Ralph Jennings (VOA)

East Asia

April 28, 2022 5:43 PM

San Francisco — 

Japan, the West's chief ally in Asia, is pushing back as China ramps up itsmilitary presence in Asian waters, including near Japanese coastlines and agroup of disputed islets, analysts say.

On Tuesday, Tokyo protested after a Chinese navy survey ship entered Japanesewaters for about three hours, Japan-based Kyodo News reported.

Earlier this month, the Japan Air Self-Defense Force repositioned a mobileradar system in its outlying islands because of increased Chinese activity inthe region, U.S. military news website Stars & Stripes reported.

In January, a Japanese city government was planning to seek permission fromofficials in Tokyo to land on the disputed Senkaku Islands and plant signposts,according to the Chinesestate-controlled Global Times news website. China claims theislands, which it calls the Diaoyu Islands, as its own.

Chinese officials have complained formally to Japan as they dispute sovereigntyover the eight uninhabited islets.

China has upped its naval and air presence in the East China Sea, whichstretches between the two countries and expands into the wider western Pacific.

The Japanese Ministry of Defense said April 15 that thenumber of scrambles targeting foreign aircraft rose by 279 over the year endingin March, compared with the previous year. The ministry logged more than 1,000such incidents in the past year, many involving China, according to Japanesemedia outlets.

Chinese show of strength

China is telling Japan, a former World War II foe, not to get in the way,experts say.

"No matter what Japan does, it can never change the fact that Diaoyudao[the Diaoyu Islands] is part of China," said Liu Pengyu, spokesperson forthe Chinese Embassy in Washington. "China's determination to safeguard theterritorial sovereignty of the Diaoyudao is firm."

In Beijing, President Xi Jinping hopes to appear strong before the CommunistParty congress in late 2022, said Stephen Nagy, senior associate professor ofpolitics and international studies at International Christian University in Tokyo.

"China wants to send a strong signal to Tokyo that any escalation on theJapanese side will result in an escalation by the Chinese on Japan and theissues that Japan thinks is important. And in the case of Japan, it's theSenkaku Islands," Nagy said.

China hopes to deter other countries, including Japan, from challenging it inthe western Pacific, said Andrew Yang, secretary-general of the Chinese Councilof Advanced Policy Studies think tank in Taiwan. "I think it's so-calledsalami tactics, trying to see the reaction or response from Japan or U.S.-Japanalliances," Yang said.

Japan and the United States, a superpower rival of China's over the past fivedecades, have been treaty allies since 1951. The two sides will"consolidate or update" their alliance to "fend off a Chineseincursion," Yang predicted.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke by phone March 24with Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi, and on April 16, sixU.S. lawmakers met Kishi to discuss what the ministry called the "furtherstrengthening [of] the Japan-U.S. alliance."

Japan wants China to follow what it calls a "rules-based order" toensure stability and economic prosperity in Asia despite political and militaryfriction, according to an analysis by Thomas Wilkins, anexpert in Japanese foreign policy at the University of Sydney.

Caution in Tokyo

Japan worries about what China's close ties with Russia mean for Taiwan, saidJeff Kingston, a history professor at the Japan campus of Temple University.

China has not ruled out use of force to control self-ruledTaiwan, Tokyo's neighbor and close informal ally. Russia has waged war onUkraine since February.

Chinese and Russian warships sailed together between Japan'sislands of Honshu and Hokkaido in October, alarming the Japanese government asit coincided with military exercises.

But Japan this month signed an agreement with Russia on the amount of salmonand trout originating in Russian rivers that Japanese vessels can catch.Japanese businesses want better ties with China, Kingston said. China wasJapan's top export destination as of last year.

"Japan is part of the arc of anxiety in Asia regarding China's hegemonicintentions, and there's plenty of those countries that are worried, but thething is, they don't really want to be really taking sides," Kingstonsaid.

Japan and China will probably use a decades-old pattern of"signaling" — such as military movements — to stand tall against eachother, Nagy said.

The Japanese Embassy in Washington did not reply to a request for comment.