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Thursday, 14 May 2009
Maintaining Sino-Japanese relations at Diaoyu’s cost?
SINO-JAPANESE relations have greatly improved since Junichiro Koizumi stepped down as prime minister in 2006. None of his successors have visited the controversial Yasukuni Shrine.
Maintaining Sino-Japanese relations at Diaoyu’s cost?
By FRANK CHING 14 May 2009
SINO-JAPANESE relations have greatly improved since Junichiro Koizumi stepped down as prime minister in 2006. None of his successors have visited the controversial Yasukuni Shrine.
Still, problems remain. Last month, for example, Prime Minister Taro Aso, sent a potted plant as an offering to the shrine, where the spirits of war criminals are honoured along with other Japanese war dead.
Also in March, the Japanese prime minister twice referred to the Senkaku islands, known in Chinese as the Diaoyu islands, as Japanese territory, adding that they were protected under the Japan-US security treaty.
While the question of conflicting Chinese and Japanese claims is not new, each time the claim is made by Japan, there is usually a reaction from China. This time, however, Beijing did not allow either the Yasukuni or the Diaoyu disputes to interfere with a summit meeting between the Japanese leader and both President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao in late April.
In fact, relations have improved to such an extent that Mr. Aso, who has been in office for less than a year, has already met four times with both Mr. Hu and Mr. Wen.
But while Beijing may be able to control the domestic media and, to some extent, sentiment on the mainland, it is not able to do so in Taiwan or in Hong Kong, where there are nationalistic elements who are just as sensitive to issues of history and geography as Beijing, but who up to now have not been subject to official constraints.
That period of freedom for individuals and NGOs may be over. In Taiwan last week, an organisation called the Chinese Association for Protecting Diaoyutai said that the group’s attempt to visit the island chain had been torpedoed after government officials put pressure on the owner of the ship that was to take them there.
According to the group’s spokesman, the ship owner had been visited by officials who threatened to revoke his fishing license if he set sail with the association’s members. Given the close cooperation between the Ma Ying-jeou administration and Beijing, it would not be surprising if the decision to stop the visit was the result of coordination between the two sides.
This attitude is in startling contrast with the Ma administration’s decision last June not only to allow a fishing boat to carry protesters to the vicinity of the Diaoyu islands but to provide coast guard ships to escort them.
Another sign of a change in policy and of coordination between governments was the decision by the Hong Kong administration to bar a local fishing boat from taking ‘defenders of the Diaoyu islands’ to the disputed area.
Although Hong Kong officials initially cited technical reasons, maintaining that the fire safety equipment aboard did not meet required standards, it became clear after such objections were met that the government’s real objective was not to allow the fishing boat to venture to waters near the Diaoyu islands.
Certainly, officials in all three jurisdictions can cite concern for the well-being of demonstrators, especially since Japan has strengthened patrols in the waters around the islands. Besides, such trips are inherently dangerous, with one Hong Kong protester, David Chan, having drowned in 1996 after he and several other members of a group jumped off their ship while in the vicinity of the islands and tried to swim to shore.
But in Hong Kong, there are also concerns as to whether the rights of Hong Kong citizens, guaranteed under the ‘one country, two systems’ policy, are being violated. It is understandable that the Chinese government does not want to damage relations with Japan, which are still delicate.
Officials, therefore, do not want citizens to mount protests that might get out of hand. But any official action has to be within the law. It is not clear that in Hong Kong there is currently any law that the government can cite that can be used to prevent its citizens from sailing to the Diaoyu islands, which after all are considered Chinese territory by Beijing, either to catch fish or to stage a protest.
In the United States, there is something called the Logan Act that prohibits unauthorised individuals from conducting foreign policy. But it is doubtful that such a law would prohibit individuals from staging protests.
Of course, China can say that under the Basic Law foreign policy - and hence relations with Japan - come under ambit of the central government. But is that sufficient to restrict the rights of Hong Kong citizens to travel and to protest?
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Maintaining Sino-Japanese relations at Diaoyu’s cost?
By FRANK CHING
14 May 2009
SINO-JAPANESE relations have greatly improved since Junichiro Koizumi stepped down as prime minister in 2006. None of his successors have visited the controversial Yasukuni Shrine.
Still, problems remain. Last month, for example, Prime Minister Taro Aso, sent a potted plant as an offering to the shrine, where the spirits of war criminals are honoured along with other Japanese war dead.
Also in March, the Japanese prime minister twice referred to the Senkaku islands, known in Chinese as the Diaoyu islands, as Japanese territory, adding that they were protected under the Japan-US security treaty.
While the question of conflicting Chinese and Japanese claims is not new, each time the claim is made by Japan, there is usually a reaction from China. This time, however, Beijing did not allow either the Yasukuni or the Diaoyu disputes to interfere with a summit meeting between the Japanese leader and both President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao in late April.
In fact, relations have improved to such an extent that Mr. Aso, who has been in office for less than a year, has already met four times with both Mr. Hu and Mr. Wen.
But while Beijing may be able to control the domestic media and, to some extent, sentiment on the mainland, it is not able to do so in Taiwan or in Hong Kong, where there are nationalistic elements who are just as sensitive to issues of history and geography as Beijing, but who up to now have not been subject to official constraints.
That period of freedom for individuals and NGOs may be over. In Taiwan last week, an organisation called the Chinese Association for Protecting Diaoyutai said that the group’s attempt to visit the island chain had been torpedoed after government officials put pressure on the owner of the ship that was to take them there.
According to the group’s spokesman, the ship owner had been visited by officials who threatened to revoke his fishing license if he set sail with the association’s members. Given the close cooperation between the Ma Ying-jeou administration and Beijing, it would not be surprising if the decision to stop the visit was the result of coordination between the two sides.
This attitude is in startling contrast with the Ma administration’s decision last June not only to allow a fishing boat to carry protesters to the vicinity of the Diaoyu islands but to provide coast guard ships to escort them.
Another sign of a change in policy and of coordination between governments was the decision by the Hong Kong administration to bar a local fishing boat from taking ‘defenders of the Diaoyu islands’ to the disputed area.
Although Hong Kong officials initially cited technical reasons, maintaining that the fire safety equipment aboard did not meet required standards, it became clear after such objections were met that the government’s real objective was not to allow the fishing boat to venture to waters near the Diaoyu islands.
Certainly, officials in all three jurisdictions can cite concern for the well-being of demonstrators, especially since Japan has strengthened patrols in the waters around the islands. Besides, such trips are inherently dangerous, with one Hong Kong protester, David Chan, having drowned in 1996 after he and several other members of a group jumped off their ship while in the vicinity of the islands and tried to swim to shore.
But in Hong Kong, there are also concerns as to whether the rights of Hong Kong citizens, guaranteed under the ‘one country, two systems’ policy, are being violated. It is understandable that the Chinese government does not want to damage relations with Japan, which are still delicate.
Officials, therefore, do not want citizens to mount protests that might get out of hand. But any official action has to be within the law. It is not clear that in Hong Kong there is currently any law that the government can cite that can be used to prevent its citizens from sailing to the Diaoyu islands, which after all are considered Chinese territory by Beijing, either to catch fish or to stage a protest.
In the United States, there is something called the Logan Act that prohibits unauthorised individuals from conducting foreign policy. But it is doubtful that such a law would prohibit individuals from staging protests.
Of course, China can say that under the Basic Law foreign policy - and hence relations with Japan - come under ambit of the central government. But is that sufficient to restrict the rights of Hong Kong citizens to travel and to protest?
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