Risks linger as China, Japan spar over islets

Japan and China talk of building a strategic partnership but they can't seem to avoid tactical scraps.

A high-profile breakdown in diplomacy over the question of whether Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan would meet one-on-one at a regional summit in Hanoi has raised questions about the risks from lingering brinksmanship between Asia's two biggest economies.

After some encouraging steps to repair a rift over Japan's detention of a Chinese fishing boat captain in disputed waters in the East China Sea, possibly rich in oil, natural gas and minerals, ties once again crumbled.

The reasons are not crystal clear. Assistant Chinese Foreign Minister Hu Zhengyue accused Japan of ruining the atmosphere by "inflaming" the East China Sea issue in collusion with others -- a veiled reference to the United States.

But below the surface, personal grudges, sensitive domestic political considerations and lack of policy coordination are likely to have played a part.

The tension was so awkward that unease spread among Southeast Asian nations at the regional talks, deflecting focus away from other topics like currency pressures, and prompting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to offer to mediate trilateral talks with Japan and China to cool things down.

In the end, Kan and Wen did have a one-on-one chat, away from the cameras and for only 10 minutes, Japanese officials said. No mention was made of the meeting by state Chinese media.

"It is very difficult for China and Japan to step down from the summit point of the crisis in September," said Shi Yinhong, international relations expert at Renmin University in Beijing.

PERSONAL VENDETTA?

The row might be Chinese recrimination for the at-times blunt diplomacy of Japan's new 48-year-old foreign minister, Seiji Maehara, Shi said.

Maehara once called the Chinese suspension of high-level official exchanges "extremely hysterical," comments which a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman called deeply shocking.

"In China's eyes, the single biggest obstacle for rapprochement is the Japanese foreign minister," said Shi. "I think he, personally, plays a very negative role."

China and Japan talk of building a strategic relationship, but the two can get mired in distracting issues such as visits by Japanese leaders to a wartime shrine, and the Diaoyu isles, or Senkaku as they're known in Japan. China is Japan's biggest trading partner with bilateral trade worth $270 billion in 2009.

All this comes as a strengthening China, which suffered a Japanese invasion and brutal occupation of parts of the country from 1931 to 1945, flexes its muscles on the world stage, moving further from a stance of non-interference in the affairs of others, partly driven by its voracious appetite for resources.

"China's leaders have realized that maintaining economic growth and political stability on the home front will come not from keeping their heads low, but rather from actively managing events outside China's borders," wrote Elizabeth Economy, director of Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.



(source:reuters.com)