Senkaku Boat Incident Update: China’s Petty Tactics

The Chinese trawler captain whose ship rammed two Japanese coast guard vessels in Japanese territorial waters remains in Japanese custody, and the Chinese government is expressing its anger over the incident in a variety of ways:

• Although the Chinese government had already made it clear to Japan’s ambassador that they were not pleased with the arrest of the captain, they have summoned him six times so they can re-express their anger. The most infamous of the summonings occurred in the middle of the night a couple weeks ago. It was a breach of diplomatic protocol that was obviously designed to cause maximum annoyance.

• China has cancelled or postponed just about every scheduled bilateral meeting with Japanese officials. Premier Wen Jiabao is now telling the world that he will refuse to meet with Prime Minister Kan when they both attend an upcoming meeting of the UN General Assembly.
• China has forced the cancellations of travel, music concerts and other cultural exchanges between the two countries. That includes the last minute cancellation of a goodwill exchange program that would have given 1,000 young Japanese an opportunity to see to the Shanghai Expo.
• A Chinese company cancelled an incentive tour of Japan for thousands of its employees. Japanese hotels that had most of their rooms booked for the Chinese tour group are now facing a huge loss.
• The Chinese government has authorized a limited number of anti-Japanese street protests.

Through all of this, China’s state-controlled media has distorted the facts of the case , causing the anger to get even worse:

The fact that it is normal under Japanese criminal procedure for detention of suspects to be extended for 10 days has not been widely reported in China. Accordingly, claims have emerged that the Japanese government extended the detention of the skipper on purpose to underscore its claim of sovereignty over the islands.

Furthermore, reports in China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency that Japanese patrol vessels rammed the fishing boat have prevailed in China, and there have accordingly been strong calls to pursue Japan’s moral responsibility over the incident.

Such factors, along with the conflicting claims over sovereignty over the islands, lie behind the unwillingness in China to accept a statement from Japanese Ambassador to China Uichiro Niwa that Japan will “solemnly handle the case in strict accordance with domestic law.”

Here are a couple news reports from the Japanese media (one from ATV, the other from FTV):

One of ATV’s reporters is shown in front of a school for Japanese children in Hangzhou. Angry Chinese men threw several bricks at the school. Although nobody was injured, Japanese people in China are concerned about the situation as the anger seems to escalate.

Commentators in Asahi’s news studio note that the Japanese government has video tape of the collision, and that the decision to continue the detainment of the Chinese captain is obviously based on the contents of that tape. If the charge that the fishing boat rammed the Japanese coast guard ships was false, a simple viewing of the tape would have revealed it to be so. Perhaps if the tape is released to the public, anger in China might be calmed. [However, recent statements from the Chinese government are already hinting that they will react to the release of the tape by claiming that Japan "edited" the evidence if it doesn't confirm their official story about how Japanese ships " suddenly surrounded, pursued, intercepted, hit and damaged" the trawler.]

FTV’s report shows more footage of anti-Japanese protests. It also notes how SMAP concerts in Shanghai have been called off. They visit one of the hotels that had been reserved by employees of Pro-Health, and we get to see a depressed hotel owner showing off an empty room.

An expert says that China has turned this into a major issue so that it can remind the world that it controls the East China Sea and it alone should have access to the natural resources found in the area.

Both reports speculate on the effect the boat incident will have on the number of Chinese tourists visiting Japan. So far, it looks like small tour groups and individual tourists are still coming to Japan. They may disagree with the arrest of the Chinese captain, but they’re still coming to Japan and spending their money at Japanese hotels and shops.

The news anchors from both channels seem to agree with the Japanese government’s policy of remaining calm and not interfering with the actions of the prosecutors who have legal control over the case.

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Further reading on this case: If you’re looking for information on the latest developments and a discussion on the details of this case, I suggest you check out GlobalTalk 21. Here’s a very informative comment from Jun Okumura:

The mostly independent Public Prosecutors Office used to have full discretion in deciding whether or not to prosecute and still does for all practical purposes in this case. (I won’t go into the legal details here; take my word for it.) Theoretically, it is still possible that the PPO will decline to take it to court. However, this is not an insignificant case and does carry a potential jail sentence. Moreover, it has acquired too much public prominence, and the Chinese authorities have reacted too aggressively and publicly to give the Kan administration the political leeway to see if it can coax the PPO to give up the Chinese captain to be sent home without a trial. The Chinese authorities, with their emphasis on “face,” should be the first to realize that.

It is emerging in the Japanese media as well that Chinese fishing boats often enter the territorial waters of the Senkakus and Coast Guard vessels routinely chase them out, like a Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner routine. This time, the Chinese boat apparently failed to observe the unwritten rules, and the two nations are facing the consequences. The saving grace is that the Chinese government is not doing anything to challenge the effective control of the territorial waters, nor has it threatened any such thing.

You might also want to check out this article in the Washington Times, which includes a big image of a Chinese government map from 1969 that shows the Senkaku islands as part of Japan (that was before a survey found that there might be oil in the seabed).

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