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Diplomacy
Go Ito on the Senkaku Islands Dispute
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Go Ito
Tokyo -- Go Ito is professor of Meiji University who specializes on the international relations of East Asia, especially the dynamics between Japan, the United States, and China. PanOrient News sat down with Dr. Ito to discuss the Senkaku Islands crisis, asking for both his analysis and his advice.
The following is the text of the interview.
PanOrient News: Can you tell us why this most recent dispute occurred?
Go Ito: Basically, it can be attributed to Chinese domestic issues. There is a gap between the outlook of the Chinese leaders and the Chinese general public, especially on territorial matters. The Chinese government is trying to satisfy the popular views.
My own view, however, is that, at its heart, this is not really a territorial issue. The question is who hit the Japan Coast Guard ships and why.
The Chinese government wants to make this a political issue and the Japanese government hasn't done a good enough job saying that this isn't a territorial problem. The Japanese government seems to lack a strategy to manage this affair.
PanOrient News: You say that it is not a territorial issue, but if the Chinese and Taiwanese governments accept that this man can be tried under Japanese domestic law, isn't that essentially equivalent to recognizing Japanese territorial claims to these islands?
Go Ito: Well, the Japanese government refers back to 1895 and the Sino-Japanese War in which Japan defeated China. Since that time, the Japanese government has been thinking that these islands belong to their own territory.
Of course, the Chinese government says that if we want to examine the history of the Diaoyutai, they have documents going back to pre-modern times, some of which suggest that Chinese once lived there.
If the question is which nation has an older history, then obviously China has an older history and older documents. The Japanese government, however, prefers to refer to the more rigid history of international law, which developed in the 17th and 18th centuries.
But if we look at the question from this angle, it just gets more complicated and we won't be able to find a way out of the current crisis.
PanOrient News: Why not just refer the territorial dispute to the International Court of Justice? Both nations could present their documents and make their case before a neutral court, and then be done with it.
Go Ito: That's one way to resolve the issue, not only in this case, but also in reference to the Dokto dispute between Japan and South Korea.
In the case of the Dokto, however, the Japanese government has in fact suggested taking the case before the International Court of Justice, but the Korean side rejected that approach. I guess that if one party rejects using the International Court of Justice, it is difficult to reach a legal resolution.
In the case of the Senkaku-Daioyutai, my hunch is that the International Court of Justice would judge the case along the lines of modern international law and this, I think, would work out to the advantage of the Japanese government. However, the Japanese government has been hesitating to make use of that court.
PanOrient News: What about the assertions by officials such as Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku and Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara that territorial issues simply don't exist as regards the Senkaku Islands?
Go Ito: This is what the Japanese government has been saying, but all of the Japanese leaders are fully aware that China and Taiwan have been making claims to the Senkakus. The intention of the Japanese government is to keep the issue off the table and not allow it to become a political issue. In fact, this may be a logical stance to take at the beginning of negotiations.
PanOrient News: Just how dangerous is this issue? Is it a turning point like the Koizumi era?
Go Ito: The worst part of all this is that it is becoming an emotional issue between the people of Japan and the people of China. It is in danger of going beyond the simple territorial issue. In this sense, it is more dangerous than the Koizumi era.
In the Koizumi days, the issue was limited to the prime minister's own intentions about whether or not he would go to Yasukuni Shrine. The current issue is more emotional because it involves the question of who owns a particular piece of territory. As long as the Japanese continue to assert that there is no territorial issue and the Chinese make claims to these islands, then there is no way forward. Land is land, and there are only four very small islands. They can't just be divided up two apiece or something.
I believe that we need to step away from the territorial issue, calm down, and focus our attention on why this specific event occurred. In my view, we need to look at this as a much smaller matter - like a traffic accident. Who was responsible for the accident? Both nations must keep the issue in its proper perspective.
We all need to calm down and look for a way out of the dispute.
PanOrient News
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