Japan becoming more dependent upon trade with China, while China steadily reduced its dependence upon Japanese trade. The statistics from 2007-2010 are compiled from the statistics reports of the World Bank and JETRO, and thus reflect Japan's account of Sino-Japanese trade relations. Another interesting point besides the growing Japanese dependence is that in 2010, according to the statistics I was able to find, it represents the first time that Japan's trade dependence percentage is actually greater than China's.

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These statistics also seem to support Koo's assertion that a quick rise in the Japanese dependency may allow China to act more aggressively in the sovereignty disputes. As opposed to the disputes in the 1990s which were generally initiated and stoked by Japan, the tide may be turning as disputes in 2004 and 2010 were largely intensified by China. As stated above, there have also within the last decade been a series of PLAN vessels detected by the Japanese government in disputed waters and even into the Pacific Ocean.

On the party level, DPJ was not only aware of (inter)dependence, but was using it as an intentional part of its security conceptualization for Northeast Asia. This is because of the “norm of developmentalism and the belief that economic progress and interdependence can become the ultimate guarantors of peace and security” (Dobson et. al. 2012:249). Speaking on East Asian regional integration, Former and first DPJ Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said in 2009, “We will have to be working not only to build economic prosperity but also to create conditions in which we do not, and cannot, and must not go to war with each other” (Sneider 2011:112).

In regards to China, having interviewed many members of the DPJ, Sneider found that “...there is no visible enthusiasm for trading U.S. dominance for Chinese hegemony.

Rather, the DPJ seeks to manage China's rise through a combination of engagement and the assertion of Japan's own leadership role in Asia” (Sneider 2011:115). In fact, Hatoyama also spoke of “constraining China” through regional trade and stated that “Japan and Korea can cooperate economically to bring calm [through trade] to that area” (Sneider 2011:117). In this sense, if economics are indeed an integral part of the Japanese security strategy since they are constitutionally constrained to have a military presence outside of their own borders, keeping peaceful and economically beneficial relations intact by yielding in a heated dispute with China over a sovereignty issue helped to preserve the system of interdependence which Japanese politicians view as integral to their own national security. This is not to say that the SDF is not a capable fighting force and cannot protect Japan. It is also not meant in any way to downplay the paramount 71

importance of the US Japan security treaty. However, it is important to take into account that the Japanese government has kept interdependence and development as integral parts of its plan for regional security.

As the dispute progressed, China economically sanctioned Japan in three main ways. All three caused alarm within the Japanese government, and two of them also worried the Japanese business community. First, as the economies of both Japan and China consume more energy, the potential for hydrocarbon discoveries in the East China Sea seabed seems more and more important. China quickly sent the important signal that it would punish Japan economically for its behavior by canceling talks for joint development of resources in the East China Sea. Although these types of talks were stalled multiple times before, as mentioned above the joint development of resources – or at least the dispute over the resources – is taken quite seriously by both sides as it was a primary device in helping de-escalate tensions in 2005. Second, it is no small matter that China canceled international flights for business and tourism to and from Japan, as international business in China and the Chinese tourist industry in Japan are important for the Japanese economy (Sneider 2012 [personal interview]). Finally, cutting off the rareearth supply to Japan was a strong sanction against the Japanese industry. Japan is the largest consumer of rare-earths in the world because of its high-tech export industry involving cars and electronics, and China held and still basically holds almost a monopoly on rare-earth production (Soble 2010). Rare-earth minerals are something that Japan was dependent upon from China directly, and its halt directly affected the Japanese economy.

The Japanese business community has strong influence in national politics and also on Japan’s foreign policy because of its “close financial and human network connections” with the political parties (Dobson et. al. 2012:53). While this has been traditionally more closely associated with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), who used to dominate Japanese politics, large business organizations like the Japan Business Federation have played a “lead role in promoting Japanese FDI abroad and the liberalization of the Japanese economy” and has funded not just the LDP but the DPJ as well (Dobson et. al.

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2012:54). The “big business community” has also been a “major force for easing tensions” and keeping stable relations with China (Sneider 2011:114). For instance, in 2006 after Shinzo Abe was elected as Prime Minister, the business community was a major force in publicly arguing that “stabilizing Sino-Japanese relations was a national interest” of Japan, and were largely backed and supported by the LDP (Mochizuku 2007:768).

The supply chain of products in East Asia is so interdependent and globalized that virtually no products are fully produced from start to finish in the same country (Koo 2012 [personal interview]; Sneider 2012 [personal interview]). Instead, almost all products are sent back and forth across borders as they go through different production stages, making the East Asian economy heavily integrated (Koo 2012 [personal interview]). Thus, as in the case of rare-earth, Japanese companies are largely dependent on China for their production and to a large extent “unhappy” if caught in such an interdependent situation (Sneider 2012 [personal interview]). Since Japanese companies like Sony and Samsung are “locked into” the “structure” of the East Asian economy, Sneider, in reference to the Senkaku Crisis in 2010, asserts that “there's no question that the Japanese business community – particularly the big business community [in response to the drastic Chinese sanctions] – was putting pressure on the Japanese government quietly and in some cases in the media as well ... to settle this thing quickly” (Sneider 2012 [personal interview]).

Finally, the decision makers themselves seemed highly concerned with the economic aspect of Japan’s relationship with China – making the perception of dependence an important part of their deliberations. Prime Minister Kan was under a lot of pressure to ensure the Japanese export economy was prioritized as this was the main focus of the leadership elections. Kan, the son of a businessman and a former minister of finance, faced the challenges of a “strong yen, a weak economy, and a big public debt” as soon as he was re-elected (Nishikawa & Sieg 2010). As a strong indicator that Kan was highly motivated and prone to consider the economy as his primary concern, rather than 73

addressing the escalating dispute, his first major act after his leadership re-election was to intervene into the foreign exchange market to prevent deflation and protect the Japanese export industry (Campbell 2010). With Kan's influence in the foreign ministry, the yen was sold to intentionally weaken the value against the dollar so that Japanese exports would not become too expensive for international consumers and customers (Campbell 2010). During most of the dispute, since Kan was already under enormous pressure to revive the Japanese economy, he many times repeated publicly that he hoped the dispute could be settled for the sake of “mutual beneficial relations.” While this has been the DPJ's party line, there's no doubt that Kan was also concerned about the negative impact of the dispute on the already backsliding Japanese economy. Prime Kan's obvious concern for the economy was expressed when he said that intervening in the foreign exchange was done with a 'sense of urgency' (Tanaka 2010).

One of the most telling quotes showing that interdependence with China was at the forefront of decision makers’ minds comes from an interview with Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara, the supposed realist 'China hawk' of the Kan cabinet. In December of 2010, just three months after the dispute, he strongly emphasized the importance of Japan and China's mutually dependent relationship: “Japan and China are in a relationship of mutual dependence, particularly when it comes to economic matters. From China’s perspective, Japan is its number-one source of imports, and is second only to the United States as an export destination. For Japan, meanwhile, China is its largest trade partner in terms of both exports and imports. It’s extraordinarily important for the world’s second- and third-largest economies to cooperate dependably with one another. Right now we’ve got to make this recognition the foundation for our efforts to improve bilateral relations” (Tahara 2010).

There is little doubt that Japan’s economic dependence on China influenced the attitude of the Kan cabinet. The Kan cabinet seemed to heavily consider the potential 74

economic losses of allowing Sino-Japanese relations to deteriorate further than they did.

This is likely to have been the primary factor behind the strong wish of the Japanese government to overcome the dispute and hence the decision to yield on September 24th.

Unlike the other factors discussed, economic logic fits with the fact that the Japanese government attempted to solve the dispute already early on and failed to do so mainly because of factors outside of its control. In essence, as was the case at some stages also in earlier history, Japan’s economy was tied to China. Not only had the DPJ been voted in on a platform of economic engagement, but it was in the strong direct interest of the powerful Japanese business community to keep lucrative business partnerships across the East China Sea alive. Products in East Asia are heavily integrated across borders with a huge portion of imports coming from and exports going to China. Not only that, but keeping the integrated economies of different states dependent upon each other was a part of the DPJ's regional security plans since Japan is constitutionally prohibited from having an offensive military force in the region of East Asia. China of course, is a major player in the region and a cause of 'concern'. Thus, the more constrained through interdependence, the more secure Japan perceives itself.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Sengoku said in an interview in December 2010 that “We want to use all possible channels not to escalate the issue and to solve it for the sake of development in East Asia...” (Sneider 2011:119). Sengoku, an 'Asianist' who believes that further “globalizing” (Sneider 2012 [personal interview]) the economies in East Asia is the best path forward for Japan, warned that the “largest lesson” is that in times of crisis each state tends to “rush to protectionism in the economic domain” (Sneider 2011:119).

Economic considerations helped to de-escalate past conflicts with China. In September 2010 they did it again.

4.4 Conclusion – Weighing the Factors There is little doubt that economic considerations played the largest role in 75

influencing Japan to want to avoid conflict so badly that it was prepared to yield to Chinese pressure. Even after Japan yielded, Prime Minister Naoto Kan made a big effort in a speech in the Diet in October 2010 to “restore official dialogue” with China and spoke of actually strengthening its “mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests...” and “...increasing cooperation in the economic field” (Sneider 2011:118). However, while economic considerations were the first and primary concerns, others were also on the mind of the decision makers as China assertively reminded their neighbors of its dissatisfaction and awareness of Japan's economic vulnerability.

If Japan continues to become more dependent on China and China less dependent on Japan, China may be tempted to be more aggressive in pursuing its policies in East Asia. While economic considerations still played the biggest role in the Senkaku dispute of 2010, as Japanese dependence grows the most relevant question to ask is how long will interdependence actually assist in de-escalating the Senkaku dispute after each incident?

While in the 1990s Japan could constrain China's actions through the economic carrot of loans and financial assistance, this is no longer possible. If this trend continues, Japan's bargaining position vis-a-vis China will lessen or become even more dependent on US aid.

However, China's desire to uphold the mutually beneficial economic relationship should not be ignored. Ryosei Kokubun asserts that the Chinese government pursued such strong action against Japan in 2010 because of an “internal power struggle within the Hu Jintao administration ... So China's stance has changed ... and also softened its policy toward Japan” (Kokubun 2012 [personal correspondence]). While Japan is becoming increasingly dependent on China, Japan also remains China's biggest source of trade.

Furthermore, as Koo (2009:226-227) demonstrates, in times of political unrest we can expect the Chinese government to be more assertive in its foreign policy because of a perceived need to satisfy nationalist constituencies. However, in times of political consolidation the government can be more conciliatory. An example of this is that Deng Xiaoping in 1978 announced the shelving of the sovereignty dispute in the 76

Senkakus/Diaoyu in the name of beneficial economic relations with Japan (2009:226227).

As China's coercive actions became increasingly severe, China was able to efficiently influence the Kan administration because of Japan's economic dependence and vulnerability. By the end of the dispute, China's diplomatic threats, economic sanctions and general leverage caused a great deal of concern and insecurity within the Japanese government. But these actions only eventually reenforced, albeit heavily, what the Japanese government already wanted to do from the start – which was to find a solution that would not hurt the Sino-Japanese overall relationship. The insecurity among Japanese policy makers appeared only at the end of the dispute when Chinese actions were the most aggressive. Japanese policy makers were immensely surprised by China's strong reactions to the skipper's arrest.

In conclusion, economic considerations formed the primary concern for Japan’s attempts to de-escalate the dispute and its decision to yield. China was able to exploit Japan's growing economic dependence and vulnerability perhaps more effectively than ever before and this did leave a bitter taste. It strengthened the US-Japan alliance and motivated a number of small measures to reduce or eliminate the most egregious kinds of dependency, such as on Chinese rare earth. This could possibly somewhat reduce the likelihood that Japan will yield as easily again at the next crossroads.

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5. Conclusion In a foreign policy crisis lasting from September 7th to 24th in 2010, Japanese decision makers were faced with a dilemma of whether to indict a Chinese fishing trawler captain who was responsible for the ramming of a Japanese Coast Guard boat at the expense of Sino-Japanese relations, or yield to Chinese pressure at the expense of audience costs from an angry and disappointed domestic public. The choice made on September 24th to release the fishing trawler captain without an indictment was one which came after the Chinese government many times assertively demanded that the Japanese government 'unconditionally' release him, after it handed out increasingly harsh punishments to Japan as time passed, and after it threatened to continue to up the ante even further. Yet, for over two weeks, the Japanese government publicly declared that it would 'strictly' handle the arrest of the fishing trawler skipper according to its domestic laws, sending the signal that Chinese pressure would not influence the domestic legal process and Japan's greater claims over the sovereignty of the Senkaku Islands. Thus, the main research question asked in the introduction to this thesis was why Japan yielded to Chinese pressure? However, in order to answer that question, a second research question had to be answered first: What kept decision makers from yielding earlier than September 24th? While working on the analysis a third question also had to be discussed: Why did the yield happen exactly on September 24th?

This thesis heavily relied on online newspaper sources to recount the events that happened from September 7th–24th. One benefit of this method was there was an abundance of source material and government quotations to draw from. A weakness to this method is that I was reliant on sources which have been translated by others, meaning that slight misinterpretations, biases, or failures to include important information could throw my findings off kilter. I attempted to compensate for these weaknesses by reading as much relevant Japanese foreign policy source material as possible in the short thesis time frame and interviewing multiple experts and authors through email and phone.

Surprisingly, my two phone interviews with Dan Sneider and Dr. Min Gyo Koo were far

more helpful than I predicted because I was able to be flexible within the interview process.

The sovereignty dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dates back at least a century. How long varies depending on which side one asks. The dispute itself gathered steam in the late 1960s and early 1970s after a committee under the auspices of the UN declared that there could be vast hydrocarbon reserves under the East China Sea in the vicinity of the Senkaku Islands. While both Japan and China have historical arguments behind their claims to sovereignty over the islands, Japan has administratively controlled them since the US handed over control to the Japanese government in the 1970s. An important aspect of the dispute is whether the Senkakus are habitable islands or can generate an economic life of their own, because if they are/do they have a right to their own extended maritime zones. If the islands were legally owned by Japan, this could influence maritime delimitation between Japan and China (and Taiwan) and endow Japan with a larger Exclusive Economic Zone and continental shelf than would otherwise be the case. This would not only have a direct impact on the potential to harvest resources in the East China Sea but could also have naval strategic implications regarding easier access to the open seas and in particular the Pacific Ocean.

On September 7th, 2010, the incident occurred that caused the dispute to flare up. A Chinese fishing trawler collided multiple times with a Japanese Coast Guard vessel inside the 12 nm territorial sea of one of the Senkaku Islands. After the JCG took the trawler and its crew into custody, it reported that its vessel had been 'intentionally rammed' so it was 'obstructed' from carrying out its official duties. By September 24th, the day Japan released the fishing trawler captain without any indictment, the Chinese government had issued diplomatic warnings, cut off all diplomatic contact on the provincial and central levels, canceled talks on joint development of resources in the East China Sea, canceled large amounts of connecting international flights and tourism, and halted the export of rare-earth minerals to Japan.5 Also four Japanese citizens were arrested in China. While Japanese politicians refused to publicly admit any connection between these arrests and 5 The boat and the rest of the crew were released less than one week after the collisions on Monday September 13th.

the foreign policy crisis, it no doubt added an extra element of leverage for China's demands.

While there was an obvious concern at the top levels of decision making in Japan over rising levels of nationalism on both sides – and while there was an evident intention to settle the dispute as quickly as possible – multiple factors kept Japan from resolving the conflict earlier than September 24th. Until the 14th, the Democratic Party of Japan was in the midst of its leadership elections and neither candidate, Naoto Kan or his challenger Ichiro Ozawa, wanted to appear weak by showing any intention of giving concessions to China. Moreover, after the arrest of the trawler skipper, it became difficult to interfere with the legal procedure to ensure his release – although eventually, this is exactly what the DPJ did.

After the 14th, multiple factors kept the Kan Cabinet from yielding sooner. The two primary ones were the aversion to go against public opinion and the desire to make sure that Japan’s legal title to the Senkaku Islands would not be weakened. The former left the government in a position where, after having tried to negotiate a way out with the Chinese government through back-door channels, large portions of the Japanese public were demanding that the captain be indicted as a show of Japanese resolve. The latter forced the government to make sure its actions showed independent intention and action during the dispute so as not to weaken Japan’s legal title by giving any indication that they agreed with Chinese sovereignty claims. In essence, the concern for public opinion and detrimental nationalism may explain why the Japanese government was caught off guard, remained indecisive for some time, and slow to finally release the captain. The concern for Japan’s legal title may explain why the Japanese government took the actions that it did until the release, such as extending the skipper's detainment twice against the demands and interests of the Chinese government.

Yet, if there was such a concern with audience costs, why did Japan yield on September 24th and not wait any further? September 24th became a significant date because Japan had been able to strengthen its US security guarantees and also by implication its legal title by having the US confirm on September 22nd at the UN Summit

that the US-Japanese defense treaty did cover the Senkaku Islands. Rather than appear rushed to get US support, the Kan cabinet most likely intentionally waited for the Summit instead of calling the US much sooner as a device to appear calm and unmoved by China's protests. The second reason why September 24th became the day that Japan yielded is because although the rising levels of nationalism made it difficult to yield for fear of audience costs, the Chinese threats and sanctions rapidly became much stronger and more serious as time passed. The Japanese leaders felt they could not allow the dispute to escalate beyond the 24th for fear of what else China might do to punish Japan and SinoJapanese relations.

Finally, overall, why did Japan yield to Chinese pressure? The first and most important factor is the Japanese decision makers’ perception of economic dependence on China. There is plenty of evidence to support that economic considerations were at the forefront of the minds of the lead decision makers from the very start. As Koo (2009:205232) has shown, since the 1990s several incidents between China and Japan have deescalated with decision makers having economic considerations in mind. In September 2010, at least on the part of Japanese decision makers, these considerations were again influential. Prime Minister Kan's first major act after being re-elected as PM was to intervene in the foreign exchange to protect Japan's export economy. Indeed, the economy was the main talking point of the re-election since Japan's economy was performing poorly, and there is no doubt that Prime Minister Naoto Kan was strongly concerned for the 'mutually beneficial' aspects of the Sino-Japanese economic relationship. Naoto Kan's 'right-hand man', Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku, an Asianist who believes in strong integrated economies in East Asia, expressed a concern for the 'mutual beneficial' nature of the Sino-Japanese relations in interviews during and after the dispute. The Kan cabinet's realist 'China hawk', Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara, even spoke of the importance of the 'mutually dependent' relationship between Japan and China in an interview a few months after the dispute. Also, the DPJ's former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on September 16th 2010 in a personal interview with Dan Sneider (2011:112) spoke of the importance to Japanese regional security of an

interdependent East Asian integrated economy.

Koo (Koo 2012 [personal interview]) asserts that over the last decade Japan has become increasingly dependent on China while China has become less dependent on Japan. Trade statistics support this theory by showing how Japan has, since the 1960s, steadily increased the percentage of imports and exports from China. Yet there has been a general trend of a growing negative trade balance and a growing dependence (based on percentage of GDP) with China while China's trade balance has not increased and its dependency on Japanese trade has decreased (Koo 2009:241-215). This means that although China has since the 1960s been on the more dependent side of the asymmetrical trade relationship, the gap between the two countries’ economic dependencies has been decreasing in China's favor. In fact, according the statistics of Japan's External Trade Organization and using Koo's methods for calculating dependence, 2010 represents the first year that Japan had a higher dependence percentage than China. According to Koo's (2009:227) theory, Japan's rapidly increasing dependence could explain why China has been able to act more aggressively in the most recent disputes than used to be the case in the past.

While economic considerations played the major role in the de-escalation of the crisis as predicted by my original hypothesis, what I failed to predict was that China's assertiveness successfully influenced Japanese decision makers. As China's coercive actions became increasingly severe, China was able to efficiently influence the Kan administration because of Japan's economic dependence and vulnerability. At the end of the dispute, Chinese pressure began to cause concern and insecurity within the government of Japan. Yet this influence only pushed the Kan cabinet to do what it wanted to do from the start, which was to find a way to resolve the dispute to save the 'mutually beneficial' nature of Sino-Japanese relations.

The results of this study present interesting avenues for further research and theoretical discussion in multiple areas regarding Japan in East Asia. The first area is in the traditional liberal vs. realist debate in international relations over the importance of interdependence in peace and conflict. While on the surface this study would seem to

support the liberal argument, below the surface an interesting interaction between the two theoretical perspectives can be found. Realists assert that a state that becomes more dependent in a trade relationship is more prone to military conflict because it will seek to lessen its vulnerability on the other state (Copeland 1996:9-10). Vulnerability thus inflames insecurity, which all states seek to avoid. Liberals on the other hand assert that the most dependent state is less likely to initiate or escalate conflict because that would further hurt that state (Copeland 1996:8).

Just as realists would predict, during the crisis Japan compensated for its economic dependence and lack of leverage by moving closer to the US and extracting from it a security guarantee. However contrary to realist predictions, prior to the September 2010 foreign policy crisis the Democratic Party of Japan was voted into power on the platform of moving closer economically to China and slightly lessening its dependence on US security (against US interests) at a time when there was a rising fear of Chinese military modernization and its persistent presence in the East China Sea. Still, when China's sanctioning push came to shove, Japan did move closer to the US alliance. Thus, Japan chose to de-escalate the dispute for economic reasons, and economic reasons (dependence and vulnerability) pushed Japan closer to the US alliance. Hence, economic dependence and alliance behavior in a foreign policy crisis may interact in interesting ways that warrant further research.

Shifting gears from the sovereignty dispute, outside of Japan's borders (meaning outside of the Sino-Japanese Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands sovereignty dispute entirely) and in the region of East & Southeast Asia, there is a second area where liberal and realist theories may interact in interesting ways. Japan is constitutionally prohibited by article 9 to use military force except for defending its own territory. In other words, while the traditional realist state could consider using force to lessen its dependence and vulnerability on another state, Japan according to its constitution cannot take this choice of action. This makes Japan somewhat unique when compared to most states. In the Japanese perspective, it is possible that a Japanese realist would support strong regional economic interdependence as a method of securing Japanese national security, since

warfare is not an option outside of its borders. Military force, an essential tool of realist theory, was not originally conceptualized to have been something to constitutionally constrain. On top of these constraints there is still a strong norm of anti-militarism in Japan (Dobson et. al. 2012:67). As Dobson et. al. (2012:67) states, “the acceptance of the norm [of anti-militarism] on the popular level acts as a powerful constraint on the government's use of military force as a legitimate instrument of state policy.� The idea of interdependence for regional security is buffered by the US deterrent so it does not stand alone in security matters. Yet, it is the only active compelling regional security policy that Japan can pursue outside of its borders since the US will only defend Japanese territorial sovereignty. In the Japanese perspective, some liberal and realist points of difference regarding interdependence may converge and interestingly interact as well. Could a Japanese realist envision using entrapment into regional economic interdependencies as a method of security?

The third avenue ripe for further research is the other side of the coin to this paper, which is the apparent lack of any constraining effect from interdependence on China in the Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute. If the two countries are truly interdependent, then why did economic considerations not stop China from continuously upping the ante or accepting Prime Minister Naoto Kan's attempts to settle the dispute through back-door channels?

This thesis has listed two potential reasons, although both would need much more research and evidence in order to be substantiated or disproved. The first reason is asserted by Ryosei Kokubun when saying that because the Chinese government was going through a period of instability, reacting assertively towards Japan was a political move to consolidate power and appear strong in front of domestic audiences (Kokubun 2012 [personal correspondence]). The second reason is asserted by Koo (2012 [personal interview]) who claims that Japan has increasingly become more dependent on China, so the relationship has favored China and allowed more vulnerability to exploit. Could both of these causes have been at play in determining China’s assertiveness? Do China's vast trade relationships across the world and its belief that it is destined to become the dominant power in East Asia and perhaps the world as US power declines allow it to

ignore the costs involved in putting the Sino-Japanese economic relationship at risk?

Finally, another area where this study could stimulate further research is economic compellence and coercive diplomacy. The dispute eventually progressed and turned into a serious foreign policy crisis for Japan. This happened as China continuously applied more pressure, threats, and sanctions. The longer the Japanese government waited without 'unconditionally' releasing the fishing trawler captain, the stronger and more assertive China's reactions became. Yet in the Chinese perspective, its aim to obtain the fishing captain’s release was met without any threat to use military force. China's teeth in compelling the Japanese government to undo the action it had taken were derived from Japan's economic dependence and vulnerability. By the end of the dispute, these sanctions and the promise for more action eventually got the focused attention and concern of the Japanese government. This is because the Kan cabinet knew that with a bad domestic economy and heavy amounts of trade dependence with China, it could not afford to further sever ties and further hurt the Japanese economy. Thus, how can a state exploit another state’s economic vulnerabilities in a relationship of interdependence to influence the other state in the former state's interests?

These types of questions are perfect to supplement the research that I have carried out. The Senkaku foreign policy crisis of 2010 was a case study of why Japan yielded to Chinese pressure. While it is apparent that economic considerations played the largest role in the Kan administration’s decision to yield, will this influence keep military conflicts in the East China Sea from starting while China continues to rise?

Works Cited: Asia-Pacific. (2011). “Asia-Pacific� Strategic Survey 111 (1):343-408.

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