Former Chinese Diplomat Says U.S. Is Using Japan to Make Gains in Asia
By JANE PERLEZ and KEITH BRADSHER
The diplomat, Chen Jian, a former Chinese ambassador to Japan, said
Tuesday the United States should restrain Japan and help bring about
negotiations over the islands.
Kosuke Okahara for The New York Times
Claims to the uninhabited
islands known as Senkaku or Diaoyu are complicated by past bitterness
and modern interdependency between China and Japan.
By JANE PERLEZ and KEITH BRADSHER
Published: October 30, 2012
HONG KONG — A longtime Chinese diplomat warned Tuesday that the United
States is using Japan as a strategic tool in its effort to mount a
comeback in Asia, a policy that he said is serving to heighten tensions
between China and Japan.
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The retired diplomat, Chen Jian, who served as an under secretary
general of the United Nations and as China’s ambassador to Japan, said
the United States should restrain Tokyo and should focus its diplomatic
efforts on bringing about negotiations between China and Japan over the
disputed islands in the East China Sea known as the Diaoyu by China and
the Senkaku by Japan.
In an unusually biting assessment of the United States, Mr. Chen said:
“It is in the U.S. interest to quarrel with China, but not to fight with
China.”
While Mr. Chen has retired from China’s diplomatic service, his remarks
were particularly significant because they represent the most detailed
public exposition of China’s views at a time when Chinese officials have
been wary of making comments because of the approaching Communist Party
Congress, which is scheduled to begin in Beijing on Nov. 8.
In the speech, which was organized by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and was attended by half a dozen Chinese diplomats, Mr. Chen
held out an olive branch by urging that discussions between Japan and
China should start on ways to reduce the risk of clashes between Chinese
and Japanese patrol vessels that have gotten perilously close off the
islands in the last month.
But the thrust of his speech was more hard-hitting, particularly
regarding the United States. Some in China and Japan see the issue of
the islands “as a time bomb planted by the U.S. between China and
Japan,” he said. “That time bomb is now exploding or about to
explode.”Mr. Chen accused the United States of encouraging the right
wing in Japan, and fanning a rise of militarism.
“The U.S. is urging Japan to play a greater role in the region in
security terms, not just in economic terms,” he said during his speech
at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong. That “suits the
purpose of the right wing in Japan more than perfectly — their long-held
dream is now possible to be realized.”
The United States has said that, in the event of conflict, the disputed
islands are covered by its mutual defense treaty with Japan, a position
that China has severely criticized since the latest dispute flared last
month.
Mr. Chen described what he called the intervention of the United States
in territorial disputes in the South China Sea — where China has been at
odds with another American ally, the Philippines — as a way for the
United States to expand its influence and restrain the influence of
China.
“Will these countries misjudge and draw China and the United States into
a confrontation?” Mr. Chen asked. “The danger is apparent, and China
needs to be aware of that.”
Mr. Chen, who is now dean of the School of International Studies at
Renmin University in Beijing, offered a lengthy list of suggestions and
assurances for how China hopes to resolve tensions with its neighbors.
“China does not seek to provoke incidents, and will not be the one to do
so first,” he said. He said that China had only sent administrative
vessels to the disputed islands, not warships from its navy.
Mr. Chen said major changes in Chinese foreign policy were unlikely to
follow the selection of a new leadership team at the Party Congress. “I
think it’s going to be a smooth change, and the main tenets of our
foreign policy will remain very much the same,” he said.
By far the biggest threat to stability in the region are the islands
where Japan and China are at odds. Little more than rocky outcrops in
shark-infested waters, Japan won the islands as the spoils of war in the
Sino-Japanese War in 1895. The United States took over administration
of the islands at the end of World War II.
China expected that Japan as a defeated nation would have to give up the
islands, and that they would be returned to China. But the islands were
not returned, rankling China and Taiwan ever since — a rare issue on
which those two agree.
The San Francisco Peace Treaty between Japan and the Allies in 1951 did
not clearly establish sovereignty of the islands.
In 1972, the United States returned the disputed islands to Japan, and
Japan has administered them since. When China and Japan restored
diplomatic relations in 1972, the leaders of the two countries decided
to shelve the question of sovereignty of the islands until a future
date.
The Obama administration has stated that even though it would come to
Japan’s side in the event of conflict over the islands, it takes no
position on the sovereignty of the islands.
The issue burst into the open last month when the Japanese government
announced it was purchasing the islands from a private family that has
owned them for some years. China denounced the purchase as
“nationalization” of the islands.
The government of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda argued that it bought
the islands to prevent them from falling into the hands of the former
Mayor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, a right-wing politician.
Because the islands were transferred from one Japanese entity to
another, Mr. Noda’s government says the status quo has not changed, and
that there is no need to open negotiations with China over the issue at
this time.
Japan and China have both had patrol vessels in close proximity to the
islands and each other in recent days. The Japanese Coast Guard and the
Chinese State Oceanic Administration each said in separate statements
Tuesday that their vessels had demanded that the other side’s ships
should leave the area.
Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China and Prime Minister Noda are scheduled
to attend a meeting in Laos next week. The Japanese news media reported
on Tuesday that there were no plans for the two men to hold a formal
talks to resolve differences, although they might have an informal
meeting on the sidelines.
COPY http://www.nytimes.com
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