The East China Sea

Hot rocks

Apr 20th 2012, 9:09 by H.T. | TOKYO

TALK about hot property. A bidding war of sorts may have been the cause of a series of inflammatory remarks made this week by Shintaro Ishihara, the governor of Tokyo, over a few rocky islands whose ownership recently caused a huge row between Japan and China.

Mr Ishihara made headlines on April 16th when he let slip in a speech he was giving at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank in America, that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government was in discussions to buy the Senkaku islands (the Diaoyus, to the Chinese) from their private Japanese owner. It sounded like his usual bombast, and was not his only controversial remark in the speech (he called Japan America’s “mistress”, spoke up for nuclear weapons, and urged Japan to build up its arms technology). But it riled China and Taiwan, and what’s more, Mr Ishihara looks as if he was serious.

The reason is that others, notably China, have their eye on the islands. According to tabloid news reports that have emerged later this week (see here, in Japanese), a Chinese man offered a whopping 35 billion yen ($430m) to buy the islands off Kunioki Kurihara, their publicity-shy owner, who lives near Tokyo. It was not possible to confirm the supposed bid, nor reports that Tokyo has offered to pay Mr Kurihara 1 billion-1.5 billion yen for control of the Senkaku in question. But if true, it would suggest the commercial stakes are rising, perhaps because of the possibility that they could provide access to valuable natural resources nearby—not to mention geopolitical spoils. It’s a lot of money for a bit of scruffy goat pasture.

It was interesting that Mr Ishihara made the announcement in America. He said the timing was a coincidence, due to the fact that the discussions had only recently taken place. But he could have ulterior motives. The islands became the centre of a diplomatic incident in 2010 when a Chinese trawlerman, high on booze, rammed two Japanese coast-guard vessels before being arrested. Chinese officials was furious, even after Japan freed the captain. The situation calmed down only when Hillary Clinton, America’s secretary of state, publicly reassured Japan that her country’s security umbrella extended to cover such islands.

Ironic, then, that Mr Ishihara, in his speech, should repeat his call for Japan to “stand on its own feet” when it comes to security policy. That he made his remarks in the United States suggests he still thinks Japan needs America as a back-up.

(Picture credit: Wikipedia Commons)

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以下是筆者所作的回答：

Hot rocks

Apr 22nd 2012, 16:35

According to the words of main title, there is no question of Diaoyus (Senkaku Islands to Japanese) belonging to Beijing because these islands locate in the East China Sea. And by international oceanic law, the sovereignty over these islands depends on where they locate in. Historically, the first obviously artificial construction, for pray and safety of sailer, was built by Qing Empires Southern Oceanic Fleet in the beginning of 20th century. As a result, Beijing holds the control of the East Sea, also owning these islands that is, of course, totally called “Diaoyutai Leiyu”.

The first argument occurred in 1972’s September when China’s former prime minister Zhou En-lai normalized Sino-Japanese diplomatic relationship with Japan’s then-Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka. According to NHK world’s report, last December Japan’s Foreign Ministry disclosed Beijing and Tokyo’s diplomatic exchanges. These released documents include Tanaka’s abruptly active view on the territorial dispute over Diaoyus while talking with Zhou on the third day of their 4-day meeting. Zhou said “Its not good to discuss it now” and he tried to change the topic. Meanwhile, he added that Senkakus have become an issue because of oil and if there were no oil, neither the United States nor Taiwan would be interested.

Later, the voices of “protection of islands” prevailed in Taipei and Hong Kong for several decades. In 1996’s October, Taipei County’s Jing Jie-Shou and two Hong Kong’s legislators incautiously rushed to the largest one of Diaoyus with separately showing off so-called “Republic of China” and Beijing’s Chinese flag. Mr. Jing’s action make East Asia nervous for a while. During the tenure of Taiwans Chen Shui-Bian, Chen said that these islands belong to Taiwan, inclusively under the circumstance of independent “Taiwanese nation” from Beijing’s China.

On the other hand, most of parties and politicians in Tokyo - especially Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintaro, the famously right-wing leader - constantly pay attention to this dispute. Last month, Tokyo announced official names to 39 uninhabited islands, including Japan’s so-called “Senkaku Islands”, that serve as the basis for the boundary of the countrys exclusive economic zone.

The following is the report from NHK’s world on Mar.3:

“Some of the names given to those in the Senkaku Islands are “Hokusei-kojima”, which means northwestern small island, and "Kita-kojima," or northern small island.”

……

“Chinas foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei issued a statement on Saturday that calls the move by the Japanese government unilateral, illegal and invalid. It also said that whatever names Japan may give, it cannot change the fact that the islands belong to China.”

”Chinas State Oceanic Administration released a list with the names of 71 islets in the Senkaku Islands on Saturday.”

Meanwhile, Taipei authority protested Tokyo’s “unilateral” announcement in public. And then, Japan-China’s relation is unsteady and sometimes either good or bad. Just several weeks ago in Tokyo, Chinese Culture Minister Cai Wu and Japans Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura separately represented their nation co-celebrating the 40th anniversary of the normalization of their diplomatic relations, with depicting Great Tang’s Chang-an and Silk Road as a symbol of mutual confidence. However, on Apr. 16, Ishihara put forward a thought that the essential measure to make these islands “public”, because, by Japan’s law, these islands are owned “in private” by a Japanese. For me, from his support of the “nut” Lee Tung-Hei to this issue, Ishihara’s behaviour accords “Nippon Banzai” sakura - what I profoundly love and be annoyed in a dilemma.

Tokyo administration said last week that purchase and ownership by the state is a possibility. On Apr. 18, NHK interviewed the landlords younger brother Hiroyuki Kurihara in Tokyo, saying “Kurihara says the landlord would start 3-way negotiations with the national and Tokyo governments from scratch if the national government were to express an interest in buying the islands.” Chinese ambassador in Japan, Cheng Yong-Hua, delivered the protest instantly in Matsuyama City (rather than the former clumsy Wang Yi, the current Taiwan affair’s chief).

Basically, being one of Chinese military, I talk of Diaoyus which must be under Beijing’s control. Owing to the growth of Chinese People’s Liberation Army, Beijing is hard to abandon the surrounding rights of resource from fishery concerned to geopolitical purpose. Last year, when my boss Li Ke-Qiang, the next China’s prime minister, contacted me, Li also referred to Li and General Wu Sheng-li’s worries about the control of the surroundings relative to the Fleet of East China Sea. Undeniably, China has expanded navy power in the East and South China Seas for interests in these maritime regions. Since these islands locate in the first island chain of East Asia, the contest drama may play continuously with a dilemma of friends or foes.

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這篇所聊的東海、南海海權問題，於之後最近一次相關回應於經濟學者雜誌8月27日發文的「Relations on the rocks」討論區內。中國是否應該照國際上的共識，即所有的水路及海洋資源都應該是國際共享，而無關歷史遺澤，和中國海權問題有相似的是俄羅斯備受批評的波羅的海的開放問題。

這篇回應的時候，後來投靠法輪功成為幹部的洪磊，其該週的回答在這領域小有權威，為NHK World 英語版敬佩拿來作報導過。中國海洋探測局曾公佈釣魚島在內的71個群島全部是中國領土。

經濟學人雜誌東海和南海問題是並列在報的，並且在Banyan評論區作小論文整合，如以下兩篇：

The South China Sea

Shoal mates

America’s navy riles China in its backyard

Apr 28th 2012 | MANILA | from the print edition

PHILIPPINE and American troops charged ashore from the South China Sea on April 25th in an exercise to show they could jointly recapture a small Philippine island from hostile forces. It was all make-believe, of course: just another round of a game in which China pretends it owns almost all the South China Sea, and the Philippines and four other East Asian countries pretend otherwise.

America says it does not take sides in the squabble embroiling China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines over ownership of all or parts of the South China Sea. The sea has (or had) a rich marine life, and oil and gas. But America does play chicken. It has a mutual-defence treaty with the Philippines, which an American general this month described as “self-explanatory”. However, the treaty fails to spell out whether America would help defend Philippine-claimed territory if it was also claimed by China.

In this way, America keeps China guessing as to where the tripwire for armed conflict is buried. The Americans and Filipinos made the usual denials that the mock enemy in their annual joint military exercises is China. The Chinese muttered darkly that the exercises would increase the risk of confrontation. Its press was even more incensed, since joint exercises with Vietnam, another rival claimant to parts of the sea, also began on April 23rd. America insisted this was coincidental and that the exercises had long been planned.

Tensions were high because a real mix-up between China and the Philippines was already taking place—over Scarborough shoal, a ring of mostly submerged rocks that both claim. On April 10th a Philippine warship found Chinese fishing boats inside the shoal with an illegal haul of giant clams, coral and live sharks. The fishermen called for help, and two Chinese civilian patrol boats blocked the mouth of the shoal to stop the Philippine navy from arresting the fishermen.

The Filipinos were not playing the South China Sea game as the Chinese expect it to be played. A new report by the International Crisis Group (ICG), a think-tank, says that China, while asserting its vague claims to territory in the South China Sea, is actually averse to confronting other claimants, particularly in view of America’s strengthening of military ties with some of China’s neighbours.

But the ICG argues that various agencies of the Chinese state are exploiting its claims for their own interests, whether it is the navy seeking to justify funds for its modernisation, or local governments encouraging fishermen to go farther afield in search of bigger catches. This causes trouble with other claimants. The foreign ministry tries to ease tension, but often lacks the clout. And the vagueness of China’s claims in the South China Sea means that other agencies can interpret them more liberally than the foreign ministry would.

The Scarborough shoal confrontation unfolded just as the ICG’s argument would suggest. The Chinese foreign ministry had to defend poachers in what it had to argue was a traditional Chinese fishing ground. It persuaded the Philippines to withdraw its warship and replace it with a civilian coastguard vessel, perhaps with a view to keeping the Chinese navy on the sidelines. China then withdrew all but one of its civilian patrol boats.

The Philippines hoped that both sides could then pull back from the shoal, ending the confrontation. But Chinese patrol boats from at least two government agencies kept returning, perhaps in defiance of foreign-ministry advice, and eventually so did some Chinese fishing vessels.

The ambiguity of China’s behaviour may be like the ambiguity of America’s defence treaty with the Philippines: it keeps antagonists guessing. But chicken can be a dangerous game.

from the print edition | Asia

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Banyan

At sea

The difficulty in making progress in relations with China

May 5th 2012 | from the print edition

“AN ACQUIRED taste, much of it bitter” was how the late Percy Cradock, a British foreign-office mandarin, described China, a country he spent a lifetime studying. The American officials who this week negotiated in Beijing over the future of Chen Guangcheng, a blind and much-persecuted Chinese legal activist, must know just what he meant. Rarely has diplomatic triumph turned into possible debacle so swiftly. Much rides on the ability of China and America to salvage something from the wreckage.

As Hillary Clinton, America’s secretary of state, said this week, the two countries cannot solve all the world’s problems. But unless they co-operate, no global problem is solvable. Yet as she was speaking, in Beijing at the opening of the two countries’ fourth annual “Strategic and Economic Dialogue” (S&ED), the world’s most important bilateral relationship was under strain on any number of fronts. At best, mutual strategic mistrust seems too deeply ingrained to eradicate. At worst, the possibility of a catastrophic breakdown cannot be ruled out.

Mr Chen’s decision to seek protection at the American embassy in Beijing brought back to the fore in bilateral relations an issue that both sides hoped had been parked. They define it differently. For America, it is the Chinese government’s unconscionable treatment of dissidents and activists—even those, like Mr Chen, who merely want it to follow its own laws. For China, it is about America’s meddling in its internal affairs.

For a time after the Tiananmen killings of 1989, this dispute dominated the relationship. But it has faded in importance since, and only partly because China’s citizens enjoy greater freedoms now than they did two decades ago. China’s increasing economic and strategic clout has driven the issue down the agenda. In 2000 America ended the ritual in which China’s normal trading status with it was subject to annual renewal and human-rights conditions. Nine years later Mrs Clinton, new in her job, herself stressed that human-rights concerns should not block co-operation with China.

With the S&ED about to start, and an agenda covering, as she suggested, most of the world’s troubles from the global economy to climate change to Iran, Mr Chen’s plight threatened to do just that. But the deal frantic diplomats reached to save the S&ED began to unravel almost as soon as Mr Chen left the American embassy. The apparent pragmatism of the Chinese officials who negotiated it is matched neither by the Chinese press nor the government’s public stance, a demand for an American apology. The likelihood must be that, far from marking a milestone in co-operation, the understanding reached over Mr Chen becomes another source of tension in Chinese-American relations. The existing sources are worrying enough. Quite apart from the importance to the global economy of reasonable relations between its largest component countries, there is a long list of strategic concerns.

Three stand out. One is the prospect of an imminent test by North Korea of a nuclear bomb, perhaps accompanied by some military provocation towards South Korea, which it threatens in blood-curdling terms most days. As its only ally and benefactor, China alone might be able to rein in North Korea.

Another is mutual military suspicion. China fears America is intent on thwarting its emergence as a global military as well as economic power. It points to America’s spy planes and ships off its coast, its beefing up of alliances in the region with South Korea, Australia, Japan and the Philippines, and its courting of newer friends, such as India and Vietnam. Joint naval exercises in recent weeks both with the Philippines and Vietnam have irked China at a time of growing tension over its territorial disputes in the South China Sea with those two countries. The risk, in the absence of closer military co-operation, is of an accidental conflict.

Third is what China’s leaders have always called the biggest single obstacle in relations with America: its arms sales to Taiwan. In late April the White House promised to give “serious consideration” to selling Taiwan the F-16 C/D jetfighters it has long requested. Arming Taiwan and so, in theory, discouraging it from accepting Chinese sovereignty, violates what China calls its “core interests”. It might well take some sort of countermeasure.

Fortunately there are strong reasons for hoping the two sides can avoid a calamitous rift. One is the domestic political calendar in both countries. Barack Obama faces an election in November. The Chinese Communist Party this autumn holds a congress at which a ten-yearly shift of leadership will take place. Both sides have a strong interest in avoiding foreign-policy crises.

Also, the two countries’ diplomats seem to have established a degree of trust. American negotiators were full of praise for their Chinese counterparts in the talks over Mr Chen. And surely America has earned some Chinese credit for its discretion in the handling not just ofthe Chen Guangcheng affair, but also that of Wang Lijun, in February. Mr Wang, a former police chief at odds with his boss, Bo Xilai, pitched up at an American consulate. Mr Bo has since been purged, and his wife accused of complicity in murder. Mr Wang will have told his side of a grisly tale. Yet of the torrent of lurid rumours on the affair in the press, virtually none has been attributed to American officials.

No thanks

However, both these sources of optimism could be misplaced. In an election and party-congress year, it may be harder for both governments to take a soft line. Barack Obama will certainly face flak over Mr Chen. Chinese politicians may reflect that few leaders have won promotion by soft-pedalling on issues of China’s national sovereignty. And hardliners, far from feeling grateful to America for its efforts to spare China’s blushes, may feel either suspicious of a deep-laid American conspiracy, or humiliated. Either way, it will be easier to demand an American apology than to offer any form of co-operation that might smack of gratitude.

Economist.com/blogs/banyan

from the print edition | China

＊附相關文章批判中國國力問題

Demography

China’s Achilles heel

A comparison with America reveals a deep flaw in China’s model of growth

Apr 21st 2012 | from the print edition

LIKE the hero of “The Iliad”, China can seem invincible. In 2010 it overtook America in terms of manufactured output, energy use and car sales. Its military spending has been growing in nominal terms by an average of 16% each year for the past 20 years. According to the IMF, China will overtake America as the world’s largest economy (at purchasing-power parity) in 2017. But when Thetis, Achilles’s mother, dipped her baby in the river Styx to give him the gift of invulnerability, she had to hold him somewhere. Alongside the other many problems it faces, China too has its deadly point of unseen weakness: demography.

Over the past 30 years, China’s total fertility rate—the number of children a woman can expect to have during her lifetime—has fallen from 2.6, well above the rate needed to hold a population steady, to 1.56, well below that rate (see table). Because very low fertility can become self-reinforcing, with children of one-child families wanting only one child themselves, China now probably faces a long period of ultra-low fertility, regardless of what happens to its one-child policy.

The government has made small adjustments to the policy (notably by allowing an only child who is married to another only child to have more than one child) and may adapt it further. But for now it is firmly in place, and very low fertility rates still prevail, especially in the richest parts of the country. Shanghai reported fertility of just 0.6 in 2010—probably the lowest level anywhere in the world. According to the UN’s population division, the nationwide fertility rate will continue to decline, reaching 1.51 in 2015-20. In contrast, America’s fertility rate is 2.08 and rising.

The difference between 1.56 and 2.08 does not sound large. But over the long term it has a huge impact on society. Between now and 2050 China’s population will fall slightly, from 1.34 billion in 2010 to just under 1.3 billion in 2050. This assumes that fertility starts to recover. If it stays low, the population will dip below 1 billion by 2060. In contrast, America’s population is set to rise by 30% in the next 40 years. China will hit its peak population in 2026. No one knows when America will hit its population peak.

The differences between the two countries are even more striking if you look at their average ages. In 1980 China’s median (the age at which half the population is younger, half older) was 22. That is characteristic of a young developing country. It is now 34.5, more like a rich country and not very different from America’s, which is 37. But China is ageing at an unprecedented pace. Because fewer children are being born as larger generations of adults are getting older, its median age will rise to 49 by 2050, nearly nine years more than America at that point. Some cities will be older still. The Shanghai Population and Family Planning Committee says that more than a third of the city’s population will be over 60 by 2020.

This trend will have profound financial and social consequences. Most obviously, it means China will have a bulge of pensioners before it has developed the means of looking after them. Unlike the rest of the developed world, China will grow old before it gets rich. Currently, 8.2% of China’s total population is over 65. The equivalent figure in America is 13%. By 2050, China’s share will be 26%, higher than in America.

In the traditional Chinese family, children, especially sons, look after their parents (though this is now changing—see story on next page). But rapid ageing also means China faces what is called the “4-2-1 phenomenon”: each only child is responsible for two parents and four grandparents. Even with high savings rates, it seems unlikely that the younger generation will be able or willing to afford such a burden. So most elderly Chinese will be obliged to rely heavily on social-security pensions.

China set up a national pensions fund in 2000, but only about 365m people have a formal pension. And the system is in crisis. The country’s unfunded pension liability is roughly 150% of GDP. Almost half the (separate) pension funds run by provinces are in the red, and local governments have sometimes reneged on payments.

But that is only part of a wider problem. Between 2010 and 2050 China’s workforce will shrink as a share of the population by 11 percentage points, from 72% to 61%—a huge contraction, even allowing for the fact that the workforce share is exceptionally large now. That means China’s old-age dependency ratio (which compares the number of people over 65 with those aged 15 to 64) will soar. At the moment the ratio is 11—roughly half America’s level of 20. But by 2050, China’s old-age ratio will have risen fourfold to 42, surpassing America’s. Even more strikingly, by 2050, the number of people coming towards the end of their working lives (ie, those in their 50s) will have risen by more than 10%. The number of those just setting out (those in their early 20s, who are usually the best educated and most productive members of society) will have halved.

Help wanted

The shift spells the end of China as the world’s factory. The apparently endless stream of cheap labour is starting to run dry. Despite pools of underemployed country-dwellers, China already faces shortages of manual workers. As the workforce starts to shrink after 2013, these problems will worsen. Sarah Harper of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing points out that China has mapped out the age structure of its jobs, and knows for each occupation when the skills shortage will hit. It is likely to try to offset the impact by looking for workers abroad. Manpower, a business-recruitment firm, says that by 2030 China will be importing workers from outside, rather than exporting them.

Large-scale immigration poses problems of its own. America is one of the rare examples of a country that has managed to use mass immigration to build a skilled labour force. But America is an open, multi-ethnic society with a long history of immigration and stronglegal and political institutions. China has none of these features.

In the absence of predictable institutions, all areas of Chinese society have relied on guanxi, the web of connections that often has extended family relations at the centre. But what happens when there are fewer extended families? One result could be a move towards a more predictable legal system and (possibly) a more open political culture. And, as shifts in China’s economy lead to lower growth, Chinese leaders will have to make difficult spending choices; they will have to decide whether to buy “guns or walking sticks”.

China is not unique in facing these problems. All rich countries have rising pension costs. And China has some advantages in dealing with them, notably low tax rates (giving room for future increases) and low public expectations of welfare. Still, China is also unusual in two respects. It is much poorer than other ageing countries, and its demographic transition has been much more abrupt. It seems highly unlikely that China will be able to grow its way economically out of its population problems. Instead, those problems will weigh down its growth rate—to say nothing of the immense social challenges they will bring. China’s Achilles heel will not be fatal. But it will hobble the hero.

from the print edition | China

*附一篇Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)的辯論題目提示：中國是否威脅東亞安全

Defending the motion

 Andrew Krepinevich

President, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, Washington DC

Increasingly aggressive behaviour has convinced many countries in the region that relying solely on engaging the Chinese government diplomatically and economically is not sufficient to maintain stability.

Against the motion

 Dingli Shen

Professor and Executive Dean of the Institute of International Studies, Fudan University in Shanghai

In terms of international collaboration on anti-terror and non-proliferation, China has been a key player in helping to stabilise a number of critical regions. A country taking such actions will not itself become a threat.

The moderators opening remarks

Apr 17th 2012 |   Matthew Symonds

The proposers opening remarks

Apr 17th 2012 |   Andrew Krepinevich

The oppositions opening remarks

Apr 17th 2012 |  Dingli Shen