Domestic Politics, International Bargaining and China’s Territorial Disputes
This book is a groundbreaking analysis of China’s territorial disputes, exploring the successes and failures of negotiations that have taken place between China and its neighbors, namely India, Japan, Russia, and countries in Southeast Asia. By using Robert Putnam’s two-level game framework, Chung relates the outcome of these disputes to the actions of domestic nationalist groups who have exploited these territorial issues to further their own objectives. By using firstclass empirical data and applying it to existing theoretical concepts, Domestic Politics, International Bargaining and China’s Territorial Disputes provides a detailed account of China’s land and maritime border disputes that is both clear and accessible. This book will be a very valuable resource for anyone interested in international relations, politics and the security of China and the Asia-Pacific. Chien-peng Chung is a Research Fellow at the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto.
Politics in Asia series Formerly edited by Michael Leifer London School of Economics ASEAN and the Security of South-East Asia Michael Leifer
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China’s Policy towards Territorial Disputes The Case of the South China Sea Islands Chi-kin Lo
Hong Kong China’s Challenge Michael Yahuda
India and Southeast Asia Indian Perceptions and Policies Mohammed Ayoob Gorbachev and Southeast Asia Leszek Buszynski Indonesian Politics under Suharto Order, Development and Pressure for Change Michael R. J. Vatikiotis The State and Ethnic Politics in Southeast Asia David Brown
Korea versus Korea A Case of Contested Legitimacy B. K. Gills Taiwan and Chinese Nationalism National Identity and Status in International Society Christopher Hughes Managing Political Change in Singapore The Elected Presidency Kevin Y. L. Tan and Lam Peng Er Islam in Malaysian Foreign Policy Shanti Nair
The Politics of Nation Building and
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Citizenship in Singapore Michael Hill and Lian Kwen Fee
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Politics in Indonesia Democracy, Islam and the Ideology of Tolerance Douglas E. Ramage
The Politics of NGOs in South-East Asia Participation and Protest in the Philippines Gerard Clarke
Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore Beng-Huat Chua The Challenge of Democracy in Nepal Louise Brown
Malaysian Politics Under Mahathir R. S. Milne and Diane K. Mauzy Indonesia and China The Politics of a Troubled Relationship Rizal Sukma
Japan’s Asia Policy Wolf Mendl
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Domestic Politics, International Bargaining and China’s Territorial Disputes Chien-peng Chung
First published 2004 by RoutledgeCurzon 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by RoutledgeCurzon 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. © 2004 Chien-peng Chung All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-203-60046-0 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-34513-4 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0–415–33366–0 (Print Edition)
For my wife, Hua
It is not worthwhile remembering that past which cannot become a present. Søren Kierkegaard, philosopher What we face today … is the reality that almost any past, worthwhile or not, can become a present if remembered and recounted with a vengeance. Charles Hill, political scientist
Contents
List of illustrations Acknowledgments 1 Introduction Importance of topic Territorial sovereignty disputes and two-level games Contribution to the field
2 The two-level game hypothesis Toward a theory of negotiation and ratification The importance of win-sets and their determinants
3 The Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute Introduction Sovereignty and resource claims over the Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands The first incident: petroleum discoveries and the Okinawa reversion (1970–1972) The second incident: the Sino-Japanese Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1978 The third incident: of torches and lighthouses (1990) The fourth incident: the Kita-Kojima lighthouse (1996) Subsequent incidents, findings and conclusions
4 The Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute Introduction The geography of Damansky/Zhenbao Island The historical background of the Damansky/Zhenbao Island dispute Prelude to the Sino-Soviet border conflict: 8 March 1963–1 March 1969 The Sino-Soviet border conflict: 2 March 1969–21 March 1969 “Chicken” diplomacy in the aftermath of the conflict: 29 March 1969–10 September 1969 Resumption of border negotiations: 11 September 1969–14 December 1969
xiv xv 1 1 6 13
16 16 17
26 26 28 31 36 42 43 53
61 61 62 62 64 66 68 69
xii Contents Border negotiations stalled: 1970–1986 The Sino-Soviet boundary dispute 1962–1986: a look back Border negotiations in the Sino-Soviet rapprochement: 28 July 1986–16 May 1991 Ratification and demarcation: persistence amidst adversity Findings and conclusions
5 The McMahon Line/Aksai Chin dispute
72 75 79 83 88
96
Introduction Sino-Indian relations before March 1959 The breakdown of boundary negotiations and the prelude to war: March 1959–November 1962 The Sino-Indian War and after Normalization and Sino-Indian dialogue: 1976–1987 Confidence building and Sino-Indian relations since 1988: rapprochement or rivalry? Findings and conclusions
96 96
114 121
6 Beyond two-level games? The role of subnational, national and transnational actors in the South China Sea islands dispute
127
101 106 110
Introduction A brief history of territorial claims Petroleum prospecting and the involvement of multinational oil companies Track II Chinese bureaucratic tangle in the South China Sea dispute Mischief Reef and after: strategic interaction between China and ASEAN and within ASEAN Scarborough Shoal: subnational actors at play Fishing in troubled waters Possible future developments
127 127 128 132 135 136 139 139 140
7 Testing the propositions of the two-level game hypothesis
145
Two-level game analysis and China’s territorial sovereignty disputes: strengths and limitations
145
8 Conclusion: the “moral” and “realist” bases of the Chinese approach to territorial sovereignty disputes
163
The changing perception and self-perception of China’s role and identity A quest for socialist internationalism A statist conception of an East Asian regional order “A problem left over by history”
164 165 167 169
Contents xiii Barbarians in the backyard? The ritual and symbolism of China’s negotiating behavior on territorial issues
170 171
Notes Bibliography Index
175 199 212
Illustrations
Figures 2.1 3.1 4.1 4.2 4.3 5.1 5.2 6.1
Effects of reducing win-set size for two-issue negotiations The East China Sea The Amur-Ussuri boundary between China and the USSR The Amur-Ussuri junction Sino-Soviet trade, 1950–1989 The eastern China-India frontier The western China-India frontier The South China Sea
19 30 63 74 90 98 99 129
Table 4.1
Sino-Soviet trade volume, 1950–1989
91
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Dr Stanley Rosen, Dr Steven I. Levine, and an anonymous reviewer for their useful comments in the task of writing this book.
1
Introduction
Importance of topic The study of the foreign policy of the People’s Republic of China, especially with regard to its ties with neighboring countries with which it shares a common land or maritime border, is important in many aspects. As we enter the twentyfirst century, we will encounter a China that is rapidly growing both economically and militarily, and which may once again assert its dominance against neighboring countries, as it has done in ages past. With the end of superpower dominance after the Cold War, we also face an Asia-Pacific region that is in strategic flux but is of increasing economic importance, not only to the United States, but also to Japan and the countries of the European Union. After the recovery of sovereignty over Hong Kong on 30 June 1997, China still has a few territorial claims against its neighbors. These territories were considered by the Chinese to have been detached from their country through a series of “unequal” treaties forced on it in the last century by Russia, Japan, and European imperialist powers, then also colonizing neighboring South and Southeast Asia. These so-called “unequal” treaties were immediately repudiated when the Chinese Communist Party established the People’s Republic of China on 1 October 1949, which had the effect of placing in limbo the legal status of many stretches of China’s international boundary. With the rise of Chinese nationalism and consequent irredentist claims, the stability and prosperity of countries in the Asia-Pacific region may be just as easily reassured or destabilized by China’s domestic stability and foreign policy behavior. Hence the unresolved land and maritime boundary disputes of China as the largest country in Asia have the potential to become a major cause of instability, not only for countries against which China has territorial claims, but also for their trading partners and military allies. So saying, I believe it is timely to focus on these disputes, by tracking their initiation, aggravation, continuation and possible settlement. While the end of the Cold War may have led to a new era of security cooperation and economic inter-dependence between the major powers of the world, territorial disputes among countries of the same region remain an important source of tension and adversarial relations, which can easily erupt into armed conflicts. By the end of 1995, more than sixty territorial disputes were going on
2
Introduction
between states.1 Scholars of conflict management have identified over 280 international crises between 1946 and 1988, and in close to 50 per cent of the cases, territorial issues were a direct cause of the crises.2 Almost all of these territorial crises were located outside Europe or North America, and most of them have yet to be resolved, although they may be currently dormant until challenges are activated or reactivated by claimant countries. Indeed, three of these outstanding territorial issues involve disputes over territorial sovereignty of several islands or island groups claimed by China and several of its neighbors, and a land border dispute between China and India. John Vasquez has noted that contiguous states are more likely to fight with each other over territory than non-contiguous states, which means that states which border more countries will be more dispute-prone than those with fewer borders.3 The People’s Republic of China has had land and ocean borders with anywhere from fifteen to twenty-one states during its existence, more than most. Unsurprisingly, control over its borders and a demonstrated capacity to ensure territorial integrity are crucial pillars for the internal legitimacy and external status of a sovereign country. As Alastair Iain Johnston discovered, China was more likely to resort to force when disputes involve territory and occur in periods where the perceived gap between ascribed and desired international status is large or growing.4 This observation points to the centrality of territorial integrity and international status in the dispute management behavior of modern Chinese foreign policy. The People’s Republic of China today has a land boundary of more than 20,000 kilometers and a coastline of about 18,000 kilometers that covers more than 3 million square kilometers of territorial waters rich in resources. A number of islands and tracts of land that China considers its frontier territories are still the subject of international disputes. The dispute over the islands in the Ussuri and Amur boundary rivers between China and the Soviet Union, now Russia, has been largely settled, with the exception of one island, over which neither side recognizes the other’s sovereignty rights, but Russia now has administrative control. However, the dispute over the Tiaoyutai/Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea among China, Taiwan and Japan has been recurring over the years with no solution in sight. The on-and-off negotiation process by China and India to fix a legal boundary between them along their mountainous common border has so far failed, but the many rounds of talks have led to the establishment of confidence-building measures and the near-dissipation of border tension in the last decade and a half. As to the Spratly and other islands in the South China Sea, which are contested in whole or in part by China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei, negotiations to ascertain sovereignty over them have yet to be started. To uncritical observers, these tiny specks of largely uninhabited and essentially useless isles or peaks are occasional but minor irritants to peace and goodwill between China and its neighbors. However, to some nationalistic propagandists in China and the neighboring countries with which it has these disputes, these same places are “sacred territory,” symbols of their countries’ national honor and territorial integrity, the claims over which must always be
Introduction
3
upheld and never alienated. Aside from being symbols of national prestige in this era of nation-state reification, the insular character of the claims has set them apart as iconographic identities in the minds and maps of citizens who use them to define the frontier, margin or boundary of their “imagined communities,” if one wishes to use the term. Like mountainous passes and plateaus along China’s land borders, many of the islands in question are too barren or too distant to have much economic value in themselves. However, of themselves they are of great value, for in these times of technological advancement coinciding with increasing resource scarcity, their possession may determine national maritime boundaries over waters in which fishing may take place and under which offshore oil deposits may be found and exploited. When the United Nations Third Convention of the Law of the Sea came into force in 1982, it added to the urgency of ascertaining sovereignty claims and drawing accurate boundaries around these islands by permitting countries to extend their national sovereignty over the territorial sea, exclusive economic zone, and continental shelf of an island. However, sovereignty claims over islands are subjected to the provision that “rocks that cannot sustain permanent human inhabitation or economic life shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf.”5 Unfortunately, what actually constitutes “permanent human inhabitation or economic life” can be subjected to different interpretations; hence the desire of countries with maritime claims to demonstrate sovereignty and assert control over as extensive a zone of islands and waters as is physically possible. In the last four decades, China has emerged as an important fishing and maritime nation, and has therefore taken an unsurprisingly strong interest in all matters relating to the law of the sea. Since 1958, when the government of the People’s Republic of China issued the “Declaration Concerning China’s Territorial Sea,” it has declared a twelve-mile territorial sea and affirmed China’s sovereignty over certain islands, including Taiwan.6 In 1992, China passed a maritime law establishing its 200-mile exclusive economic zones over the Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea and the South China Sea. However, the “eastern sea” has not always evoked such interest in the Chinese, for in the past, sea power or maritime exploration were irrelevant to the need to maintain or protect a vast land empire, from which its people overwhelmingly drew their economic sustenance. The main threat to the survival, stability and prosperity of the Chinese agrarian empire for the past millennia has always been from the mounted nomadic marauders of the north and northwest beyond the Great Wall. Records of Chinese trading vessels in the China Seas date back to the third and fourth centuries, and occasional maritime expeditions were made under official auspices, the most famous of which were those made during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) under Admiral Zheng He. Still the waters remained basically the haunt of pirates and bootleggers, especially Japanese ones, who always had a better appreciation of the economic potential and security offered by the sea. By the sixteenth century, the Europeans had begun their domination of the islands off China’s coast, to which the Chinese government offered no effective response. It was under such ironic, though not surprising, circumstances, that
4 Introduction after two thousand years of tenaciously guarding their northern and northwestern land frontiers, the Chinese were finally brought to their knees and forced to sign a series of humiliating treaties impeaching on their national independence, by cannons fired from the decks of British and other European vessels. The Westerners brought to China and the rest of East Asia the concept of state sovereignty and hard borders, which were alien to the East Asian concepts of authority and order that it superceded, and created many problems for China and other East Asian countries in the context of their intercourse. Traditionally, as far as the Chinese were concerned, “of everything under heaven, nothing does not belong to their sovereign.”7 As such, the notion that the Chinese sovereign would have to plant flags or enact commemorative plates to assert his right over a piece of land or island, which he would have had no reason to exclude from his rule of “all under heaven,” must have seemed downright ridiculous to him and his subjects. The European “sovereign” state system that evolved after the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) consists of states with formally equal rights struggling to survive and prosper in an anarchic world order. This contrasted greatly with the East Asian state system, which was arranged in the form of a hierarchy loosely ordered around China as the hegemon, at least until its universalistic pretensions were finally shattered by the Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895), with the defeat of China by Japan. The power and prestige of a strong and united China was such that neighboring countries, as its vassals, were obliged to acknowledge and even pay tribute to it, in a world order patterned after the inherently unequal relationship among members of different gender, generations and ages in an extended family. However, since its defeat by Japan and the Western powers, China has had to play international politics by the rules set by others, as does Japan, which included recognizing other states, and being recognized by them, as being equally “sovereign” entities in an anarchic world order typically dominated by one (British) or two (US and USSR) superpowers. In a world of state-nations, territories either belong on one side of a fixed boundary to a particular state entity, or else they belong on the other side of the fixed boundary to another “sovereign” state. Where the more familiar principle of overlordship or suzerainty can no longer be applied to resolve, or avoid altogether, issues of territorial claims by East Asian states, concepts like “sovereignty” and “rights” have to be retrofitted and extended several centuries back, and marginally relevant Western case studies quoted as analogies, to demonstrate every possible reference of sighting, exercise of jurisdiction and act of occupation, no matter how implausible, indirect or intermittent, as an automatic claim to the right of ownership over a disputed piece of territory and its uses. There were many differences between the revolutions and revolutionaries of 1911 and 1949, but the common thread that under-girded both was the inculcation, or attempt at inculcation, of a sense of territorial nationalism as a unifying force to organize and mobilize large numbers of the Chinese population against foreign “imperialists” and their domestic “agents.” The growth of state-based nationalism then became an instrument of central government control, but it
Introduction
5
also hardened the lines of existing territorial disputes, because the saliency of unresolved sovereignty disputes, active or dormant, even of border areas of inconsequential economic or security importance, came to be infused with the political legitimacy of leaders as defenders of the state as the common property of the masses. The more people there are who believe they have a moral or real stake in the territorial integrity of the state and who have some means of making their opinion felt, the more likely it will be that a multitude of territorial disputes will take on a significance they have not had before, and the more complex and uncertain will be the rules by which such disputes can be resolved. This is as true with China as with the countries with which it has border disputes. Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong was cognizant of the historical threat posed by imperialists who came from the sea, and advocated building up a strong navy.8 However, the Communist Party rulers of China came to power by fighting first a guerrilla, and then a frontal infantry “people’s war” on land. Given China’s long land boundaries and the direction of historical menace, the Chinese Communist leaders were naturally very concerned about the security of their land defenses, a concern borne out by China’s involvement in border clashes with India and the Soviet Union in the 1960s. Mao and his cohorts thus unsurprisingly regarded the navy as merely a coastal and river defense force, the chief tasks of which were to interdict the invaders’ supply line and provide ground support for ground operations, and priority was given to the development of the army and air force. Given the “continental” orientation of the Maoist defense posture, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) adhered to a coastal defense strategy from 1950 to 1974, although it had developed submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and nuclear-armed bombers since the mid-1960s against a possible Soviet military threat.9 The Chinese naval action against the Republic of (South) Vietnam navy in the Paracel Islands in January 1974 first saw the deployment of PLAN destroyers and fighter jets in battle in the South China Sea, more than 150 miles from Hainan, ushering in a sea-based coastal defense strategy. With the inauguration of Deng Xiaoping’s coastal development strategy in 1979 based on the “Special Economic Zones” and “Open Cities” of the eastern seaboard, a high level of economic activity is concentrated along the coast. This means that important cities, industrial bases, ports and military bases along the coastal areas would become more vulnerable to sudden attacks by enemies. Although the Chinese leadership had by 1985 ruled out the possibility of world war or an all-out war between China and a superpower, it was concerned that tensions over Taiwan and islands under dispute in the East and South China Seas could erupt into localized but bloody armed confrontations.10 To enable PLAN to blockade Taiwan or seize and hold the disputed islands should the need ever arise, China has been acquiring arms from countries of the former Soviet Union, and developing submarines, perfecting SLBMs, and training rapid deployment forces. By moving from a coastal defense strategy to an offshore defense strategy, navy planners have since the late 1980s been extending the defense patrol parameter to beyond 200 nautical miles from the coast, to the
6
Introduction
furthest reaches of the East and South China Seas.11 By doing so, the Chinese are telling the world that they are preparing for armed conflict at sea in order to safeguard their maritime territorial and economic interests, and if necessary or desirable, to resolve outstanding islands sovereignty disputes their own way. A detailed study of American operations during the Gulf War of 1991, commissioned by the Central Military Commission (CMC), convinced the Chinese leadership that victory in future wars hinges inevitably on rapid force projection and the use of high-technology (hi-tech) weaponry of long-range accuracy.12 This understanding was underscored by the quick success of the American-led campaigns against Serbia in 1999 and Iraq in 2003. Preparation for hi-tech war dictates a qualitative expansion of defense depth on land, air and sea, and the strategy of offshore or forward defense emphasizes long-range air power projection and rapid maneuver of naval forces in capturing and holding distant territories.13 To provide better cover for China’s ground and naval forces or act alone in operations well beyond Chinese territory, the Chinese have been acquiring military aircraft from a cash-strapped Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. China has taken delivery of as many as seventy-two of the SU-27 fighter aircraft ordered, and was reported to have secured a license to manufacture up to 300 MiG-31 interceptors.14 The Chinese air force was also keen to acquire surface-to-air missiles from the Russians, and aerial-refuelling technology from Britain, Iran and Israel.15 In PLA journal articles arguing for a blue-water capability, the Spratly dispute has been used to justify faster naval modernization. The great distance between the Chinese mainland and a possible site of conflict in the Spratlys has been pointed out by the Chinese navy to justify the acquisition of larger surface combatants, long-range aircraft with aerialrefuelling capability, more logistical supplies and forward naval and marine bases in the South China Sea.16 As the posture of the PLA shifts from that of geostrategic defense during the period of Sino-Soviet split to the defense of China’s right to explore and exploit marine resources in its adjoining seas, we expect the Chinese military, especially the navy, and even the air force, to have an ever greater say, not only in its role in organizing and conducting maritime operations, but also in the discussions or negotiations on resolving maritime territorial sovereignty disputes with China’s neighbors.
Territorial sovereignty disputes and two-level games According to a scholar who studied territorial disputes by looking at the domestic determinants of the realist approach, the critical theoretical task confronting scholars in the field of international politics is to develop generalizing propositions about state behaviour based on the premise that foreign policy leaders are attentive to the incentives and constraints generated by both their domestic and international environment … (for) powerful explanations of international conflict behaviour cannot be
Introduction
7
derived from theoretical models that fail to consider the simultaneous impact of both domestic and international-level variables.17 I cannot agree more. Examining the intertwining roles which domestic forces, international law, national leadership and systemic changes in the world political-economy play in the Sino-Soviet (Sino-Russian), Sino-Japanese, SinoIndian, and Sino-Southeast Asian territorial disputes over the Zhenbao/ Damansky island, Diaoyu/Senkaku islands, Himalayan borderlands, and South China Sea outcrops respectively, I am convinced that the politics of international conflicts, negotiations and settlements should best be conceived of as a “two-level game.” In this negotiation “game,” the negotiator sits between two tables: across him sits his negotiating counterpart from another state, and behind him sit domestic constituents who favor or disfavor the agreement being negotiated. The negotiating “game” is two-leveled because, as Robert Putnam puts it: At the national level, domestic groups pursue their interests by pressuring the government to adopt favourable policies, and politicians seek power by constructing coalitions among these groups. At the international level, national governments seek to maximize their own ability to satisfy domestic pressures, while minimizing the adverse consequences of foreign developments.18 Neither state-centric nor regime integration theories are certain foundations for theorizing about how domestic and international politics interact. As for the state as a unitary actor, in their work on conflict bargaining, Glenn Snyder and Paul Diesing found that, in fully half of the crises they studied, the top decisionmakers were not unified.19 Government negotiators thus have a special role in mediating conflicts, not because they are united on all issues, nor because they are insulated from domestic politics, but precisely because they are directly exposed to both domestic and international pressures. Since the state is not a unitary actor, any change in policies because of international agreements also has domestic distributive and electoral consequences. As such, domestic politics matter, and the structure of preferences of domestic actors and institutions must be taken into account as a key variable influencing policy-making in the diplomatic sphere. The high risk and cost of war may be sufficient to explain why governments do not want to engage in an open territorial dispute with their neighbors, especially if the gains are minor; however, it does not explain why states cannot conclude a peace agreement to forgo or divide a claim. For that, an understanding of domestic politics is necessary. As for regime integration, China’s participation in the construction of a normative multilateral framework of regional confidence building and cooperative security undertakings is still tentative and uncertain.20 In the last twenty years, China has become more integrated into the world market, and sees cooperation with the international community as conducive to providing a secure
8
Introduction
environment for economic growth to take place. The Chinese authorities have given the highest priority to economic development as the key to social stability and regime maintenance. As such, institutionalist premises on interdependence, mutual trust, and common norms among members of a regime may become increasingly relevant to the analysis of Chinese foreign policy. However, whereas for Western nations, interdependence entails the sacrifice of some measure of national independence, interdependence for the Chinese is a purely economic concept. The loss of autonomy as the result of joining an international organization or signing an international convention is acceptable only to the extent that it is reciprocal and voluntary for China. In accordance with the independent or “omni-directional” foreign policy announced in 1982, China intends to preserve all of its diplomatic autonomy in its nationalist and security postures, as it seeks to achieve peaceful solutions to disputes and strives to integrate China into a single world market. This is particularly the case with matters pertaining to sovereignty claims and boundary disputes. Many writers have described Chinese negotiating style and the tactics adopted by Chinese negotiators, and contrasted these with the style and tactics employed by foreign negotiators by attributing the difference to cultural propinquity.21 “Lessons” were derived on how foreigners can cope with Chinese patience, their flexible “principles,” the impenetrability of the Chinese bureaucracy, Chinese efforts to cultivate a bond of “friendship,” and their willingness to manipulate feelings of goodwill, guilt and obligation to achieve their negotiating goals. The efforts of these writers are most commendable, and have added much to our stock of knowledge on the negotiating behavior of Chinese officials and businessmen. However, a deeper and more circumstantial approach to negotiation than a “how to” guide on “meaningful communication” is needed, especially with regard to negotiations over territorial disputes and boundaries with the Chinese. It must encompass more than parties formally exchanging offers at the bargaining table to fashion a quid pro quo. It must allow for the interplay of different interests in shared purposes, and should be as intensely concerned with historical contingencies as with more immediate and tangible considerations. It must incorporate a shifting mix of cooperative and competitive elements. It must admit moves to change the “game” itself. It must be systematic and amenable to theoretical formulations. The bargaining framework of “twolevel games,” developed by political scientist Robert Putnam, is one approach that rises to the challenge. The theoretical basis of this study will rest on the careful testing and refinement of the propositions put forward by Robert Putnam in his article, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games,” first published in International Organization in 1988.22 By means of “two-level games” analysis, I shall explore the recurrent failure to start negotiations over the sovereignty of the disputed Tiaoyutai/Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea by China, Taiwan and Japan. Their abortive efforts will be contrasted with the success of China and Russia in settling their dispute over the sovereignty of Chenpao/Zhenbao/Damansky Island and 600 more islands lying
Introduction
9
on their boundary rivers, within four years, after coming to blows over the same islands twenty years before. Compared to the other two cases, a study of the talks on the territorial dispute between China and India over the Himalayan borderlands and the so-called McMahon Line boundary will reveal neither as a complete failure or a resounding success. It is somewhere in between; for although repeated negotiations to fix the boundary between both countries have so far failed, they have led to confidence-building measures that have resulted in the overall reduction of border tensions during the last decade. The roles that transnational and subnational actors can possibly play in raising tensions in the dispute over the South China Sea islands, or in preventing or minimizing them, will also be examined, although in more brevity than the other three cases, as sovereignty negotiations over the final disposition of these islands have yet to begin among the claimant states. These territorial sovereignty disputes are particularly pertinent now because they raise important issues of nationalist claims, access to (fisheries and petroleum) resources, and strategic sensitivities of these countries. By focusing on the interaction between a government and its domestic pressure groups, and relations between that government and other governments, within the context of the disputes, I will use Putnam’s two-level game framework to relate negotiation outcomes essentially to interactions between governments and their domestic nationalist groups, to reconcile various interest perceptions, the role of institutions, and the strategies of negotiators. My study anticipates the ease of bargaining to correspond directly to the diminution of memories of historical grievances, insularity of a particular regime type to popular and interest-group pressures, low quotient requirements for legislative votes on ratifying agreements, high economic dependency and expected gains from trade between two disputant countries, and leaders’ willingness to find a compromise solution for the dispute at hand. On the contrary, the heightening of memories of historical grievances, exposure of a particular regime type to popular and interest-group pressures, high quotient requirements for legislative votes on ratifying agreements, low economic dependency and expected gains from trade between two disputant countries, and leaders’ unwillingness to compromise, will render the bargaining of territorial sovereignty disputes particularly difficult. The relevance of the failure or success in settling the first three disputes lies in their implications for the countries’ approaches to other outstanding boundary disputes, the way in which the issues have been, or will be, exploited by politicized domestic groups to further their own objectives, and how attempts were made, or should be made, by governments to play down the incidents in the interest of overall foreign relations, economic ties and regional stability. I will then proceed by using the strengths and limitations of two-level games analysis, as derived through the study of the three boundary disputes, to explain the state and societal behavior of the claimants to the Spratly Islands, and why attempts at resolving this dispute never got past the stage of preliminary talks. “Pressure groups,” as the term is used here, refers not only to institutional or organized interest group actors such as bureaucratic agencies, trade or other
10
Introduction
lobby groups, legislative committees, and members or factions of a political party. Indeed, even though he held no government position at that time, Mao acted as a “one-man pressure group” in ordering the PLA to provoke military clashes with the Soviet Union over parts of the Amur-Ussuri boundary rivers in March 1969, to unite a Party and country fractured by the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, in a diversionary struggle against imperialism.23 The decision was taken by India’s prime minister Indira Gandhi to normalize relations with China, after official relations were broken off for fifteen years following the SinoIndian War of 1962, only after she had managed to circumvent the obduracy displayed by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, by relying on her small coterie of trusted advisers to engineer the breakthrough.24 Pressure groups would also include mass opinion expressed by academics, journalists and other articulate members of the public upon whom political leaders rely to gauge the mood of the country on particular issues, and in a democratic polity, their chances at the polls. A protest involving eighty members of various organizations was staged at the Japanese consulate in Hong Kong on 3 August 1999 over a proposal before the Japanese parliament to send a delegation to the Diaoyu/Tiao-yu-tai/Senkaku islands. The next day, the National Security Committee of Japan’s House of Representatives decided to shelve the plan, citing the need to avoid conflict with China and Taiwan, the other two claimants of the islands.25 Several Vietnamese writers, voicing opinions critical of their governments’ concessions to China in obtaining the land border and Gulf of Tonkin agreements with Beijing in 1999 and 2000 respectively, have been imprisoned or placed under house arrest.26 More recently, intelligence sources have reported that Chinese authorities were giving out cash to encourage fishermen based in harbors close to Vietnam to extend their operations in the Spratlys, to turn them into a force to strengthen China’s sovereignty claims over what it considers to be its territorial waters.27 Although governments could conceivably make use of pressure groups to advance their claim of sovereignty over disputed territories, more often than not, by wrapping themselves in a popular cause, these groups are not easy to control once incited, and the authorities are usually very wary of their actions. Putnam recognizes the strategic implications of direct communication between societal players within negotiating states, and in fact called for subsequent work to explore this aspect of his bargaining theory.28 Putnam’s challenge has been partially taken up by Jeffrey Knopf in his analysis of domestic-international interaction in the intermediate range nuclear forces (INF) negotiations, where he distinguishes between three types of cross-border relations – “transgovernmental,” “transnational,” and “cross-level.” Broadly speaking, while “transgovernmental” connections refer to the usual form of interaction and communication between national governments, the “transnational” pathway involves interactions between domestic actors on both sides outside the government, and “cross-level” processes involve communication between leaders on one side and domestic constituents on the other side.29 This study expects to find “transnational” and “cross-level” links to be much weaker, as compared to the
Introduction
11
links between a state and another state, or a society and its own state. Even so, if pressure groups within one society perceive that their own government is opposed to their troublesome demands, they may try to gain additional leverage against decision-makers in their own state by taking some action in the dispute at hand to pressure the government and people of the other state. The home pressure groups would like to provoke an uncompromising response by the government of the other state, backed up by protest actions organized by nationalist groups on the other side, which they hope, will force their own government to take an equally confrontational stance toward the other state in defense of the “national interest.” We will see if the strategy of the domestic nationalist groups involved in the Diaoyu/Tiao-yu-tai/Senkaku controversy, the Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky dispute, and the Sino-Indian border dispute, both within and outside the government, is similar in trying to pressure their own governments to back up their rhetoric and action with force. We will also discern whether the governments of the claimant states have been tacitly coordinating with one another by employing a counter-strategy of restating their sovereignty claim, while cooperating in negotiations over economic resources and other non-sovereignty issues, thus effectively deflecting or subverting the confrontational stance adopted by their own nationalist constituents. What the two sets of domestic and state strategies are, how well they succeed or fail, what the objective or subjective conditions are which allow these territorial controversies to recur time and again, and how well these disputes reveal the strengths and limitations of the “two-level game” hypothesis, together form the subject of my analysis. Overall, this study should enable us to illuminate the conditions existing between the society and the state, and between the state and the international system, which might impede or hasten state-to-state negotiations on border disputes. To do that, we must pay attention to similarities and differences between society and state, segments within the same society, and groups within the same state; similarities and differences as expressed in terms of historical memories, political preferences, economic priorities, strategic vulnerability, absolute and relative gains and losses to be accrued from various outcomes of boundary negotiations, the importance of institutions, and expectation of future relations. The role of institutions may not be discernible if and when public opinion toward a particular issue is uniformly positive or negative, but which may become very relevant in the event that societal responses are “non-uniform” and diplomats/negotiators have to create and manipulate “win-sets” or negotiation space in both their domestic and foreign constituencies to achieve results and have their agreements ratified. The changes in the international scene are also very pertinent to investigating and understanding how border disputes are raised, contested, negotiated and settled or not settled, and so are negotiating strategies, such as decisions to publicize talks or keep them secret, to adopt flexible or intransigent positions, or to establish synergistic inter-state linkages or resort to threats. There are ten separate series of observations on territorial negotiations (SinoRussian before and after 1986, Sino-Indian 1956–1963, 1981–1987, and after
12
Introduction
1987, and Sino-Japanese 1970–1972, 1978, 1990, 1996, and after 1996), eleven if including the Spratly case after 1988, the diplomatic success and failure of which I seek to explain, and slightly fewer propositions of the theory that I would like to falsify or verify. In other words, I have a typical small-n, manyvariables study. As such, it behooves me to employ the qualitative comparative case studies approach of in-depth description that reflects the awareness of contemporary and historical relations between China and its neighboring countries with which it had, and still has, territorial claims and boundary disputes. The cases were chosen because they were contested by China and uninhabited. The absence of a local population whose interests must be taken into account and their small area and lack of intrinsic value to outsiders makes them an excellent control for a “pure” study of boundary disputes and negotiations. We can now be sure that bargaining concerns are dictated by domestic forces and the security perception and economic interest of the state, and not out of any special consideration for the value of the territory under contest, or the interest of the people on it. Nested within this “most similar” design was a second layer of “most different” comparisons, which attempted to address the question: “What factors really made the difference between success and failure in efforts to complete this particular type of agreement?” Also, I have an abiding interest in the culture and politics of China, and have often wondered under what circumstances are the Chinese most likely to exercise restraint or use force in contesting territorial disputes. The fact that the first three contemporaneous disputes flared up in the 1960s and lingered on in various degrees into the early twenty-first century means that we can see more clearly if and how changes in the international climate, the set of state leaders, and societal preferences and priorities, determine the bargaining postures, both tacit and overt, adopted by negotiators to deal with the three issues, and how these bargaining postures affect their chances of success. We see that popular irredentist sentiments, the strategies of negotiators, institutional constraints, the different impact of costs and benefits on sectarian interests, and the possibility of domestic restructuring of state priorities, dominate the discussion of the Diaoyutai/Senkaku, Zhenbao/Damansky, and Aksai Chin/McMahon Line disputes. Besides national and subnational forces, we also witness the role of transnational actors such as foreign oil companies and semi-formal confidence-building workshops where government officials and academicians participate in their private capacities in the disputes involving the South China Sea islands. Hopefully, in future, more work will be done to test the appropriateness, strengths and limitations of using “two-level games” analysis to explain state and social behavior over other Chinese or non-Chinese territorial claims. Now that I have briefly described what this study is about, I will proceed to say what it is not. This is not a treatise on Chinese conflict management, strategic behavior, or coercive diplomacy, and certainly not an overview or a detailed examination of Chinese foreign policy. My study should be regarded as an elaborate exercise in hypothesis-testing, that is, to verify, falsify or modify the
Introduction
13
several hypotheses of “two-level games” as applied to boundary negotiations between China and its neighbors. It attempts to trace the domestic sources of Chinese behavior on boundary disputes and settlements by comparing this aspect of Chinese foreign policy-making across time and countries. Of course, Chinese attempts at crisis management and diplomatic maneuvering that resolve or otherwise deepen border conflicts will be described and analyzed in some detail, but Chinese crisis behavior or diplomacy in general is not the focus of my study.
Contribution to the field I am unaware of anyone who has attempted to bring together an analysis of twolevel games and the territorial disputes of China with neighboring countries, although scholarly literature dealing with each field separately is not hard to find. My major challenge in putting together this study, however, is not so much to furnish a meticulous but forthright account of why and how the border incidents took place, which I believe I have managed to do. Rather, it is to combine a holistic explanation for the rise, continuation and settlement, or prolongation, of China’s land and maritime border disputes, with a rigorous theoretical framework analyzing the pattern of international negotiations and domestic politics linking these disparate events, to provide analysis of the past, and guide actions for the future, for scholars and statesmen alike. Since two-level games as a framework for analyzing international bargaining has only been developed as recently as 1988, it is perhaps not surprising that studies to test its power and applicability have been almost entirely confined to economic bargaining over trade disputes, and security issues regarding arms control agreements. The two-level game framework has, to the best of my knowledge, only been applied in one case to analyze inter-state negotiations over boundary disputes and territorial claims, and their effect on domestic politics and vice-versa. The work of political scientist Janice Gross Stein on diplomatic negotiations and pre-negotiations in the initiation and resolution of the ArabIsraeli peace process of 1973 is this notable exception,30 and even then, her work is only indirectly related to boundary disputes. Thus the one minor contribution that I hope I have made to this rather new and still relatively scant scholarly literature is to affirm, modify or refine the several significant propositions of two-level game theory which have already been investigated by well known scholars, using China’s boundary disputes as case studies. As such, my study should be construed of as an attempt to add more findings to the collaborative work on two-level game analysis directed by Peter Evans, Harold Jacobson and Robert Putnam, and published as Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics. Carol Hamrin has stated that in order to understand Chinese international behavior at any given time, one must look at both the international situation to which China must respond and the attitude toward the outside world prevailing within the Chinese leadership.31 This call, which is as true today as it was then,
14
Introduction
was echoed recently by Chinese scholar Zhao Quansheng when he made reference to Putnam’s two-level games, but who then went on to develop his own “micromacro linkage approach” to analyzing Chinese foreign policy.32 By micro level, Zhao meant investigating the role of the individual or group decision-makers, and macro-level analysis referred to the influence of the domestic society and institutions as well as the international system and structures in the formulation of China’s foreign policy.33 Unfortunately, Zhao’s approach was really an in-depth description of power play and the workings of Chinese foreign policy from various levels of analysis rather than a coherent theory of foreign policy making, much less a framework for dispute negotiation or conflict resolution. My book will try to redress this inadequacy, by employing two-level games as a framework to analyze Chinese foreign policy making, particularly with respect to the making of border policies. Paul Kuth’s book on territorial disputes, entitled Standing Your Ground: Territorial Disputes and International Conflict, deserves mention as one of the most complete studies of boundary disputes throughout the world, although he does not deal with maritime disputes in detail. Employing a quantitative model of logic analysis, he arrived at the conclusion that domestic political factors can shape how leaders define what issues and problems are given priority in foreign policy, and leaders’ foreign policy response to the actions of other states is shaped by expectations regarding the domestic political support or opposition that a policy is expected to produce. His most important findings were that, while international political and security variables were the principle factors pushing state leaders toward a settlement, domestic politics typically explained why leaders were reluctant to take the initiative and seek a settlement. The decision to dispute territory could be linked to the political benefits of increased popular support and legitimacy when claims were directed at achieving national unification, the recovery of lost national territory, or gaining access to valuable economic resources. Just as important was the desire of leaders in many cases to avoid the political costs of failing to support a long-standing policy of disputing territory. My study will affirm Kuth’s main findings. Particularly relevant to this study was Chih-yu Shih’s analysis of the “moral” basis of Chinese foreign policy, which I will have occasion to refer to in the last chapter of the book. In his book, China’s Just World: The Morality of Chinese Foreign Policy, Shih argues that the internal order, external influence, and indeed, the legitimacy of a Chinese regime has historically been based on the moral character of the ruler and the moral pretension of “good government” being accepted by both subjects and foreigners alike. As such, Chinese leaders have for 2,000 years conceived of China’s role in world affairs as a model of morality in an ethical hierarchy, as they defined it to be, until this self-defined role as the paragon of civilization to its neighbors was demolished through internal disorders and foreign invasions in the nineteenth century. Indeed, one may argue that the People’s Republic of China for its first three decades rediscovered China’s moral responsibility to the world through proletarian internationalism and anti-imperialism, with anti-hegemony added in the
Introduction
15
1960s after it tried unsuccessfully to challenge the Soviet Union for leadership of the socialist camp. With the collapse of world socialism and the reorientation in the 1980s of Chinese foreign policy toward its home region of Asia, a more statist role conception of China as an independent regional power seemed to have arisen for the Chinese, buttressed by officially sanctioned patriotic emotions in the 1990s. While the need to be supremo of the world socialist movement led China all the way to the Sino-Soviet split and consequently the Zhenbao/Damansky Island dispute, the desire to be respected as a regional power may make China hyper-sensitive about any perceived challenges to its territorial integrity, such as Japan’s claim to the Diaoyutai/Senkaku Islands. Traditional Chinese unfamiliarity with, even disdain for, the darker people of South Asia may also explain why they were ignorant and insensitive toward Indian concerns about their territorial integrity with regard to the Sino-Indian borderlands. Given that a state’s interests and policies are affected not only by material capabilities such as economic might or military capabilities, but also by identities, fears and shared norms that are socially, culturally, and historically contingent to its people, the “moral” or psychological basis of China’s “realist” foreign policy is worthy of our attention. A common national identity and shared nationalist discourse between the people of China and Taiwan is the reason why, despite their difference over ideology, regime legitimacy, and even what constitutes China, the Taipei government has always supported the PRC stance in its territorial disputes, albeit in the name of the Chinese nation and not the Beijing government. Without a cultural understanding, the application of our two-level game analysis would be a vacuous and meaningless exercise.
2
The two-level game hypothesis
Toward a theory of negotiation and ratification My objective in this study is to explore the dynamics of China’s conflict, negotiations, and settlement attempts over disputed territories with its neighbors. At the same time, I hope to contribute to two-level games bargaining theory by testing its integrative approach against this particular territorial aspect of foreign policy making. For various reasons, states choose to bargain, make promises, or use threats, to exact concessions from other states on issues of territorial claims, economic disputes and security challenges. The appearance in 1988 of Robert Putnam’s seminal work on “two-level games,” focused on the effect diplomacy has on domestic politics and vice-versa. Since then, there have been many studies on why and how certain bargaining strategies and negotiating positions as employed by statesmen or diplomats led either to success in achieving the results they want, or at least some measure of it, or to the collapse of negotiations. Much less work seemed to have been done on comparing why some inter-state disputes in the territorial, economic or security arenas failed to get off the ground, or were quickly aborted at the stage of preliminary talks, while others were speedily disposed of to the satisfaction of both sides, even after long years of intermittent and fruitless negotiations. In other words, the bulk of the work done on illustrating or stretching Putnam’s “two-level game” hypothesis focus on the challenges faced by the statesmen/diplomats in negotiating an agreement with their (Level I) counterparts elsewhere, and submitting the agreement for ratification by their domestic (Level II) constituents, and the art of politicking, coalition-forming, and opinion-making involved in both levels of negotiations.1 Not at all to gainsay the importance of this continuing line of fruitful research, perhaps we should also pay attention to why outstanding inter-state disputes are left to simmer and linger in the popular consciousness and stand in the way of better relations between the disputant states without any of their governments taking action to force a confrontation, to withdraw from the contention, or to take steps in achieving a comprehensive solution, or even a piecemeal settlement, by starting negotiations. Could it be due to the absence of an intersecting “win-set” or common grounds for agreement, as a result of exactly overlapping areas of contested sovereignty, uncompromising popular
The two-level game hypothesis
17
feelings arising out of historical grievances, extremely prejudiced cultural bias or perceptions, or some other factors which lead states to adopt intransigent positions if and when they even contemplate negotiations? Could it be that mutual distrust and lingering hostility among the people of the disputant states is so deep that the uniformly intransigent position taken by pressure groups or social forces on the issue or issues at hand make it impossible for negotiators on one side to appeal to, or take advantage of, a possible breach or division of public opinion on the other side, which would allow for meaningful dialog even to begin, let alone concessions to be made? In answering the two foregoing questions, I hope to be able to bring the rationality of “two-level game” theory to rest on a cultural paradigm, by shedding light on how one type of analysis is enriched by the other in terms of the power to explain the international and domestic forces of interaction. It is not my purpose to get entangled in the often-animated academic discussion on the relative virtues of rational choice versus cultural analysis, except to say that I believe that rational goal-achieving behavior of an individual or a group can have no meaning except within the context of historical knowledge and cultural assumptions. Culture in this sense refers to the political, social, legal and value system of a particular people in a particular place at a particular time. This is because the cultural milieu in which an individual finds herself enters into her objective calculations, her assumptions of what is possible or not permissible in her society, the circumstances under which she makes her choices, and the formal and informal constraints facing her. For a two-level theory of international bargaining to be rooted in a theory of domestic politics, it is crucial for us to recognize the roles played by the perceptions, preferences and priorities of both leaders and masses of a country, as expressed in historical grievances, cultural prejudices and irredentist claims, if and when it chooses to start, end, continue, or forgo negotiations. It is for this reason, if nothing else, that we must appreciate the degree to which the goal-directed rationality of an individual or collective is conditioned by the historical background and cultural particularity of a country and its people.
The importance of win-sets and their determinants One way to think about two-level games is as a contest between constraining forces at each of the two levels. Pressure from one level, for example, by the action of a nationalist group asserting a territorial claim, will push statesmen to consider and exploit whatever ambiguous room for maneuver exists on the other level, for example, by expressing willingness to compromise, confront or concede the claim, up to the point where contrary constraints, such as the success, failure or reactivation of the nationalist action, becomes manifest. Although bargaining is a strategic and interactive process, shaped at the same time by the pursuit of international gains and the political dynamics of domestic ratification, any testable two-level theory of international negotiation must be rooted in a theory of domestic politics, that is, a theory about the power and preferences of major
18
The two-level game hypothesis
actors at Level II.2 In Putnam’s model, changes in the size of the win-sets change the domestic constraints and the feasibility of international cooperation through the diplomacy of bargaining. Changes in the size of the win-sets are the result of alterations in perception, preferences and priorities explainable in terms of rational learning by leaders and masses of a country responding to the national interest and the constraints and opportunities of the international system. For this reason, even if the principal driving force behind a diplomatic engagement is purely domestic, the fact that domestic pressure arises in response to objective economic, security or historical factors means that two-level games cannot be disaggregated into the separate dynamics of two different though related games while striving to analyze the interaction between them. Crucial to the understanding of two-level games is the concept of the socalled win-set, or plainly, “bargaining space” or “area of compromise,” that is, a political space in which negotiators on both sides can at least satisfy their minimal mandates, defined as elements making up the national interest by both Level I state agencies and Level II domestic constituencies. Specifically, the winset for a given Level II constituency is the set of all possible Level I agreements that would “win,” which technically means gaining the necessary majority among the constituents when simply voted up or down.3 While Level I refers to what Putnam calls the chief of government (COG), or what I prefer to call the chief government negotiator, the actors at Level II may represent bureaucratic agencies, interest groups, social classes, or even public opinion,4 groups of people who can veto, impede or expedite a ratification process. Ratification may entail a formal voting procedure at Level II, but Putnam uses the term to refer to any decision process at Level II that is required to endorse or implement a Level I agreement, whether formally or informally.5 With territorial or boundary disputes, Level II ratification should be construed to mean legislative consent for both the boundary agreement and the start of on-the-spot demarcation works in preparation for territorial transfer. Indeed, Putnam recognizes that “expectations of rejection at Level II may abort negotiations at Level I without any formal action at Level II.”6 This, as we shall see, turns out to be the case with talks aimed at resolving the recurring Tiaoyutai/Diaoyutai/Senkaku territorial dispute, the doomed border talks between China and India from 1959 to 1962, and between China and the Soviet Union in 1964 and from 1969 to 1978. The requirement that any Level I agreement must, in the end, be subject to ratification at Level II imposes a crucial theoretical link between both levels.7 The relative size of Level II win-sets thus assumes critical theoretical importance – by affecting the possibility and distribution of joint-gains from international bargaining. The two-level game framework theorizes that the larger the perceived win-set of a negotiator, the more flexible his negotiating position, and the more he can be pushed around by his counterpart sitting opposite at the negotiating table. On the other hand, the small win-set can be a negotiating advantage, for the negotiator can then credibly inform his counterpart that “I’d like to accept your proposal, but I could never get it accepted at home.” However, a win-set that is so small as to be effectively absent means that negotia-
The two-level game hypothesis
19
tions are almost certain to fail or be aborted at Level I at some point in time, since it is virtually impossible for any agreement to be ratified in this case. If negotiations should continue, they would certainly be regarded as nothing more than a ritual to keep a line of communications open on the part of both sides. Such was the case with the border negotiations between China and the Soviet Union from 1969 to 1978. The theoretical implications of win-set size are summarized diagrammatically in Figure 2.1 below, representing a simple two-issue bargaining game between negotiators X and Y. The two negotiators are faced with tradeoffs across different issues: in this case, how much to yield on issue 1 (territory) in order to get issue 2 (trade), and vice-versa. Like the two negotiators, various groups at Level II are likely to have different preferences on the several issues involved in a multi-issue negotiation. The implications of these tradeoffs for the respective win-sets can be analyzed in terms of “political indifference” curves, with the operating measure being the loss of political support or votes needed for ratification by the negotiators. This is analogous to conventional indifference-curve analysis, with Figure 2.1 providing an illustrative Edgeworth Box.
Figure 2.1 Effects of reducing win-set size for two-issue negotiations
20
The two-level game hypothesis
The most preferred outcome for Y is the upper right-hand corner Ym, this being the outcome that wins unanimous approval from both territorial nationalists and trade advocates. Likewise, Xm represents then maximum outcome for X. Each curve concave to point Ym represents the locus of all possible tradeoffs between the interests of the territorial nationalists and trade advocates, such that the political support or vote in favor of ratification at Y’s level II remains constant. The contour Y11–Y21 represents the minimal political support or vote necessary for ratification by Y for both issues 1 and 2 at the minimalist position 1, and the wedge-shaped area northeast of Y11–Y21 represents Y’s win-set. Similarly, X11–X21 represents the outcomes that can be minimally ratified by X, and the lens-shaped area between X11–X21 and Y11–Y21 represents the set of feasible agreement. At this stage, it is possible for both parties to ratify any agreement within this range. If the win-set of Y were contracted to, say, Y12–Y22 (perhaps because a larger majority is required for ratification), outcomes between Y11–Y21 and Y12–Y22 would no longer be feasible, and if the theory bears out, the range of feasible agreements would be truncated in Y’s favor. However, if Y, emboldened by this success, were to reduce its win-set still further to Y13–Y23 (perhaps because unanimity is required for ratification), the negotiators would suddenly find themselves to be deadlocked, for the win-sets no longer overlap at all. Given the importance of win-sets, we need to understand what circumstances affect win-set sizes. Putnam mentions three sets of factors: 1 2 3
Level II preferences and coalitions Level II institutions Level I negotiators’ strategies
The propositions or hypotheses underlying these three sets of factors as originally formulated or proposed by Putnam are not all amenable to testing or falsification. As such, I have reformulated, broken up, or recombined the various propositions of his two-level theory of bargaining in order that concrete observations can be derived which have a better chance of affirming, falsifying or more likely, modifying this relatively novel but useful theory in the literature of diplomatic bargaining. Factor 1: the size of win-sets depends on Level II societal preferences and informal coalitions The size of the win-set is directly proportionate to the cost of “no-agreement,” which is what the negotiator or groups within the state are willing to forgo to achieve an agreement. The cost of “no-agreement” reflects the relative attractiveness of maintaining the status quo in the face of a possible agreement to alter it. The higher the cost of “no-agreement,” the less attractive it is to maintain the status quo, hence the bigger the win-set for agreement; conversely, the lower the cost of “no-agreement,” the more attractive it is to maintain the status quo,
The two-level game hypothesis
21
hence the smaller the win-set for agreement.8 The cost of “no-agreement” can be something like the increased likelihood of military conflict, disruption in economic ties, or territorial losses. Putnam describes constituents’ preferences as “homogeneous” if the costs or benefits of an agreement bears evenly on them, and “heterogeneous” if an agreement bears unevenly on them, in that only some constituents and not others get “hit.”9 When the costs or benefits of a proposed agreement are relatively concentrated on certain segments of the population, that is, when constituents’ preferences are “heterogeneous,” it is reasonable to expect that the constituents whose interests are most affected will make a special effort to exert influence on the ratification process, if not on the negotiating process. Groups worried about the costs of an agreement often become politicized and organized, this reducing the effective win-set for negotiation or ratification or both. In the case of territorial boundary negotiations, there may be groups of people in the country who believe that, although a successful boundary agreement will reduce tensions and enhance relations between their country and the adversary, it will be achieved at their cost, for example, through the loss of grazing land or fishing grounds, and for the nationalistic-minded, the dispossession of the national patrimony and ruination of national dignity. It stands to reason that, because it is much easier for politicized interest groups to organize and propagate their agenda in a representative democracy where freedom of opinion and organization is protected, it would be much easier for activists in these countries to act as political pressure groups both within and outside the government and the ruling party to create, manipulate and galvanize public opinion conducive to realizing their particular agenda. An argument thus presents itself. Negotiators and politicians can be more easily persuaded or pressured to sign or ratify an agreement, or desist from doing so, by calculations of political costs and benefits in a democratic country where diverse preferences are given play and taken into account, than in a non-democratic one where such preferences are not given expression. The corollary of such an argument is that it should be harder to resolve a dispute with a democratic country than with a non-democratic country, because there are more domestic constituents in a democratic country whose interests have to be satisfied, or at least not harmed, before they will find an agreement politically acceptable. The size of the win-set also depends on the relative size of the “isolationist” forces, the less extreme “nationalist” forces who are at least suspicious of those who do not oppose international cooperation in general, and the “internationalist” groups who desire international linkages and multilateral arrangements.10 Support for international agreements is theorized to be greater in more open economies that are trade-dependent, where for most of whose citizens the cost of “non-agreement” is high, as compared with more self-sufficient countries with low trade to gross national product ratios, where the cost of “non-agreement” is low. With all else being equal, more trade-dependent economies will have larger win-sets and be more willing to enter into agreements with other countries, while self-sufficient states will have smaller win-sets and drive harder bargains in the international agreements they make. For the purpose of determining
22
The two-level game hypothesis
trade-dependency, the absolute size of a country’s territory, population or economy should not matter. The absolute level of bilateral trade between two countries, on the other hand, should be highly correlated with the possibility of a successful outcome in negotiating disputes between them. Factor 2: the size of win-sets depends on Level II political institutions Ratification procedures in a country’s legislature, primarily the number of votes required for ratification, clearly affects the size of the win-set. If a two-thirds vote is required for ratification, the win-set will most certainly be smaller than if only a simple majority is required. However, Putnam recognizes that not all ratification procedures are formalized. He has pointed out that the Japanese propensity to seek the broadest possible domestic consensus before acting constrains their win-sets.11 This seems to be even more the case when opposition parties and recalcitrant elements within the governing party have to be brought over to the government’s side when the matter before the Diet is the ratification of a treaty, when a unanimous legislative opinion is desired. The theory predicts that, the stronger a state is in terms of the autonomy of central decision-makers from domestic pressure, in the sense that they have better control of the number of votes of the Level II constituency required for ratification, the weaker the relative bargaining power of its Level I negotiators. This hypothesis is supported by Helen Milner’s findings that a divided government decreases the chances of cooperation while improving the outcome of any agreement that is ratified from the perspective of the legislature’s preferences.12 The logic of this argument leads to the testable proposition that a representative democracy with checks and balances in the government is offered more opportunity to advance its interests as a whole than would be possible for a “centralized undemocratic” state. This is when the chief negotiator of the democratic state can be much tougher in her negotiations by arguing that her fettered government and rowdy legislature will not accept all or even most of what is being asked of her by her negotiating counterpart. Even in the case of China and the Soviet Union, their diplomats could have claimed, and in reality did claim, that they were constrained by domestic political pressures. This claim may indeed be possible, but given the complicated and usually covert political bargaining that characterizes the politics of these regimes, it would be very difficult for outsiders or the opposite negotiator to verify the truth of such a negotiating position as advanced by diplomats from non-democracies. In short, this argument posits that diplomats representing a dictatorship are less able than representatives from a democracy to claim credibly that domestic pressures preclude them from making certain deals at the negotiating table. For our purpose, this argument also means that, theoretically speaking, it is much more difficult for Chinese and Soviet delegates representing one-party states in boundary talks than Japanese, Taiwanese, Indian and post-Soviet Russian negotiators to resist making concessions by pointing to legislative or popular disapproval.
The two-level game hypothesis
23
Factor 3: the size of the win-sets depends on the strategies of Level I negotiators Obviously, each Level I negotiator has an interest in helping the other get the final deal ratified. A chief negotiator whose political standing is high at home can more easily secure ratification of his foreign policy initiatives.13 Also, each negotiator has a strong interest in the popularity of his counterpart, since Party B’s popularity increases the size of his win-set, and thus both the odds of success and the relative bargaining power of Party A, who can now drive a harder bargain.14 Since popularity always gives a negotiator or politician, elected or otherwise, special advantage over his or her domestic opponents in manipulating win-sets, changing preferences, or assembling coalitions, it is little wonder that statesmen and politicians desire to hold summits or high-profile meetings with foreign statesmen and politicians whenever an agenda can be determined, in order to bathe in the floodlights of media attention. The relevance for our study of highlighting the visibility or influence of leaders, or the absence thereof, lies in their ability to promote “reverberation,” or apply foreign pressure or inducement to change the preferences of the country or countries they are negotiating with, to increase their own bargaining power and facilitate agreement by expanding the foreigners’ domestic win-sets. The purpose of promoting “reverberation” thus is to achieve what Putnam refers to as “synergy,” or the exploitation of joint gains or mutual benefits to create conditions favorable to cooperation. However, negotiators must also recognize that reverberation can also be negative, in the sense that foreign pressure may create a domestic backlash. This can be especially so if the source of that pressure is viewed by domestic audiences as an adversary rather than an ally,15 which is typically the case with boundary negotiations. The decision to reverberate through pressure, inducement, or not at all, lies in the preferences of leaders or negotiators for or against an agreement, and the cost-benefit calculations that they make to assess what impact the failure or success in concluding an agreement may have on their political standing back home. If threats must be made, how credible must they be, or if trade-off among different interests and side-payments to compensate the losers must be made, how enticing must they be, in order to induce the other disputant or disputants to come to the table? In other words, a smart and experienced negotiator must take all these factors into account, and figure out how much the disputant or disputants rate the absolute cost of an agreement, or a non-agreement, if he is to fulfill his undertaking successfully. My study thus predicts that, regarding territorial sovereignty disputes, the abatement of memories of historical grievances, insularity of a particular regime type to popular and interest group pressures, low quotient requirements for legislative votes on ratifying agreements, high economic dependency and expected gains from trade between two disputant countries, and leaders’ willingness to find a compromise solution for the dispute at hand, will push the “political indifference curves” away from Ym for negotiator Y, thus widening the win-set for possible agreement with negotiator X. Conversely, the intensification
24
The two-level game hypothesis
of memories of historical grievances, propensity of a particular regime type to yield to popular and interest-group pressures, high quotient requirements for legislative votes on ratifying agreements, low economic dependency and expected gains from trade between two disputant countries, and leaders’ unwillingness to find a compromise solution for the dispute at hand, will push the “political indifference curves” in the direction of Ym for negotiator Y, thus reducing the win-set for possible agreement with negotiator X. This is also the case for negotiator X. Extending the Putnam hypothesis, I pose further questions for investigation: do the different priorities attached to sovereignty claims, economic resources, or security interests by both state and society, and the varying degrees of willingness to make concessions on some but not on all issues, somehow serve to sabotage talks even before they begin, especially if public opinion is vocal and inflexible? Also, if the proposed talks are multi-issued because many aspects of a dispute, involving territorial sovereignty, economic resources and security matters, are strongly interlinked, then will de-linking the issues one by one for the purpose of negotiation increase the chances of resolving the conflict? De-linking simply means dividing up a problem to make it possible for countries to agree on issues on which they have common interests, and limiting disagreement to those issues on which they truly disagree.16 In other words, would negotiating first on the issue where the least disagreement prevails widen the win-set of at least one contentious issue between the disputants, and thereby hopefully achieve some concrete results that would accumulate goodwill among the elite and the masses on all sides that would facilitate further negotiations? Or are territorial disputes a “zero-sum” game in which bargaining is essentially distributive and one party can only gain at the expense of the other? To recapitulate briefly, the two-level game hypothesis predicts a stronger Level I bargaining position with a smaller Level II win-set and a weaker Level I bargaining position with a larger Level II win-set. In the former case, agreement is harder to achieve and be ratified, but negotiators can argue to their opposite numbers that, because their negotiating positions are tightly constrained by uncompromising domestic constituencies, it is impossible for them to yield anything more, thus achieving a better bargain for their state. In the latter case, agreement is easier to achieve and be ratified, but negotiators may reveal to their opposite numbers that, because their negotiating positions reflect the relatively flexible attitude taken by domestic constituencies, they could afford to forgo some negotiating advantages and be made to yield more. In a way then, having a small win-set corresponds to developing a “high-risk high-return” negotiation strategy, while having a large win-set corresponds to developing a “low-risk lowreturn” negotiation strategy. However, if the win-sets were to get progressively smaller, we can assume that the risks to be taken to achieve a “winner-takes-all” resolution become very high. With very politically charged issues such as those touching on territorial sovereignty, disputes can become deadlocked for decades if leaders facing domestic constraints lack the will to push for a negotiated resolution and yet cannot bring themselves to abandon outstanding claims or resolve
The two-level game hypothesis
25
the disagreement through force, for fear of incurring unacceptable costs or involving an external military power. If this was indeed the quandary with at least some of the cases to be studied, how then were negotiators finally persuaded or not persuaded to move away from this mode of non-withdrawal, non-confrontation, non-negotiation? How exactly does the size of the win-set, as determined by the unity or divisiveness of domestic public opinion, the different priorities of state or societal actors, and other psychological, cultural and environmental factors, explain the non-confrontation, non-negotiation and non-abandonment stance taken by contesting countries in a particular dispute? These factors will be raised and examined in my study.
3
The Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute
Introduction The recurring dispute over the Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku rocks conducted between Japan, (the People’s Republic of) China and Taiwan/Republic of China raises important issues of territorial sovereignty claims, access to maritime (fisheries and petroleum) resources, and the strategic sensitivities of these countries. The relevance of the dispute lies in its implications for the wider context of the countries’ approaches to other outstanding maritime and island disputes, and the way in which the issue has been, and will be, exploited by domestic political groups to further their own objectives, in spite of attempts by the governments to play down the incidents in the interest of overall foreign relations, economic ties and regional stability. The timing, method and intensity of the claim, when it was periodically reasserted, were dictated not only by the positions of the three countries on the sovereignty question, but more importantly, by domestic factors not fully within the control of the governments. These factors include the rise of nationalism or irredentism on China, the competition for legitimacy on Taiwan between separatist and pro-unification forces involving the powerful fishing lobby, and the influence of right-wing nationalist groups in Japanese politics. While the original dispute in 1970–1972 arose as a result of contending claims to oil deposits found under the sea-bed adjacent to the Senkaku rocks, it was magnified by Taiwanese student demonstrators in North America and Taiwan. These “Protect Tiaoyutai” activities started the trend of popular protests by Taiwanese, Hong Kongers and overseas Chinese over the controversy. The 1978 incident was caused by members of a Japanese right-wing nationalist group, the Seirenkai, erecting a lighthouse on the biggest of the rocks. They did this to promote efforts by rightist Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) negotiators to the China-Japan Peace Treaty in Beijing to pressure the Chinese government to concede sovereignty over the Senkakus in exchange for the inclusion of an “anti-hegemony” clause in the treaty against the Soviet Union. The 1990 incident was the result of another right-wing group – the Nihon Seinensha (Japanese Youth Federation) – planting border markers on one of the disputed rocks, which invited the attention of Taiwanese athletes and journalists, who then attempted to land on the rocks but
The Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute
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were driven away by the Japanese coastguard. The noisiest Chinese uproar was over an attempt in 1996 by the Seinensha to build and repair a lighthouse on another one of the rocks, in which the first fatality occurred that was directly related to the dispute. This chapter attempts to explore and evaluate the purpose and activities of nationalist forces in China, Taiwan and Japan in involving themselves in this particular dispute, and how their actions provoked similar activities by nationalist groups in the other countries to uphold their territorial sovereignty. This is where the framework of two-level games should prove illuminating in analyzing statesociety interaction within the matrix of state-to-state bargaining or negotiation. Were the rhetoric and activities of the Chinese irredentists, Taiwanese nationalists, and Japanese imperialist forces aimed at pressuring their respective governments into adopting domestic and foreign positions more amenable to their own objectives? Knowing that their mere appearance on the islands would certainly draw unfavorable responses and challenges from the governments and nationalist forces of the other disputant countries, were their strategies of provocation attempts to target their opponents for “negative reverberations” in order to force their own governments to uphold publicly their own demonstrations of national sovereignty? In the face of actions taken by domestic social forces to push for confrontation, the Janus-like position taken by all three governments to stake their claim, but at the same time seek out other governments to establish “synergistic linkages” to negotiate economic and non-sovereignty issues, deserves great attention. Of the unresolved claim to the Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku rocks, many questions can be asked. Why is it not possible for a claimant country to forego or divide the claim? If the answer is to be found in the politics of state-nationalism, with cultural biases, memories of past wars and perceived present injustices as its basis, then why did none of the disputant governments take unilateral military action to settle the dispute in their favor? Perhaps they regarded the risk of confrontation as so jeopardizing to overall military security, economic ties and regional stability that it was not worth the returns to their country to secure their claims to tiny bits of uninhabited rock? Where the priorities of both state governments and societal pressure groups are so far apart on whether to maintain normal neighborly relations or to assert unilateral sovereignty, can government negotiators hope to compromise, even if there are overlapping winsets or common grounds on areas of joint economic development, for fear of creating adverse political opinion at home? How far can “unofficial” or “semiofficial” talks continue before surfacing into “official” negotiations, which may then incur the ire of a nationalistic public? Could it be that the mutual distrust and lingering hostility among the people of the disputant states are so deep that the “homogeneous” position taken by pressure groups or social forces on the issue at hand makes it impossible for negotiators on one side to appeal to or take advantage of a possible breach or division of public opinion on the other side to begin dialog? Were the nationalist groups which spearheaded the claims, especially the Japanese ones, working in tandem with their own governments by
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The Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute
offering them the opportunity to follow up on the claims if the private forays were not successfully opposed, and the plausibility of denial of foreknowledge and involvement if they were? Is the latest Senkaku incident the harbinger of worsening relations between the three East Asian countries? Should the region become more unstable and neighboring countries more distrustful of one another, would armed confrontation be more likely, now that it is more difficult to justify putting a lid on the provocative actions taken by domestic nationalist groups in the name of preserving good inter-state relations? By exploring how the three governments negotiate with one another while having to interact with their domestic pressure groups, within the context of this sovereignty/maritime boundary dispute, I hope to analyze and evaluate if and how the different preferences, priorities, risk assessments, potentials for tradeoff, and institutional constraints of state and society affect both bargaining behavior among states and relations between a government and its societal components. I hope to use this study to provide some tentative answers to the questions I have raised, to bring out similar issues which the other claimant states and societies will face but which I cannot explore in depth here, and to examine and evaluate the strength and limitation of the two-level games type of analysis while doing so.
Sovereignty and resource claims over the Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands Any attempt to determine who has the right to construct lighthouses or ascend rocks must take into account the understanding and interpretation of the concept of legal title or sovereignty. The three internationally accepted types of argument advanced by countries to establish claim or title over a disputed piece of territory are historical references (discovery), continuous occupation, and effective authority (government).1 The Chinese claim, adhered to by both Beijing and Taipei, and indeed by the Chinese people of Hong Kong and all over the world, is largely based on historical discoveries documented in the journals of Ming- and Qing-dynasty sea-captains and envoys to the Ryukyu kingdom, and the customary use of the rocks as shelters by Taiwanese fishermen facing inclement weather.2 Japan does not recognize such historical citations as valid claims, preferring to argue that the Senkaku rocks were “terra nullius” until their subsequent discovery by a Japanese national, which resulted in a claim to exercise effective jurisdiction over the rocks at some time between the incorporation of the Ryukyu (Okinawa) kingdom into Japan in 1879 and the defeat of China by Japan in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895.3 From then on, Japanese control over the rocks has been unbroken except for the period when the Senkaku rocks, together with the Okinawa Islands, were under American occupation from 1945 to 1972.4 The Japanese believe their claim to be in accordance with the 1982 Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III) declaration on the 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), adopted by the Japanese Diet on 20 July 1996, which would include the rocks if
The Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute
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measured from the nearest baseline of the Sakishima island group of the Okinawa chain. Up till today, the authorities on both mainland China and Taiwan argue that the Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai rocks were actually part of Taiwan province, and were ceded to Japan along with Taiwan under the terms of the Shimonoseki Treaty which concluded the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895. Neither Chinese authority recognizes the Japanese control over the rocks, which the latter claimed were handed over to them with the reversion of Okinawa. Both argue that the American occupation of the rocks between 1945 and 1972 was in contravention of the Cairo Declaration of 1943 and the San Francisco Treaty of 1951, which was supposed to have divested Japan of all its overseas possessions and effected the return of Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai to Chinese rule after the Second World War. Underlying the whole sovereignty argument is, of course, the bitterness which the Chinese feel toward the Japanese as a result of past invasions and what they consider to be continued occupation of the Chinese islands of Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai, in contrast to the insistence by many Japanese, especially right-wing nationalists, that the Senkaku rocks were never alienated from Japan from the day they were discovered and claimed by a Japanese for Japan.5 As these rocks were never recorded as having supported or being capable of supporting, “permanent human inhabitation,” although they had at times served as a storm shelter for fishermen and a haunt for herb gatherers, the continuous occupation argument was rarely forwarded by any one of the contending parties. Since 1970, when a “sovereignty” claim was first raised by Taiwan following the discovery of petroleum deposits in the sea-bed around the rocks by a United Nations survey ship, the already convoluted arguments in support of the claims have taken on the “law of the sea” language of continental shelves and exclusive economic zones. In 1958, the Continental Shelf Convention (CSC) was completed under the auspices of the United Nation Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).6 Though not a signatory to the convention, the Beijing government of mainland China immediately announced its claim to exercise exclusive jurisdiction over the economic resources in and under the entire East China Sea. It asserted its claim on the basis of its sea-bed being a continental shelf or “natural prolongation of the Chinese continent” in accordance with the CSC. This East China Sea Continental Shelf thus extends from the Chinese coast as measured at low tide all the way for some 350–400 miles to the Okinawa Trough just east of the Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai rocks, where it plunges into the Pacific Ocean (see Figure 3.1). When the Taipei authorities on Taiwan first made the claim to sovereignty over the rocks as the legitimate government of all China, it also relied on the authority of the CSC to make its claim for exclusive economic rights over the East China Sea and seabed. The sovereignty question soon overshadowed economic arguments once again when the United States as the administrative power of both the Okinawa islands and the disputed rocks handed them to Japanese administration in 1972, but avoided the issue of where the sovereignty of these rocks lay.
Figure 3.1 The East China Sea
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To the Chinese, the claim of Japan to what it calls the Senkaku rocks is not in the least incidental – a successful Senkaku claim would strengthen, though not establish, Japan’s claim of a 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) halfway across the East China Sea from baselines on the shores of the Okinawa Islands as permitted under the UNCLOS III, which finalized the EEZ concept in 1982. The rocks themselves would most likely not qualify for an EEZ because they never showed signs of supporting “permanent human inhabitation.”7 To strengthen its claim over the rocks, which are just short of 100 miles northnortheast of the northern tip of the island of Taiwan, Taipei had already claimed a 200-mile EEZ over Taiwan and mainland Chinese coasts as early as 1979. China did the same with its 1992 Maritime Law, which created an uproar with the Japanese, and led Japan to respond by claiming its own 200-mile EEZ around the Japanese Isles in early 1996, implemented on 20 July 1996, which specifically included the Senkaku rocks. Could it be coincidental that the rightwing nationalist Nihon Seinensha (Japanese Youth Federation) erected a lighthouse on one of the smaller rocks just six days prior to the Diet passing the enabling legislation? The Chinese did not think so. However, sovereignty dispute notwithstanding, a series of occasional talks was held between officials and scientists from China and Japan from 1978 to 1982, to explore the possibility of jointly developing the hydrocarbon resources under the East China Sea shelf. The building of a lighthouse on the biggest of the eight Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku rocks by the Japanese, and the fear of jeopardizing future sovereignty claims through the “unfortunate” siting of oil-rigs, halted all future talks. Still, the call for joint development came forth time and again from Japan, China, and even Taiwan, which has expressed the most willingness to conduct semi-official talks with Japan on fisheries after every incident. Note that while both Beijing and Taipei seemed to have established their claims over the rocks by invoking the authority of both CSC and EEZ concurrently, Tokyo must rely on the EEZ, because the CSC argument would deprive Japan of the entire East China Sea shelf, including the Senkaku rocks, which lie just west of the Okinawa Trough which marks the end of the shelf. Irrespective of whether the CSC or EEZ argument wins out, whichever country that stakes an actual claim on the rocks will have to regulate fishing and passage within the twelve-mile territorial sea around the rocks. This action will be construed as extremely provocative to the other disputants concerned, making the occupation authority a good target for opposing nationalist forces to provoke retaliation and involve their own governments in confrontation to achieve their aims.
The first incident: petroleum discoveries and the Okinawa reversion (1970–1972) The Tiaoyutai/Senkaku controversy first reared its ugly head above the waters of the East China Sea in late 1968, when a geographical survey conducted by the Committee for Coordination of Joint Prospecting for Mineral Resources in Asian Offshore Areas (CCOP) under the auspices of
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The Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute
the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) in the East China Sea reported that “a high probability exists that the continental shelf between Taiwan and Japan may be one of the most prolific oil reservoirs in the world, with potential estimated at between 10 to 100 billion barrels.”8 Considering that Japan, Taiwan and Korea were all major importers of oil at that time, with Japan importing 95.5 percent of its domestic demand and Taiwan importing 98 percent of its annual consumption, it is not surprising that the immediate reaction of the countries to the report was to claim sovereignty over as much of the continental shelf as was minimally defensible.9 In May 1969, a Hong Kong news magazine reported that someone from Okinawa’s Yaeyama Islands had placed a boundary marker on the largest of the Tiaoyutai islands, claiming the islands for Okinawa.10 On 19 July 1969, Taiwan announced she would exercise all sovereign rights over the natural resources in the sea-bed and subsoil adjacent to her territorial sea.11 Taiwan and Gulf Oil subsequently entered into a concession contract in July 1970 to develop oil from a specific area which included the Tiaoyutai Islands. Shortly after, Japan contested this action by Taiwan on grounds that the islands belonged to the Ryukyus, and therefore, after their reversion from United States to Japanese control, the islands should belong to Japan.12 On 12 September 1970, Japan reasserted its title to what it referred to as the Senkaku islands, but perhaps to diffuse opposition to its sovereignty claim or give the impression that it was not about to monopolize the surrounding sea-bed resources, the Japanese government indicated that it was willing to negotiate the “question” of the adjacent continental shelf with the Nationalist Government of China (Taiwan).13 This invitation was later extended to the government of (South) Korea, but not mainland China, which at that time was still regarded by the other three governments as a Communist pariah and an illegitimate rebel Chinese regime. Officials from Japan, Taiwan and South Korea met in Tokyo on 21 December and formed the “China (Taiwan), Japan, (South) Korea Oceanic Development and Research United Committee.” At this meeting, which was chaired by former Japanese Premier Kishi Nobusuke, the Japanese suggested discussing “development cooperation” for the East China Sea area first and freezing the “sovereignty issue” for resolution at a later date. The meeting decided to provisionally establish a “United Oceanic Development Company” and reconvene itself in Tokyo at the end of May 1971 to finalize the running of the company and the investment shares of the participating parties; however, due to subsequent fierce public denunciation by the People’s Republic of China, this was put off indefinitely.14 On 23 December 1970, the Taipei Central Daily News reported that The three countries of China (Taiwan), Japan, and (South) Korea have already agreed to jointly develop the continental shelf, (to which end) each country will establish a committee to research, explore and plan; the bound-
The Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute
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aries of continental shelf discussed by the three countries include the vast area from the East China Sea to the Japan Sea, including Tiaoyutai.15 The plan apparently called for dividing the spoils of oil development through arrangements assuring the harmonization of the private corporations involved. Thus Japan’s Teikoku and Gulf Oil of the United States would then have had a Japanese concession overlapping the previous existing Gulf Oil concession from Taiwan, which would then have been renegotiated to restructure Gulf ’s obligations to Taipei.16 If Tokyo, Taipei and Seoul had counted on having a free hand in the development of the continental shelf without Beijing’s cooperation or interference, they were sorely mistaken. On 20 December an editorial entitled “Resolutely Do Not Tolerate Attempts by American and Japanese Revisionists To Rob Our Country’s Submarine Resources” suddenly made its appearance in Beijing’s authoritative People’s Daily. The editorial stressed that American and Japanese revisionists are now playing up this so-called “development cooperation” through the Japan-Chiang(Kai-shek)-Park (Chung Hee) “United Oceanic Development Company” to grab our country’s submarine resources. … Taiwan Province and the islets appertaining to it, which includes the Diaoyu (islands), constitute China’s sacred territory. The oceans surrounding these islands and the Chinese coast and the submarine resources containing therein all belongs to China, which would resolutely not allow others to lay their dirty fingers on them. Only the People’s Republic of China has the right to explore and develop the submarine resources of this region. It also pointed out that the director of Japan’s Self Defense Agency, Yasuhiro Nakasone, was sufficiently militaristic to include these islands within the defense perimeter of Japan’s “Fourth Military Expansion Plan.”17 Incidentally, as prime minister of Japan, the same Nakasone proposed in 1983 a 1,000-mile radius sphere of interest around the Japanese Isles, which would include the area of the disputed claim, and even Taiwan, and once again drew accusations from its Asiatic neighbors and China of an attempt to revive Japan’s militarism and imperialism. So far, whatever negotiations that had been going on were confined to the semi-official “Level I” negotiators, but “Level II” social forces within Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, and especially the Chinese communities in North America, were already starting to organize, opposed to what they perceived as unseemly willingness on the part of their own governments to compromise, perhaps even sacrifice, their country’s sovereignty for the benefits of economic development. Beginning 6 September 1970, reports surfaced in Hong Kong about Japanese Maritime Safety Agency patrol crafts obstructing Taiwanese fishing boats from coming too close to the vicinity of the disputed Tiaoyutai Islands.18 Already earlier on 2 September 1970, a journalist from Taiwan had hoisted the national
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The Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute
flag of the Republic of China on the largest island, but the flag was subsequently removed by the Okinawa police. This incident seemed to have served as the catalyst for a series of demonstrations and protest marches, with participants numbering in the hundreds against “resurgent Japanese militarism” and the need to defend Chinese sovereignty on Tiaoyutai. The first protest marches and demonstrations were held in January 1971 and organized by Taiwanese and Hong Kong students in the major American cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, New York and Washington DC.19 The largest protest in New York attracted some 1,500 marchers. In February, fifty-three separate “Committees for the Movement to Protect Chinese Sovereignty on Tiaoyutai” sent an open letter to the president in Taipei, signed by 1,300 people, requesting him to protest the Japanese action of tearing down the flag, send in the military, and cease participation in the three-nation cooperative development talks.20 The president had to send a personal emissary to investigate and explain the government’s case in engaging in joint development talks. Demonstrations on the issue erupted again all over North America in April, in response to the announcement by the United States that it intended to return the administrative mandate of the rocks to Japan in May the following year, together with its sovereignty over Okinawa. A march on Washington’s Constitution Avenue attracted a reported 3,000 people,21 with speakers calling on both Chinese governments to stand firm against “Japanese aggression on Chinese territory.”22 Not even stern warnings from Taiwan officials against “possible Chinese Communist infiltrators” could dampen the enthusiasm of the thousands of Taiwanese students and intellectuals in North America who wrote articles in university newspapers, printed pamphlets, and marched to “protect Tiaoyutai.”23 The North American Taiwanese and Hong Kong demonstrators explicitly portrayed the Tiaoyutai protests as a continuation of the spirit of the May Fourth 1919 student movement that protested the awarding of China’s Shandong province to Japan as a concession by delegates to the Versailles Conference.24 Smaller-scale but equally noisy protests also occurred in Hong Kong and Taiwan. A protest assembly in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park on 13 August 1971 attracted over 2,000 people from all walks of life,25 but the Taiwanese protests were mostly confined to students on campuses because of government regulations on demonstrations.26 Confronting an active Communist menace on the Chinese mainland, Taiwan’s authorities had good reason to fear that, if its people were to adopt too assertive a territorial stance, they would alienate its very important American and Japanese military, economic and ideological allies. Whatever form it took, the power of civic protest had been formidably registered. From now on, popular action and public opinion which may be instigated by groups and organizations which have their own objectives to exploit the Tiaoyutai/Senkaku issue will have to be reckoned with by the governments who have a stake in the resolution of the dispute. On 12 March 1971, according to the Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun, the Japanese government had decided not to discuss any further the plan to develop jointly the oceanic resources of the Tiaoyutai vicinity with (South) Korea and
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Taiwan. On 18 March 1971, in a letter of reply to inquiries regarding the Tiaoyutai affair forwarded by Taiwanese students in the United States, the secretary to the Taipei president made reference to Taipei’s stance that the “China (Taiwan), Japan, (South) Korea Oceanic Development and Research United Committee” was a non-official organization, “where matters discussed have nothing to do with the sovereignty of the Tiaoyutai islands.”27 In other words, official pronouncements from Taipei wanted to stress its right to explore and develop the continental shelf surrounding the Tiaoyutai Islands, but were conspicuously silent or evasive on the issue of the sovereignty of the islands itself. Thus, while China all but ignored the rocks, being preoccupied with an overwhelming Soviet military threat just across their common border, Taiwan was faced with the prospect of US-People’s Republic of China normalization of relations and the loss of its seat in the UN, and did its utmost to play down the controversy, which allowed the Japanese claim to the rocks to go unchallenged on the ground. However, the sound and fury of the “Movement to Protect Tiaoyutai” in North America, Hong Kong and Taiwan, China’s vehement opposition and Japan’s withdrawal from the scheme spelled the virtual end of any viability for the idea of joint development of sea-bed resources by Japan, Taiwan and Korea, at least if it did not involve China. Korea subsequently dropped out of all future talks, but Japan and China are still periodically involved in discussions on sea-bed hydrocarbon development, and Japan still holds regular talks with China and Taiwan on fishing rights. However, because of the unresolved sovereignty issue involving the Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands, such talks are no longer publicly announced before they take place, and no communiques are ever issued afterwards, for fear of galvanizing the nationalist forces of the countries involved. Nationalist sentiment in Japan over the disputed islands seemed to take a little more time to find its voice, but it did not remain silent for long. Having witnessed the abrupt cancelation of sea-bed petroleum mining projects which might have allowed a Japan almost completely dependent on imported oil to be self-sufficient in the mineral, and believing the Chinese side to be unfairly contesting what was formerly Japan’s territory now legitimately returned to her, editorials in major newspapers backed the Japanese government’s position on Senkaku to the hilt. Between March and May 1972, demonstrations by gangs of youths in sound-trucks took place in Tokyo before the Sino-Japanese Memorandum Office and its Japanese counterpart, the Japan-China Memorandum Trade Agency; all political parties were brought into line to support the government’s position with official statements; and television programs on the government-owned Japanese Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) featured panel discussions with right-wing writers and activists calling on the government to defend the independence, security and national prestige of Japan, by force if necessary.28 Such agitated behavior died down after the Americans handed over administrative control of the Senkaku islands to the Japanese together with Okinawa on 15 May 1972, but the nationalist right wing of Japanese politics had apparently found a worthy cause to rally around.
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The Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute
The second incident: the Sino-Japanese Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1978 If it was not entirely clear in the first incident how significant was the interaction between Japanese right-wing groups and their state government, subsequent incidents would demonstrate that it was significant to the extent that they supported and reinforced each other’s agenda, at least when it came to the question of territorial sovereignty. Since Japan and the PRC established official relations with each other in September 1972, both countries had tried to start negotiations on the signing of a formal bilateral treaty. Unofficial talks over such a Sino-Japanese Peace and Friendship Treaty (PFT), first mooted in 1974, were halted when Japan could not agree to China’s insistence on the inclusion of an “anti-hegemony” clause tacitly aimed at the Soviet Union. Official talks on the treaty had no sooner resumed in February 1978 before the issue of disputed sovereignty over the Senkaku islands arose. Apparently, some pro-Taiwan and anti-treaty LDP “back-benchers” in the Diet did not want negotiations over the treaty to proceed before the issue of sovereignty over the islands was settled to the satisfaction of Japan. They seemed to believe that the PRC so badly needed Japan’s support for the “anti-hegemony” clause against the Soviets, since the Soviet Union was then negotiating a similar treaty with China’s enemy Vietnam, that China would be prepared to compromise over the sovereignty of the disputed islands. Japanese agriculture and forestry minister Nakagawa Ichiro, a leader of the right-wing Seirankai (Blue Storm Group) within the LDP was quoted as saying that only by settling the sovereignty issue regarding Senkaku could the PFT proceed.29 On 7 April, 100 Dietmen opposed to the treaty met with the Japanese foreign minister and requested that he bring up the matter on meeting with leaders of the PRC.30 An Asahi Shimbun opinion poll of 339 Dietmen on the proposed treaty showed that only forty-nine favored the inclusion of the “anti-hegemony” clause in the treaty.31 The anti-treaty forces figured that they could either scuttle the talks by adopting an intransigent posture over Senkaku, or at least exact the islands as a price from the Chinese for agreeing to the “anti-hegemony” clause. Both ways would produce their gains. Until then, both Chinese and Japanese negotiating parties had managed to keep this contending issue out of the treaty negotiations, but now that it had been forced out into the open, Chinese leader and foremost PFT proponent Deng Xiaoping could not afford to be attacked by his political rivals for being “soft” on Japanese encroachment on Chinese territorial sovereignty. Still, it was a surprise to most people when, on 12 April 1978, more than a hundred fishing trawlers bedecked with PRC national flags reached the waters around the Diaoyu Islands, and more than thirty of them entered into its 12-mile territorial sea. According to Japanese official sources, the fishing trawlers were equipped with machine-guns, and draped with white characters on black cloth proclaiming the Diaoyudao to be Chinese territory.32 Speaking to members of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the lower house of the Diet, the Japanese foreign minister Sunao Sonoda said that the intrusion by Chinese fishing
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trawlers into Senkaku waters was not accidental, but premeditated and planned.33 However, not wishing to exacerbate the already tense situation any further, Sonoda appealed for calm, and the same committee was told by Takashi Ueno, councilor of the Japanese Self Defense Agency, that his agency was not considering calling out military forces to deal with the fishing operation.34 In his address to a group of visiting Japanese parliamentarians, Politburo member and Vice-premier Geng Biao said he believed that the entry by PRC fishing trawlers into the sea around the Diaoyu Islands was indeed accidental and unplanned by any official agency, but he would order an investigation into the affair. Apparently, China did not want to get involved in a diplomatic row with Japan over the islands because China had wanted a quick end to the treaty negotiations.35 Even so, the fact that so many fishing craft could have “accidentally” set sail unobstructed from the major Chinese ports of Foochow, Shanghai and Tsingtao was telling.36 As Tokyo’s JIJI news agency noted, in addition to fishermen, Chinese servicemen could be identified aboard the vessels, and were even leading the flotilla’s operations,37 thus confirming that the incident was “accidental” only in name. It was in truth a visible and forceful demonstration by China that it would not let the Japanese claim over the disputed islands go unchallenged, or allow their territorial integrity to be compromised by the need for a peace treaty. Unsurprisingly, the Chinese side brushed aside all Japanese entreaties for talks on the disputed islands issue.38 The fishing expedition ended within two weeks, but Japanese nationalist sensibilities had been touched off, and the affair would not be so easily settled. On 13 April 1978, a group of right-wing LDP Dietmen calling themselves the “Asian Problems Study Group” submitted a resolution to their prime minister and party executive committee charging the Chinese with a “glaring infringement of Japanese sovereignty and of hegemony-seeking,” and urged the government and the party to “take resolute action to preserve Japan’s territorial integrity in the Senkaku Islands.”39 On 18 April 1978, the Okinawa prefectural assembly adopted a resolution calling on the Tokyo government to “take vigorous steps to defend national sovereignty.”40 Highlighting the role which economic resources play in the Senkaku Islands dispute was a similar appeal to the government made by participants in a mass rally of Okinawa fishermen in Naha, who demanded urgent and effective measures to safeguard their safety in, and access to, the fishing grounds within the islands’ territorial waters.41 Later, LDP Dietmen from Okinawa and the Okinawa Prefect Federation of Fishery Associations adopted a resolution calling on the central government to prohibit foreign fishing in Senkaku waters by maintaining strict surveillance.42 In a rare demonstration of national solidarity on matters relating to China, all major Japanese political groupings again signaled that they would not give ground on territorial issues by supporting the government in accusing the Chinese of having directed the whole affair.43 Prominent LDP figures like Nakasone, chairman of the LDP Council on General Issues and Yasui, chairman of the Diet’s House of Councilors, called on the government to oppose any territorial claims on Beijing’s part;44 while justice minister Setoyama, education minister
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Sunada, and agriculture and forestry minister Natagawa asked the government not to hurry with the resumption of talks with Beijing.45 Chinese analysts on the whole regarded such actions as attempts by Japan to make use of China’s strategic vulnerability toward the USSR by pressuring it to cede the disputed islands as the price for including the “anti-hegemony” clause in the PFT.46 Speaking to a group of reporters in May, Deng himself reiterated the claim of PRC sovereignty over the disputed isles; however, he also said that incidents like those involving the fishing trawlers would not occur again. The 29 April 1978 editorial of Hong Kong’s Ming Pao Daily characterized as “taiji (shadow-boxing) diplomacy” China’s move over the fishing trawler affair, which it said was unofficially executed according to plan, while officially it was accidental and wholly unpremeditated. It turns out that the Chinese were not the only people capable of this kind of “taiji diplomacy.” In a report to the Diet shortly after, a Japanese councilor minister said that, since Deng had mentioned that the PRC had no intention of taking up the issue of sovereignty, then inter alia, the prevailing situation of Japan continuing to exercise effective control over the Senkaku Islands would continue, and “to raise the territorial issue again would reflect a lack of far-sightedness.”47 Needless to say, the claim of exercising effective control is of course the standard Japanese argument for demonstration of sovereignty in the event of a territorial claim. After the negotiations over the PFT were completed in August 1978, Nakasone said that according to Japanese interpretation, China had “in reality” recognized Japanese control and sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands, because Deng had already guaranteed to the Japanese that incidents like the appearances of armed PRC fishing trawlers in Senkaku waters would never occur again.48 What Deng actually said was: It is true that both sides maintain different views on this question. … It does not matter if this question is shelved for some time. … Our generation is not wise enough to find common language on this question. The next generation will certainly be wiser. They will certainly find a solution acceptable to all.49 Since then, “shelving claims for economic development” has become China’s diplomatic leitmotif in its treatment of all unsettled boundary and territorial questions, from the Sino-Soviet border along the Amur and Ussuri rivers, to the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, although its effectiveness has yet been tested in practice. When the issue of sovereignty over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands first surfaced during negotiations over the PFT, Deng and his supporters were caught on the horns of a dilemma: Confront Japan over it and risk losing the Sino-Japanese Peace and Friendship Treaty, which would cement a de facto security alliance between China and Japan against a common threat from the Soviet Union; or not challenge Japan over it and risk alienating domestic power-brokers who were against Deng’s program of opening China to foreign trade and investment, and
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would criticize his “open-door” policy as coming at the expense of territorial concessions. However, although Deng might never have heard of Robert Putnam or his study of diplomacy involving “two-level games,” the Chinese leader was already a master diplomat of first-class distinction. Deng knew that he could not be perceived as being “soft” on territorial encroachments by the Japanese if he were to have any chance of replacing the autarkic, heavy-industrialization program of his political rivals with his own vision of a Chinese economy based on agricultural productivity, light consumer industries, and foreign trade and investment. However, if he were to make a move against Japanese claims on Diaoyudao, he would have to make sure that he could manipulate Japanese public and official opinion so as to realize the speediest conclusion of the PFT. Fortunately, Deng understood the basis of “synergy,” which is to exploit joint gains or mutual benefits in international bargaining, through the creation of coalitions favoring cooperation in both China and Japan. In this case, joint gains or mutual benefits in bargaining over the PFT involved an increase in trade and investment between China and Japan, an expansion of the Chinese market to Japanese economic penetration, an external validation of Deng’s “open-door” policy by a powerful neighboring Asian country, and the creation of an informal common front against possible military moves from the Soviet Union. One crucial way to create “synergy” is to target “swing voters,” people who hold the keys to gaining domestic ratification of an international agreement, by providing them with “selective” incentives for cooperation. As the Senkaku crisis was developing, representatives of the pro-Chinese pro-PFT lobby were “invited” to Beijing, and eminent Beijing leaders were “explaining” to them “the accidental nature” of the Chinese fishing vessels entering Senkaku waters and the need to disregard that incident for the sake of long-term Sino-Japanese ties. The deputy speaker of the Japanese Diet was met by Liao Chengzhi, chairman of the Sino-Japanese Friendship Society, and a delegation of the Japanese Social Democratic League had talks with Chinese Vice-premier Geng Biao. Liao also met a Japanese Socialist Party delegation led by its chairman, to whom he mentioned Beijing’s support for the return of the “Northern Territories” to Japan from the Soviet Union, and Vice-premier Deng Xiaoping himself met with a Komeito delegation, to whom he made clear that there could be no question of not including the “anti-hegemony” clause in the proposed treaty.50 China also brought its influence to bear on the Fukuda government by taking its case to Japan. In an interview with Kenji Kono, speaker of the Diet’s House of Councilors, Chinese ambassador to Japan Fu Hao criticized the “passiveness” of Premier Fukuda for affecting the progress of the PFT, and “expressed doubts” as to whether he had the desire to sign the treaty.51 Fu knew that the conservative forces in Japanese politics were deeply divided over the China question. This statement was calculated to embarrass Fukuda, for he had taken the stance of the pro-Taiwan “Asian Problems Study Group” against the pro-PRC position of the “Asian-African Problems Study Group” which supported his two predecessors as prime ministers, Takeo Miki and before him Kakuei Tanaka.52 The Chinese also reached out to Japanese political and business circles, by
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approaching people like Shin Kanemaru, LDP bigwig and director-general of the Japanese National Defense Agency, who was known as an active champion of the build-up of the Japanese Armed Forces, and businessmen linked to Chinese trading companies through lucrative contracts.53 Such businessmen included Yoshihiro Inayama, president of the Japan-China Association on Economy and Trade and of the Nippon Steel Corporation, who had announced that his company would undertake shortly the construction of a steel-mill in Shanghai.54 By working so hard on the “anti-hegemony” clause, the Chinese leadership had probably impressed their American counterparts regarding the seriousness with which the United States should view the success or failure of the proposed Sino-Japanese Treaty and the ability of America’s two East Asian allies to contain Soviet “expansionism” in the region. If the Chinese were hoping to get the Americans to exert some gaiatsu, external pressure, on the Japanese over the treaty, they were not to be disappointed. During Fukuda’s May 1978 visit to the United States, President Jimmy Carter “wished a successful conclusion” to the PFT and said that America “does not oppose the inclusion of the antihegemony article in the text of the treaty.”55 The president’s national security advisor Zbignew Brzezinski also spoke in favor of a speedy conclusion to the PFT in his meetings with Fukuda.56 That was all the political space that Fukuda needed to justify his conversion to a pro-treaty stance and calm the fear of Japanese socialists that the PFT might be provocative to the Soviets. The Senkaku interlude was finally over when Japanese prime minister Takeo Fukuda announced on 27 May 1978 that his government had decided to resume talks with China over the PFT. Deng’s skillful use of economic incentives and exploitation of the Soviet bogeyman apparently succeeded in rearranging Japanese coalition politics so that the anti-treaty forces were finally isolated and defeated. By asserting his country’s claims to the Diaoyu Islands so visibly and forcefully, Deng also succeeded in brushing up his own nationalist credentials and that of the People’s Republic of China at the expense of the Republic of China on Taiwan, which was facing increasing diplomatic isolation and was thus in no position to force a showdown with Tokyo. Incidentally, it was the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) that did not “reverberate” to Deng’s threat or enticements, criticizing Beijing throughout the incident in the sharpest tone. Perhaps to demonstrate his party’s independence from Beijing, Kenji Miyamoto, chairman of the JCP Central Committee, said that “Japan should take a resolute stance aimed at preventing [Beijing’s] actions and proceed in its policy from the premise that the Senkaku Islands are Japanese territory.”57 The opposition parties should also take a firm stand, Miyamoto reasoned, “otherwise, they will give the impression they are taking a spineless attitude toward seeking a treaty at all costs,”58 a charge his party would not like to have levied on it. Equally uncompromising was one Ts. Hoshina, spokesman and Central Committee member of the JCP, who accused Beijing of resorting to force to impose its territorial claims on Japan, and of having planned the Senkaku fishing expedition beforehand.59
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Deng was apparently desperate to sidestep the territorial dispute to avoid a delay in concluding the PFT, which would achieve the higher policy objectives of facilitating closer Sino-Japanese relations and creating a united front against Soviet “hegemony,” not to mention a consolidation of his own political position at home against his rivals. If Deng had indeed secured his treaty only by not challenging the de facto Japanese control over the islands, although the purpose of the fishing trawlers was to demonstrate that the Chinese people would not yield on sovereignty, then such an action has only postponed the day of reckoning between Japan and the PRC over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, and between both governments and their constituents. If the Chinese believed that the Japanese were as prepared as they were to shelve the territorial question indefinitely in favor of starting joint development of oil on the continental shelf, then the subsequent position of the Japanese foreign ministry on the need to hold talks on the delimitation of a boundary on the continental shelf before proceeding with each country’s own development on its own side of the boundary must have seemed very disappointing.60 It was indeed the sovereignty impasse that caused the collapse of a series of intermittent and ultimately inconclusive talks held by both sides between 1978 and 1982 over sea-bed exploration for oil in the vicinity of the islands. As an affront to the Chinese and to demonstrate Japanese sovereignty over the Senkaku, members of the right-wing Japanese nationalist political organization, the Seirankai, including the prominent writer Shintaro Ishihara, promptly erected a simple lighthouse on Uotsuri, the largest of the disputed isles, within days of the Nakasone speech. The first beacon was nothing more than a simple electric lightbulb hanging from an iron pipe.61 Subsequently, it seems, the Seirankai had planned to erect a second one, and enlisted the help and financial contribution of a second, bigger and wealthier right-wing Japanese nationalist organization, the Nihon Seinensha, or Japanese Youth Federation. However, although their application to the Ministry of Transport ministry to have their proposed lighthouse registered in the navigational chart was approved, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs apparently did not want to create another international incident and vetoed the proposal, and the lighthouse was not authorized for construction. The Seinensha nonetheless went ahead with its construction apparently without government opposition. While the crisis was taking place in April, chief cabinet secretary Shintaro Abe suggested that the Japanese government construct a heliport and a refuge port for fishermen facing typhoons.62 However, no immediate action was taken because prime minister Fukuda refused to act on the suggestion. Interestingly enough, the Japanese government then proceeded to build a small helicopter pad on the main island of Uotsuri in August 1979, and in the aftermath of the Tiananmen crisis in China, when no one was paying attention, it officially endorsed the beacon erected originally by the Seirankai by including it in the official Japanese navigational charts published in September 1989.63 Storm clouds were once again gathering over the Senkakus, after a dozen years of relative calm.
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The third incident: of torches and lighthouses (1990) The 1990 incident over the Senkakus was largely a row between the Japanese right-wing Seinensha group and Taiwanese fishermen’s associations, which turned out to be quite a formidable pressure group, ultimately involving the Japanese and Taiwanese governments. The fall of 1990 witnessed the start of the Gulf War and heated debate in the Japanese Diet on the doomed Gulf Cooperation Bill (GCB) that would have dispatched Self Defense Forces to the region and elsewhere in the world in a non-combatant role.64 On 29 September 1990, the Japanese Maritime Safety Agency (MSA) decided to recognize the lighthouse constructed by the Seinensha in 1978 by including it in the official navigational charts and allowing members of the right-wing group to renovate the lighthouse, which they promptly did.65 Drawing the conclusion that the GCB debate, MSA action and lighthouse renovation were more than coincidental, on 11 October members of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the Taiwanese Legislative Yuan began pressuring their own government to break its silence and reaffirm sovereignty over Tiaoyutai. Facing pressure on the Kuomintang (KMT) government’s political legitimacy, which rested on its claim to represent and govern all China, the premier of the Executive Yuan, Hau Peitsun, had to come up with a statement that the government would not tolerate Japanese invasion of Chinese territory and that the sovereignty of Tiaoyutai would be protected. On 14 October, the Taiwanese foreign ministry reported that they had convinced the Japanese government to put a stay on the Seinensha application for official recognition, but by then activists from the Taiwanese associations of fishermen from Ilan and Kaohsiung, two major fishing ports whose economies depend heavily on fishing in the waters off the disputed islands, were getting boats ready for the purpose of sailing to the disputed islands for a show of force.66 It was then that KMT Mayor Wu Dun-yi of Kaohsiung stepped into the picture by organizing two fishing boats to transport athletes from the “Taiwan Area Athletic Meet” with an Olympic torch to plant on the main island to affirm Taiwan’s claim to Tiaoyutai.67 Whether this action reflected Mayor Wu’s own concern and initiative, or whether it had the government’s tacit consent and was done to channel political support to the KMT, as Wu later claimed, remains unclear to this day.68 Probably on account of its low international prestige after the Tiananmen Square incident a year before and its reluctance to further antagonize the Japanese, the PRC did not send or allow any of its fishing craft into the Diaoyudao territorial sea this time, although it did join in the fray to denounce Japan’s claim, which brought forth a response by the Japanese government reaffirming Japanese sovereignty over the islands. The climax of the incident was when the two boatloads of athletes and accompanying journalists were prevented from landing on the Tiaoyutai Islands by twelve patrol ships and two helicopters from the Japanese MSDF, and had to turn back on the same evening of 21 October, mission unaccomplished.69 On the following day, to play down the issue, Premier Hau pointed out that, although his government would do its utmost to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty
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over Tiaoyutai and the right of its fishermen to enter its waters, the Olympic torch affair was essentially a patriotic activity of a peaceful nature, and as such, the government would not allow its military to interfere in it.70 Hau appealed for calm and reiterated his commitment to settle this dispute with Japan through unofficial diplomatic channels, although that did not stop protestors from demonstrating outside the Taipei office of the Japanese trade and cultural representative by burning the Japanese flag and pelting eggs, nor did it prevent overseas Taiwanese from calling on their home government to use military vessels to escort Taiwanese athletes to the islands and maintain troops there to defeat Japanese aggression. The DPP again attacked the government for not standing up for the national interest of Taiwan, and the fishermen threatened to dispatch 300 boats to the island.71 Although that threat did not materialize for logistical or other reasons, the Taipei government was forced to set up a special 7th (Coastguard) Detachment to deal with such possible incidents in the future. Faced with nationalistic hotheads on both sides who had good emotional cause to escalate the crisis beyond manageable proportions, Tokyo and Taipei tried hard to downplay the issue. On the evening of 23 October, Japanese Premier Toshiki Kaifu came out of a caucus meeting with pro-Taiwan members of the LDP and announced that his government would not proceed with plans to officially recognize the Seinensha lighthouse.72 On the following day, in an interesting demonstration of the convergence in the expectations and interests of the countries involved, the Taiwanese government responded to this positive signal by announcing that it would not protect individuals going to the islands, and it would protect fishermen only if they applied beforehand and avoided entering the islands’ twelve-mile territorial sea.73 The Chinese government also reiterated its claims to the islands, but again called on all parties to shelve the issue of sovereignty and jointly develop the area’s fishing and natural resources.74 That offer was not taken up by any of the parties involved, but this time China did not take any concrete action to back up its claim, probably out of gratitude to the Japanese government for being the first major government of the world to resume bilateral aid to China after the Tiananmen Square incident.75 Aside from the fact that China has been the largest recipient of Japanese Official Development Assistance (ODA) since 1979, Japan’s ODA to China in 1990 alone amounted to US$723 million in loans and grants.76 The island issue then remained dormant until July 1996, when the Seinensha erected another lighthouse on one of the Senkakus and started another fracas.
The fourth incident: the Kita-Kojima lighthouse (1996) On 14 July 1996, while the Japanese Diet was debating a bill which would announce Japan’s 200-mile EEZ, members of the largest right-wing Japanese nationalist group, the Nihon Seinensha, built a 5-meter-high solar-powered aluminum lighthouse on one of the smaller disputed islands named Kita Kojima. Supposedly done for the sake of maritime safety, Seinensha’s action was
44 The Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute more likely carried out to give substance to the government’s impending 200mile EEZ declaration, anticipating that the government would involve the country in some maritime boundary dispute with its neighbors once the declaration came into force. True to Seinensha’s anticipation, the Japanese government asserted on 20 July its claim for exclusive economic development rights within the 200-mile EEZ around the disputed islands and the rest of Japan, although it is doubtful according to UNCLOS III if uninhabited or uninhabitable rocks like the Senkakus qualify for an EEZ. At a press conference called by Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), the press secretary denied any territorial dispute regarding the Senkaku Islands, which he referred to as an integral part of Japanese territory under the effective control of Japan, although he did confirm that a lighthouse had been constructed on Kita-Kojima, and that the MSA was then patrolling the area. However, it was significant that he chose to dodge the “hypothetical” question as to what the Japanese government would do if Japan’s sovereignty were violated, leading one to conclude that the Japanese government was not ready to exacerbate this particular dispute by resorting to military action, at least not at that moment.77 To reiterate Japan’s claims over the islands, another nationalist group calling itself the Senkaku Islands Defense Association erected a Japanese flag on the largest island of Uotsuri.78 After a typhoon destroyed the one-month old lighthouse in August, the Nihon Seinensha again sent some of its people to repair it and put up more flags and a memorial plaque the following month. Coming before the 18 September anniversary of Japan’s invasion of China, this could not have been better timed to provoke the reaction of both the Chinese and its own government. On 30 September Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, leader of the LDP, who had once served as chairman of the “Japanese Association of Bereaved Families of the War Dead,” announced that his party would support Japan’s claims to the islands, probably with a view to capturing the nationalistic vote in the Diet elections set for 20 October. The election saw Hashimoto retain the premiership, more seats for the LDP, and the JSP being replaced as the main opposition party by the Shinseito (New Frontier Party), a new political party formed in 1993 whose main differences with the LDP were over domestic rather than foreign policy.79 Together, both conservative parties controlled 80 percent of the seats in the Japanese Diet after the 1996 general election, with the LDP and Shinseito winning 251 and 156 of the 500 seats respectively.80 Nationalist groups, whose memberships claim but a small minority of the Japanese population, have traditionally been able to exert a disproportionate influence on the political process of post-war Japan. This is because the longtime ruling LDP has always been a factionalized coalition of conservative forces that portrayed itself as the alternative to the opposition socialists, and was especially divided over the question of recognizing China. Since its inception as a political party in 1955 with the amalgamation of the Liberal and Democratic parties,81 the LDP has harbored many nationalist groups or caucuses. The Seirankai, whose members constructed the 1978 lighthouse, is a vigorous right-
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wing group within the LDP. According to its manifesto, Seirankai means “clear storm society,” denoting “a summer storm that blows away the stuffy atmosphere, enlivens heaven and earth, and creates an iridescent rainbow of hope.” The name was provided by Shintaro Ishihara, novelist and politician, Mayor of Tokyo, and intimate associate of Yukio Mishima, the well known writer who committed ritual hara-kiri in 1970 after a failed attempt to inspire a military coup. The origins of Seirankai may be traced to the spring of 1972, when Ishihara and some 160 LDP Dietmen formed an intra-party coalition for the purpose of resisting moves by the party leadership to establish diplomatic relations with China. In July 1973, thirty-one of the more extremist members of this group announced Seirankai’s formation. Its membership consists of mostly young, discontented men from non-elite schools with little hope for access to leading party positions. Seirankai, like the Soshinkai, another powerful faction within the LDP that included former prime minister Kishi Nobusuke, called for a new constitution without the “war-renouncing clause,” and providing more police power, a greater military build-up, and the inculcation of Japanese ethos and nationalistic morality in schools. Being one of Japan’s 800 right-wing nationalist groups in the 1980s, Seirankai’s membership may have been small, claiming 3,000 at most,82 but it certainly exerted an influence way beyond its limited size to the highest corridors of power, for in its heyday it counted fourteen members of the Fukuda faction and ten of the Nakasone faction in its ranks.83 Although the Seirankai was not directly involved in this Senkaku episode, its leader Ishihara alluded in a newspaper interview to MOFA as a traitorous organization for preventing the authorization of the lighthouse out of consideration for China’s feelings.84 By 1990, the political grouping with the strongest organizing and financial power was the Nihon Seinensha, headquartered and active in Tokyo’s expensive Ginza district. Its founder was one Kusuo Kobayashi, a one-time vice-president of the gangster-group Sumiyoshi-kai.85 After Kobayashi’s death in January 1990, leadership of Nihon Seinensha fell to a fifty-nine-year-old man by the name of Eto Toyohisa, a one-time Seirankai activist who had made Japan’s claim to the Senkaku Islands his life-long cause. It was he who, with half a dozen associates, erected the first lighthouse on Uotsuri in August 1978, and with another six colleagues built the second one on Kita-Kojima in July 1996. He is also closely associated with the Senkaku Islands Defense Association, another nationalist group based in Okinawa’s capital Naha, whose members erected the Japanese flag and unveiled a memorial plaque to wartime residents on the main island.86 Aside from erecting lighthouses on disputed islands, Seinensha also mounts attacks on ultra-leftist groups and supported the Mujaheedin in Afganistan, in line with its founding philosophy of asserting Japan’s territorial claims, opposing Communism and restoring the pre-war rights of the emperor.87 As Eto said in an interview, “Sometimes I wish the government would take the lighthouse over, so I can withdraw from it all.” Authorities estimate there are about 120,000 right-wing sympathizers in the country, though not all of them are involved with the Senkaku issue. However, it can be safely assumed that, to the Japanese in
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these nationalistic organizations, every former imperial power such as Japan should be entitled to retain captured territories, especially if these are places like the Senkakus, which have been considered to be Japanese territory since as far back as the nineteenth century! From 28 August 1996, when the Japanese foreign minister asserted Japanese sovereignty over the Senkakus on his visit to Hong Kong, until the 18 September anniversary date came to pass, there were daily protests and demonstrations in Hong Kong. The biggest anti-Japanese protest march drew 20,000 people,88 and provided a great opportunity for Hong Kongers of all political stripes to demonstrate their alleigance to the motherland in anticipation of Hong Kong’s return to China in less than a year’s time. These events were led by the same prodemocracy activists who had been campaigning against Chinese plans to replace the partially elected colonial legislature with a provisional one. These activists were apparently hoping not only to tap into a genuinely popular cause for political support, but also to prepare the ground for future demands that would be difficult for China to resist. An editorial on Hong Kong’s Ming Pao Daily captured the popular mood when it declared that It is significant that we have not lost our nationalist bearing even during the long years of colonial rule. On the contrary, the shameful memory of the loss of our land is vividly clear in our minds. We cannot allow history to be repeated. We cannot tolerate Japanese militarism raising its ugly head again.89 To the Chinese, Tiaoyutai is unfinished business, a legacy of the last war with Japan, and issues like that of compensation for the former sex-slaves or “comfort women” of Japanese soldiers, visits to the Yasakuni war memorial by Japanese premiers and politicians, and the anniversary of the outbreak of the Pacific War serve as reminders of the shame and suffering visited on them by the unrepentant and unforgiven Japanese invaders.90 Indeed, the statement by Japan’s foreign minister seemed to have galvanized Chinese everywhere who are often divided over politics and distracted by daily realities. The “Protect Tiaoyutai” activities of the Hong Kong, Taiwanese, and North American Chinese, and the actions of anti-Japanese activists in China, once again went into full swing. Whatever opportunities or win-sets which might have arisen for compromise regarding the dispute at government or semi-official level would certainly have diminished quickly, given the uniformly negative public feedback, at least among the Chinese. For Taiwan, whose foreign ministry issued a statement on 24 July reaffirming Taiwan’s sovereignty over the disputed islands, the primary concern seemed to be fishing rights. If Taiwan were to accept the 200-mile limit set by Japan, it would have to negotiate fishing allocations with Japan in the rich fishing grounds surrounding the Tiaoyutai Islands. The Taiwanese do not wish to recognize Japan’s claims over the islands, or be denied access to the vicinity, in which case, Taiwan fishermen claim, of the 2,000 boats now in operation, only 300 will
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survive.91 The estimated annual catch from the area in 1996 was 40,000 tons, worth NT$1.8 billion.92 Meanwhile the governor of Taiwan, Soong Chu-yu, appealed for calm and stated his country’s willingness to submit the issue for international arbitration or start joint development talks with the Japanese.93 To force the issue to a head, the Taiwanese Ilan and Suao Counties Fisheries Cooperative decided on 20 July to send a 200-boat flotilla to the islands between 28 July and 3 August,94 and could only be dissuaded from the adventure by President Lee Teng-hui himself. Councilmen from Taiwan’s Ilan county, the economy of which relies heavily on fish catches from the Tiaoyutai vicinity, then passed a resolution requesting military support for the fishermen. Sensing a political opportunity, legislators from all three major political parties represented in Taipei’s National Assembly, the ruling Kuomintang (KMT), the major opposition Democratic Progressive Party, and the New Party, followed with calls on the government to dispatch the coastguard and the navy to Tiaoyutai.95 To stave off Taiwan’s claim to the area, both the Yaeyama Fisheries Cooperative and the Ishigaki City Assembly of Okinawa reacted by petitioning Tokyo to acknowledge the lighthouse.96 After a Taiwanese fishing boat was putatively shot at by a Japanese warship off Tiaoyutai waters,97 a round of fish talks was held on 3 August between Taiwan and Japan, but although Japan agreed informally not to obstruct Taiwanese fishing vessels operating in the waters of the disputed islands, there was again no progress over the sovereignty issue.98 On 10 September, four fishermen’s associations and members of the legislature again called on the government to send warships to protect fishing rights near the disputed islands.99 Meanwhile, the Chinese Patriotic Alliance, founded in 1972 by Taiwanese students in the United States, called on both Taiwan and the mainland government to put aside their political differences and join hands in protecting Chinese territorial integrity.100 A United Daily News poll found 69 percent of those questioned supporting the use of force to resolve the issue, which so concerned President Lee, foreign minister John Chang, and then KMT secretary-general Ma Ying-jeou that all three publicly appealed for calm and peaceful cooperation to resolve the issue.101 However, there were expressed doubts as to whether the Taiwanese armed forces would be able to defeat Japan. What was left unsaid, of course, was that Taiwan might in future need to count on Japanese military assistance in the event of an attempted invasion by China. Furthermore, Japan was already Taiwan’s largest trading partner and source of overseas investment. Bilateral trade reached US$45 billion in 1996,102 and Japan invested US$394 million in Taiwan for the first nine months of 1996.103 Japan has in the past tacitly agreed to allow Taiwanese fishing boats unimpeded access to the Senkaku waters, and may continue to do so again, if Taiwan does not take too hard a sovereignty line and both countries can come up with some understanding to treat the dispute primarily as an economic issue. Taiwan’s negotiating position is relatively weak, for it is not recognized as a state by China or Japan, and not being a member of the United Nations, does not have a right to submit disputes to the International Court of Justice for resolution. As both Japan and the PRC have publicly stated since normalization of
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bilateral relations in 1972, the question of this sovereignty dispute will be settled directly between them and will not involve Taiwan. Following Seinensha’s 9 September landing, MOFA announced in a press briefing the next day that the government of Japan was not involved in, and did not support, Seinensha’s activities, which was significant, since this was the first time the authorities had come out saying so since the affair started in mid-July. MOFA also disclosed that on 28 and 29 August, the governments of China and Japan had reached an accord on extending the fishing agreement between the two countries first negotiated officially after normalization, now that both countries had ratified UNCLOS III. However, they were said to have discussed the Senkaku issue but could arrive at no conclusion. As to the position of the Japanese government on the lighthouse, MOFA’s stance was that “the islands are privately owned, the Japanese government cannot be directly involved … and we consider this building as just a physical building and not a lighthouse according to Japanese law.” In other words, the Japanese government could do nothing about private property, and anyhow, there was really no lighthouse to object to. MOFA’s press secretary reiterated that silence on the part of the island’s unnamed and unreachable owners indicated consent for Seinensha’s lighthouse venture, but when asked why MSA vessels could go to the islands while foreign fishing boats and reporters accredited to Japan were turned back, the press secretary said that checking on such domestic activities was really quite beyond his ministry’s competence.104 The only conclusion that could be drawn was that, irrespective of the legality of the Seinensha action, the MSA was there to make sure that they were not harassed in their endeavor to proclaim Japan’s territorial rights. However, the press secretary did seem to express his government’s concern over the international repercussions of the Seinensha action when, during the same press conference, he thrice called on all parties concerned to remain calm so as not to jeopardize existing relations. The government of China was quite content to let the overseas Chinese of North America, Taiwan and Hong Kong take the lead in expressing the Chinese people’s outrage, until the scale of these activities, together with Nihon Seinensha’s 9 September attempt to repair the lighthouse it had first erected in July, forced Beijing to break its diplomatic silence. The Chinese foreign ministry lodged its first formal protest in Tokyo on 10 September by upbraiding the Japanese government for failing to control the activities of its citizens on the disputed islands.105 For weeks before, and even after the 18 September anniversary of Japan’s invasion of China, the Chinese government allowed Party and army newspapers to adopt a shrill, nationalist and anti-Japanese tone to counter criticisms by local and overseas Chinese of its alleged “softness” toward the Diaoyudao sovereignty issue because of its valuable trading ties with Japan.106 In a commentary, the official People’s Daily accused the Japanese government of “leading Sino-Japanese relations astray” by “conniving” with the right-wingers, and wondered whether their activities “have the government’s tacit support and whether there are ulterior motives for stirring up these incidents.”107 The Liberation Army Daily bellowed that “it would rather sustain a heavy economic cost
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than lose an inch of soil.”108 Still, the Chinese government attempted to downplay the controversy by instructing Foreign Minister Qian Qichen to raise the issue with his Japanese counterpart Yukihiko Ikeda at their scheduled meeting at the United Nations on 19 September.109 Ikeda reportedly agreed with Qian’s request to handle the lighthouse application “cautiously.”110 Insisting that Japan’s government did not support the activities of Seinensha, Ikeda said he would like to keep such a situation from adversely affecting the “very, very” important relations between China and Japan.111 However, no concrete steps were agreed to in order to resolve the crisis. Three days later, a group of Hong Kong protestors and journalists set sail for the Diaoyutai Islands in a worn-out vessel. Upon being blocked by the Japanese MSA from reaching the islands, four activists jumped into the water in an attempt to swim to shore, and one of them, reporter David Chan, suffered symptoms of drowning and died after he was pulled out of the water and efforts to resuscitate him failed. Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan promptly summoned the Japanese ambassador to his office to issue a protest blaming Japan for Chan’s death. At a press conference immediately following this, MOFA was forced on behalf of the Japanese government to deny again that it was in any way involved in the activities of Seinensha, and at four separate times called on all sides to approach this matter calmly. However, MOFA also insisted that the government could do nothing to stop the actions of Seinensha because the island’s owner “did not express his objections to the group landing on his island.”112 Strangely, this Japanese owner of the island was never identified. On the same day that Chan’s funeral procession took place, Hashimoto announced that the LDP would support the government’s claims to the Senkakus. This was too much for Beijing. In his National Day Address, Premier Li Peng condemned Japan by name for violating China’s territorial sovereignty, and warned the Japanese government that failure to restrain the activities of rightists could damage bilateral relations.113 However, despite its anger, Beijing was determined to prevent ordinary Chinese from making similar protests or organizing anti-Japanese demonstrations on their own initiative. A group of 257 civilians from Beijing and Tianjin had sent a letter to Jiang Zemin and the two vice-chairmen of the Central Military Commission, Liu Huaqing and Zhang Zhen, urging them to dispatch troops to the disputed islands to assert Chinese sovereignty and remove the offending lighthouse.114 Not only did they receive no reply, but Tong Zeng, the activist who had organized the petition, was quietly flown to the city of Lanzhou, 750 miles west of Beijing, together with five of his fellow activists.115 Tong had originally planned a rally outside the Japanese embassy, but dropped the idea in favor of sending a letter of protest against the Japanese “occupation” of Diaoyudao after what he described as pressure from the Chinese authorities. Before his banishment, Tong said that the government had accused him of “interfering in foreign affairs and affecting anti-Japanese relations,”116 which in fact he was. Security was visibly tightened around the Japanese embassy, and students from Beijing University and other major academic centers around the
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country were placed under tight surveillance after posters calling for demonstrations were discovered on university campuses by security agents.117 In one publicized case, the government moved to censor computer communications after one message on an internet bulletin board called for protest at the Japanese embassy in Beijing.118 Although nationalism was an important component of Jiang Zemin’s philosophy of a “spiritual civilization” for China, his intention was to fill the gap in the national psyche that had previously been occupied by socialism, not to encourage provocative gestures or public demonstrations which might scare away China’s biggest creditor nation. Apparently, the absence this time of any armed fishing boats from China meant that, compared to eighteen years previously, capital, technology transfer, trade and investment had a demonstrably higher priority for the Chinese government than any unrestrained contest over the sovereignty of a cluster of barren and uninhabited rocks. It could also have meant that, lacking a strong individual leader like Deng, the collective leadership of China might not want to be responsible for any consequences arising from provoking the Japanese. Jiang was also understandably nervous about promoting any cause which might have brought students and workers onto the streets, because once public protest began, they might not have stopped at the issue of the Diaoyudao or of Japanese war crimes reparations. Small-scale protests might in all likelihood have turned into widespread social discontent with the Communist leadership itself, as a target for the disaffection of millions of Chinese chafing against job losses in bankrupt state industries, corruption by Party cadres, and the wealth and ostentatious consumption habits of the small but visible nascent affluent class. So long as any anti-Japanese diatribe was restricted to a war of words in the Party newspapers, it could in no way weaken the nationalist credentials of any or all of the Chinese leaders hoping and waiting to inherit the mantle of the late Deng Xiaoping. However, the Diaoyudao issue would become extremely troublesome were it to mushroom into an autonomous anti-establishment movement. To that end, even the National People’s Congress was prevented by the Chinese Communist Party from issuing a letter of protest regarding the problem, for fear of provoking the nationalistic sentiments of the public at large.119 Publicly, Beijing has been blaming policy-makers in Tokyo of falling under the sway of the right-wing militaristic minority, but there is reason to believe that China suspected the US and Japan of being involved in this islands fracas in a move calculated to contest, if not constrain, any attempt by China to expand its power and influence seaward. The release of Japan’s 1996 National Defence Agency “white paper” in the midst of the July crisis, which argued that China should be “watched with caution, in view of its promotion of nuclear weapons, naval and air force modernization, and its 10 percent annual increase in military spending for the past eight years,” could not have endeared the Japanese government to its Chinese counterpart.120 China has officially denounced the move by both Tokyo and Washington to reaffirm the US-Japan Security Alliance in April 1996, taking it to be an act to contain China. An editorial in the English-
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language China Daily held Washington “directly responsible” for the resurgence of Japanese militarism, “by choosing to overlook the omens of extreme nationalism in Japan while sowing suspicions on and pestering China about rising Chinese nationalism.”121 It was at this time that the Chinese authorities surprised everyone by permitting the publication and circulation in China of a controversial anti-Western and anti-Japanese popular book, China Can Say No.122 China could not have been blind to Japanese newspaper reports that, since late September 1996, the Japanese Air Self Defense Force had dispatched E2C early warning aircraft to patrol the Senkaku airspace.123 Unfortunately, the live-firing exercises in the Taiwan Straits conducted by China to coincide with the presidential elections on Taiwan in March 1996 could only have diminished future negotiating win-sets over Tiaoyutai, as the Japanese leadership and public became more “uniformly negative” in their suspicion of China’s intents and their apprehension of its military capabilities. A seven-member negotiating team from the Taiwanese foreign ministry, interior ministry, and the state-funded unofficial Council of Agriculture left for Japan on 3 October 1996 to discuss fishing rights and other issues arising from the Diaoyu islands controversy with leading officials of the “Japan Interchange Association,” which handles Japan-Taiwan affairs.124 An official of the Council of Agriculture announced that although Taiwan would seek maximum fishing rights for its people, it would not do so at the expense of a concession on sovereignty. Perhaps this round of semi-official talks did bear some fruit, for when the delegates left Tokyo for Taipei two days later, they announced that the Japanese had agreed to adhere to a previous understanding not to interfere with Taiwanese vessels fishing outside the 12-mile territorial sea limit of the islands.125 The Japanese government, on its part, announced that it would not grant official recognition to the Kita-Kojima lighthouse, although it did not order the lighthouse to be taken down. The last time the Japanese government had said it would not grant official recognition to a lighthouse built by a rightwing group on the islands, it had waited eleven years to do just that. On 6 October, led by a Taipei county councilman, 300 Taiwanese and Hong Kong activists set sail again to Tiaoyutai in twenty-nine fishing boats, some of whom landed on the main island briefly to hoist both national flags of the PRC and ROC before being chased away by Japanese vessels.126 At least one of the protest boats was chartered by the Taiwanese New Party for its activists, a clear sign of the involvement of a political party in the Tiaoyutai imbroglio.127 The activists claimed victory, but the ultimate aim of all protesters – to demolish the Seinensha lighthouse which cost David Chan his life – remained unfulfilled. After the latest brouhaha had all but blown over, the US State Department reiterated its stance adopted on the eve of the Okinawa Reversion twenty-four years previously that it would not side with Japan, China or Taiwan in their claims over the sovereignty of the Senkakus.128 US Ambassador to Japan Walter Mondale subsequently stated that the Senkakus were not covered by the JapanUS security alliance.129 The US seemed to be employing a mild form of external pressure (gaiatsu) to signal to Japan’s post-election LDP that it was not the time to
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adopt a more nationalistic foreign policy. As one analyst noted, “the US simply cannot build a new Pacific Rim order without Japanese help, and Japan cannot help if it shows bad faith on bilateral territorial issues and becomes a diplomatic persona non grata to other Asian countries.”130 On 13 November 1996, in a move to repair the damage caused to Japanese relations with China as a result of the Senkaku incident, Japanese foreign minister Ikeda described Japan-China relations as being on the same footing as that of Japan-US relations, and said that not only was the government not involved in the construction of the “beacon,” but that even if an application were to be made under the Channel Marker Law, “we will not give our approval.”131 Nevertheless, the position of the Japanese government is to settle the delimitation of the continental shelf between Japan and China before starting talks on joint exploration. As long as China and Taiwan eyed one another with suspicion, it would be impossible for them to coordinate a common sovereignty, economic or strategic position vis-à-vis the Japanese, other than separately reaffirming historic Chinese sovereignty over the islands. A pointed example was Taiwanese defense minister Chiang Chungling’s public statement that Taiwan’s policy in the Tiaoyutai affair would be to offer no protection to protest boats displaying the mainland flag.132 On the other hand, Japan has effective administrative control of the disputed territories and is in the best position to play off one party against another – negotiating on sovereignty with China, bargaining on fishing rights with Taiwan, and reserving for itself the freedom to maneuver its air force, coastguard and navy in the vicinity of the islands which it controls, while allowing its oil companies to explore for undersea minerals and its fishermen to engage in fishing activities. The Japanese had no need to remind their neighbors that their cumulative investments up to 1996 amounted to $13 billion in China, $6 billion in Taiwan, and$14 billion in Hong Kong.133 Japan has been the largest supplier of development aid to China, contributing an estimated $19 billion between 1979 and 1995; it has been China’s largest trading partner since 1993, and is the third largest investor in China, behind the United States and Hong Kong.134 While in 1950, when Sino-Japanese trade was conducted on a small scale between small and medium-sized trading companies, the trade volume measured a paltry $40 million, compared to almost $1,000 million in 1972, the year relations were normalized between China and Japan.135 The value of bilateral trade subsequently rose to $4,073 million in 1978, $18,201 million in 1990, and $62,230 million in 1996.136 In 1995, 19.1 percent of China’s exports went to Japan.137 Total Japanese loans and investments in China used by the Chinese were valued at $3,212.50 million in 1995.138 Since 1996, the governments of China, Taiwan and Japan have done nothing to encourage, and have indeed taken every measure possible to forestall further incidents from breaking out over the disputed rocks. Given the collapse of the USSR and world Communism, their common enemy in Asia, the value of the 1978 Sino-Japanese Peace and Friendship Treaty to both China and Japan has declined. If so, then the domestic political cost of bilateral disagreement has also
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declined. As a result, leaders in both countries may prove less willing to accommodate the domestic situation of their partner, for the value of positive reverberation from compromise and agreement between the two governments will now be lowered. Assertive nationalism in China, and to a lesser extent in Japan, is held at bay by expectations of mutual economic gains through increased trade and investment, and fear of accidental military provocation. However, should the matrix of the equation be altered, nationalist pressure on either side, aggravated by trade imbalance amidst uncontrolled arms build-up, could lead to a marked rise in the frequency and magnitude of unpredictable incidents surrounding Diaoyudao/Senkaku. In the 1970s and 1980s, during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the US, China and Japan had formed a de facto strategic alliance against the USSR, and the islands issue could be temporarily shelved for the sake of common security interests. However, the US and Japan are now both undecided as to whether to engage China comprehensively as an equal player in the international system, or regard it as a rising regional hegemon and troublemaker to be quietly checked. What is apparent is that, while the actual amount of oil imported by Japan has actually decreased,139 China became a net importer of the mineral for the first time in 1993. This means that, if drillings on the offshore East China Sea wells pan out, she may increasingly desire a quick and advantageous resolution to the sovereignty question of the Diaoyu Islands. If the US and Japan are concerned about China’s might and perplexed by its intentions, they have even less idea on what to do with Taiwan. As such, while the US devises a long-term Chinese strategy, it would probably feel safest were the Senkaku Islands to remain in the hands of their most steadfast and long-term ally in the Asia-Pacific region – the Japanese.
Subsequent incidents, findings and conclusions So what has been demonstrated by the involvement of domestic politicized pressure groups in the official actions and reactions by the governments of the three claimant states of Japan, Taiwan and China with regard to the recurring dispute over the Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands? Negotiation is a search for joint gains by two or more parties in a situation characterized by both conflict and cooperation. A creative way of finding joint gains through negotiations is to “unbundle” different interests and give to each what it values most.140 If China is found to care a great deal about sovereignty over those little pieces of Diaoyu rocks, while Taiwan is heavily concerned with continued access to fishing grounds, and Japan wants to develop hydrocarbon resources in the sea-bed as soon as possible, then perhaps a way can be found by government negotiators from the three countries to give China “sovereignty” over the rocks themselves, award Taiwan the water column of the territorial sea and the living resources in it, and grant Japan the right to exploit the resources in the sea-bed below the territorial sea. Unfortunately, there is no way of discerning the preference ranking of the interests of each party, and if asked,
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the negotiators would most likely hold to a claim for everything about the islands, especially when they know that their governments have an eye out for settling other outstanding territorial claims as much in their own favor as possible. Even before the Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands controversy first surfaced in the late 1960s, all three contestants to the claim were already having territorial sovereignty disputes with other countries. Taiwan was contesting claims with Southeast Asian countries as to the sovereignty of the Paracel and Spratly island groups in the South China Sea; China was also claiming these South China Sea islands in addition to involving itself in violent border disputes with India and the Soviet Union; and Japan was involved in territorial sovereignty claims with the Soviet Union over four islands in the Kurile Chain and with (South) Korea over the Tokdo/Takeshima/Liancourt Rock in the Sea of Japan. As such, every one of the state governments knows that willingness on the part of any of the three parties to settle for less than absolute and undivided sovereignty over the Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands may compromise or even jeopardize its negotiating positions with other countries with which it has ongoing disputes over sovereignty. Hence it is little wonder that the Japanese, Taiwanese and Chinese governments chose to adhere to a maximal claim and an inflexible official bargaining position over this particular territorial dispute. Equally if not more important than the countries’ positions on the sovereignty question are the domestic factors at play, which more or less decided the timing, method and intensity of the dispute. Each recurrence of the dispute over the Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands was always preceded by some major inter-governmental negotiation or national debate on an important territorial, economic or security issue, which was then promptly followed by the activities of non-governmental nationalist organizations out to assert sovereignty claims on behalf of their countries. In the early 1970s, it was the discovery of offshore oil deposits and official talks on joint development that led to the placing of Japanese boundary markers on one of the islands, and to nationalist demonstrations by Taiwanese students. In 1978, it was the negotiations over the Sino-Japanese Peace and Friendship Treaty that led to activities by Japanese right-wingers to construct a lighthouse on the biggest island and to the dispatch of armed Chinese “fishing junks.” In 1990, it was the debate over the Gulf Cooperation Bill in Japan’s Diet and the decision by its government to recognize the lighthouse that sparked off another right-wing expedition to the islands and the Taiwanese torch relay. In 1996, debate in the Diet on establishing a 200-mile EEZ led to further expeditions to the islands by Japanese nationalists in order to build and repair a new lighthouse, which again gave rise to massive protests, demonstrations and other activities by Taiwanese, Chinese and Hong Kong activists. In January 2003, when the Diet was debating how to assist US forces in its pre-emptive assault on Iraq, the Japanese government apparently leased several of the disputed islands from a Japanese family which, it claimed, had owned them for more than thirty years. After news of this transaction leaked, thirteen mainland Chinese and two Hong Kongers set sail for
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the islands in June 2003 on a fishing boat in protest, but were quickly and peaceably turned back by nine Japanese patrol ships and five aircraft.141 As we can see, the periodic outbreaks of this Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku affair were never fortuitous. The use of symbolic and emotive gestures was the method by which domestic forces asserted their claims to the islands, probably because they themselves respond most readily to nationalistic forms. They calculated that by planting flags, placing border markers, setting up commemorative plaques, constructing small beacons and lighthouses, inviting journalists to witness their physical presence on the islands, and swimming off their shores, they would be able to make the greatest appeal to a broad populace which has little time or patience to appreciate convoluted technical and legal arguments on CSCs, EEZs, or the validity of territorial claims under international law. The governments of the three disputant states have tried as best as they can to cool tempers and play down the controversy whenever it has arisen, but as long as the issue of territorial sovereignty over the islands remains unresolved, they will not be able to prevent these domestic forces from seizing the initiative once again to assert their nationalistic claims. When a Japanese Dietman and three fellow nationalists visited the islands in May 1997,142 they were quickly denounced as provocative by their government, which subsequently deployed sixty patrol craft and five helicopters to prevent 200 Taiwanese and Hong Kong activists from reaching the islands in boats as a sign of protest.143 On 4 August 1999, Japan’s House of Representatives’ National Security Committee canceled a plan to send some of its members to “inspect” the disputed islands and erect a Japanese flag there, when news of the proposed visit leaked and a noisy protest involving more than eighty people was staged outside the Japanese consulate in Hong Kong the day before.144 The quick and decisive action taken by the Japanese authorities in criticizing its own nationalists and stopping the protest boats, together with the scrupulous silence observed by the governments of China and Taiwan, prevented this episode of the long-running Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku saga from mushrooming into another drawn-out fracas. The intensity of the dispute seems to be closely related to the rise of nationalism in China, Taiwan, and Japan following the “end of ideology.” With the collapse of Communism in particular and ideology in general, nationalism seems to have returned with gusto, both in East Asia and throughout the world. To the Chinese, memories of the Pacific War figures prominently, and Diaoyudao/Tiaoyutai represents to them an attempt by Japan, led by its rightwing nationalists and militarists, to keep from the Chinese what it stole from them during half a century of invasion and occupation. They will not allow Japan to escape its unpleasant, embarrassing and shameful past. In this, they are aided by those Japanese who exhibit a form of national stubbornness and denial behavior by refusing to consider their past actions and by not considering the claims of those who suffered as a result of being invaded by Japan. On the Chinese side of the dispute over sovereignty of the islands, it should be noted that there was a kind of competitive nationalism at work among
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non-governmental groups or public opinion in Hong Kong, Taiwan and overseas Chinese communities in North America, and to a lesser extent, because of political restrictions imposed on demonstrations, the Chinese of the PRC. This created a kind of competitive bidding or desire to manifest one’s patriotic credentials vis-à-vis Beijing and one’s Chinese compatriots elsewhere, which accounted for their spirited marches and feisty rallies. The rise of nationalism or irredentism on the Chinese mainland to fill the ideological vacuum left by the irrelevance of Communism reflects to some extent China’s economic might, but it is to a large degree encouraged by the present collective Chinese leadership. Nationalism is a popular force to be reckoned with, one which the leadership may find much profitable to inculcate but difficult to control. Diaoyudao may be seen as an attempt to balance strong anti-Japanese rhetoric with decisive moves to head off its expression by organized civic groups. So saying, one has to agree with those who argue that, as a past victim of foreign imperialism and an insecure modernizing state, Chinese nationalism today is more reactive than assertive, and then only as a temporal response to setbacks in foreign relations and perceived slights to national dignity.145 These events include the fiftieth anniversary of the defeat of Japan in World War II, the loss of the year 2000 Olympic Games bid due to an unfavorable resolution passed by the United States Congress, the frustrating eighteen-year wait since 1984 to enter the World Trade Organization, and Western harping on China’s treatment of political dissidents, human rights and Tibet. Although China was admitted to the WTO in 2002 and awarded the Olympic Games for 2008, perceived slights to national dignity may again be felt by the Chinese, if for example the United States or Japan were to punish North Korea for developing nuclear weapons without first consulting the Chinese government, accuse China of engaging in the proliferation of missile technology, or blame China for flaunting WTO rules by not liberalizing foreign trade and investment quickly enough. As such, there is always an irrational and unpredictable element present in nationalistic feelings anywhere, especially with regard to China’s attitude toward the Japanese. Indeed, when the fifteen Chinese and Hong Kong activists returned in June 2003 from the Diaoyu rocks in their fishing boats to a port in Zhejiang province, local officials were on hand to welcome them at the harbor, while the national anthem played in the background and journalists described them as “patriots”!146 The Chinese government may lose control of nationalist sentiments and feel that it has to respond to increasingly popular, frequent and strident anti-Japanese expressions and actions over the Diaoyu rocks. It may also wish to inculcate and galvanize nationalistic feelings or exploit xenophobic tensions as a diversion from wealth inequalities, economic dislocations, ethnic conflicts, or other problems. Under those circumstances, the Diaoyu situation could get explosive. The possibility should also be recognized that, as China’s ability to project air and sea power in the China Seas increases, it may be prepared to adopt a posture of assertive nationalism to meet perceived challenges to its interests and identity; worse, if a specific enemy should become
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identified as a threat to China’s vital interests, then nationalism might even turn aggressive and lead to war.147 On Taiwan, all major political parties compete with one another to voice support for actions to defend national sovereignty and the livelihood of the very vocal fishing lobby, which perceives itself to be threatened by any move by the Japanese to close off the Tiaoyutai waters to Taiwanese fishermen. However, most people there would appreciate that trade and investments with Japan are too important to be held hostage to the fortunes of tiny, uninhabited bits of rock. The Taiwanese also know that even if they were to fight the Japanese over the rocks, they would most likely be defeated, and the government would lose all credibility. As far as Japan is concerned, even if the broad populace do not agree with their right-wing fringe that Japan should be entitled to keep the territories it was able to capture in past wars, they still on the whole believe the Senkakus to have been discovered and first occupied by Japanese, islands which were then seized by the Americans and should later be rightfully returned to them.148 Japan already controls the sea around these islands, and it knows that because of its economic links with mainland China and Taiwan – Japan has been either their first or the second biggest trading partner or source of private and government investment since 1970, and Japan’s trade with China and Taiwan reached US$90 billion and US$ 35 billion respectively in 2002149 – these countries are not likely to mount an all-out invasion of these islands. Japan’s security arrangement with the US both protects and constrains its strategic posture. However, this does not mean that Japan is sanguine about the rise of Chinese nationalism and the prospect of China as a formidable military power in the region. Japan’s multi-billion dollar investment interests in China, not least the long-term project to connect the rich oil-and-gas fields of Central Asia to Japanese end-users through China,150 means that China is not without leverage on Japanese foreign policy, at least with respect to bilateral relations. At any rate, seventy-two LDP and Shinseito politicians and leaders were concerned enough to pen a policy statement in January 1995 urging their government to “admonish China for its chauvinism” in the Senkaku and Spratly islands and advocating the use of ODA and other policy tools to influence errant Chinese behavior.151 The positions on sovereignty adopted by all the people and state governments involved can only be described as “uniformly” uncompromising. As such, even if they were indeed common grounds or win-sets on areas of joint development, it would be exceedingly difficult for negotiators engaged in preliminary and exploratory talks to bring the subject into the open, let alone implement any such projects, given that the sovereignty issue is still unsettled. These “uniform” sovereignty positions and weak “synergistic” links between the countries make it impossible for negotiators on one side to appeal to any possible breach in public opinion on the other side(s). Such a breach, no matter how small, is often necessary to achieve some openings for meaningful bargaining to take place. “De-linking” the economic issues from the sovereignty issue, a suggestion first made by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, would also be difficult in the absence of clear
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boundary demarcations. Petroleum companies are generally reticent to start drilling only to discover later that they have sited their oil-rigs on the wrong side of the maritime border. It is not without significance that the only “semi-official” talks that have taken place with regard to cooperation over the East China Sea were fishery talks. These talks principally involve matters like the engine size of trawlers, the tonnage of catch, and the number of fishing vessels permitted within one another’s territorial waters or EEZ. They probably succeeded to the moderate extent that they did because there was a history of prior agreements between Japan with China and Taiwan dating back to the 1950s,152 reciprocal advantages to the fishermen of all three countries were realized, and a real possibility has existed of retaliation against any of the three countries trying to stop foreign fishing by the other two. Retaliation would entail losses to the fishing industry of all sides, yet with very little possibility of going to war. Unfortunately, with the present territorial dispute, there has been no history of agreement, reciprocal benefits cannot be derived because sovereignty is indivisible, and the option of limited retaliation against an adversary may not be available once hostilities begin. With historical grievances and indivisible sovereignty, it seems that the limits of diplomacy have truly been reached, at least with this dispute. I did not find evidence that the nationalist groups in each country had actually contemplated targeting or provoking their counterparts in the other countries in order to produce “negative reverberations” which would force their own governments to adopt a more confrontational stand. Perhaps the nationalist groups from the three countries concerned here were more than content to provoke some symbolic action on the part of their own governments in making a stand on sovereignty. However, there is some evidence to suggest that the Japanese right-wing groups did work in tandem with their own government over this particular sovereignty issue – their private forays onto the islands offered the government the chance to follow up on their claims of sovereignty, but if such attempts were to be vehemently or successfully opposed by other governments or their nationalist civic organizations, then there is always the opportunity for the Japanese government to deny foreknowledge and involvement with its right-wing fringe. Right-wing groups from Japan whose activities on the islands were clearly protected by patrol crafts from the MSA were later depicted by their own government as individuals visiting privately owned land whose owners could not be traced but were assumed to have given their permission. Proof of state-society coordination is less clear with the Taiwanese, although there was some indication that the 1990 touch relay by Taiwanese athletes was encouraged by Kaohsiung mayor Wu Dun-yi; and such proof is altogether absent in the case of the Chinese. My research did yield indisputable evidence that all three governments were engaging in tacit communication and behavioral convergence with one another, to signal the fact that they were trying their utmost to play down, if not suppress, the entire controversy by doing nothing to encourage and everything to restrain their domestic nationalist forces; and that they expected this goodwill to be reciprocated by the opposing governments.
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Bargaining theory’s standard prediction is that a more democratic form of government would make it more difficult for negotiators to get their negotiated agreements ratified by organized political forces, the absence of which is exactly why it would be easier for a non-democratic government to do so. I can find no evidence of this in my research, probably because the “uniformity” of opinion on this dispute already precluded the sovereignty issue from being settled at the negotiating table. However, it stands to reason that, at least with respect to Level I negotiations, the preferences of the chief negotiators are more likely to persist in a political system where power is more concentrated and the pressure of minority views poses less threat than in more “competitive” electoral systems, where chief negotiators must be more attentive to the development of popular opinion. It can be argued that, because it is much easier for politicized interest groups to organize and propagate their agenda in a representative democracy, where freedom of opinion is protected, it would be much easier for nationalists in these countries to act as a political pressure group, both within and outside the government and the ruling party, to create and galvanize public opinion conducive to realizing their territorial ambitions. For a situation like the Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku dispute, that certainly seems to be the case with the right-wingers in Japan and the student organizations, fishermen’s lobby and the major political forces in Taiwan after the political liberalization of the late 1980s and early 1990s. This is obvious when contrasted with the scant activities and small-scale demonstrations permitted by the Taiwanese authorities in the early 1970s, the extent of which is not even allowed in China today. Aside from the argument as to whether it is harder to resolve an all-ornothing territorial sovereignty dispute with a democratic country than with a non-democratic country, perhaps it is more pertinent to find out if democratic governments may actually make it much easier than do non-democratic governments for latent boundary, territorial, or other disagreements between states to surface into very real conflicts, because political forces have to respond effectively to public opinion, which has the potential to be created, manipulated and galvanized by well organized and well funded groups with their own agenda. It is not hard to contrast the ease with which the Chinese government bundled Tong Zhen and his comrades out of Beijing, with the troubles that both Taiwanese and Japanese authorities had to take to restrain the actions of their own protesters, to assess the relative ease or difficulty with which authoritarian and democratic polities keep their nationalistic elements under control. There is no question that domestic nationalist forces attach greater priority and preference to resolving the sovereignty aspects of the dispute and the attendant fishing rights than to the security concerns of the state or inter-state talks on joint development of sea-bed resources. However, can they be so ignorant or careless about the risks involved in pushing their own governments to confront the other claimant states? Analyzing the evidence presented, I arrived at the paradoxical conclusion that social forces within these countries were able to press their governments for confrontation, exactly because they knew that, while their governments could not concede sovereignty over these islands, their heads of
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state had to adopt more realistic and conciliatory positions. They could not risk breaking valuable economic ties or jeopardizing regional security over what were essentially small matters of more emotional than material value. As such, the high cost of confrontation means that the threat of deploying armed force by any state would sound incredibly hollow. However, these pressure groups, by whatever names they go under, also strongly believed they were doing their countrymen and governments a favor by asserting national sovereignty, by sailing into this stretch of sea and landing boats, planting flags, erecting lighthouses and lighting beacons on these disputed rocks, no matter how symbolic and ultimately futile their actions were to be. Even if they did want to goad their governments into risking all by taking a confrontational stand against the other claimants, but failed to do so, they would have already managed to highlight the higher priority they gave to asserting national dignity and state sovereignty over considerations of economic ties or regional security. At a minimum, their calculated but quixotic actions would have succeeded in keeping alive the issue by periodically forcing it back into the public view, which was what they were primarily concerned about and had set out to achieve. If and when an issue concerning the exercise of sovereignty next appears – be it over offshore petroleum development, fishing rights, overseas peace-keeping or the EEZ, we can expect these groups to return to their charts. As such, we have not quite yet seen the end of the Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku controversy.
4
The Zhenbao/Chenpao/ Damansky Islands dispute
Introduction In May 1991, after four years of intensive but secret negotiations, a boundary agreement was signed between official representatives from China and the Soviet Union. Ratified by the national legislatures of both China and Russia, the primary successor state to the Soviet Union, in February 1992, this boundary agreement would demarcate the 3,700 kilometers of border separating both states which runs along the thalweg, or middle of the main channels, of the Amur/Heilongjiang and the Ussuri/Wusuli.1 The border agreement also transferred to China some 600 tiny islets and rocks, uninhabited except for itinerant fisherman, which fall on the Chinese side of the mid-channel of the two rivers. These include the island of Damansky/Zhenbao, the site of two short but bloody clashes between Chinese and Soviet soldiers in 1969. Following the collapse of more than a decade of friendship between the ruling Chinese Communist Party and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Chinese leader Mao Zedong presented the Soviet leadership with a territorial claim on one million square kilometers of the Russian Far East, which, he said, was fraudulently acquired by the czarist Russian predecessor of the Soviet Union in two “unequal” treaties imposed on imperial China. Since then, there had been two series of boundary talks between the two states, a short one in 1964, and a long drawn-out affair that lasted from 1969 to 1978. Both failed to achieve any results, because the Soviet side preferred to interpret the treaties as demarcating the boundary along the Chinese bank of the rivers, instead of the thalweg, which was the Chinese position. And so it was to remain, until Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s 1986 speech in Vladivostok, in which he proposed that the border should run along the main navigation channel, and suggested a fresh round of boundary negotiations. His offer was taken up by the Chinese, and two rounds of preliminary talks at the level of vice-minister the following year established the principle of deciding the border on the basis of existing treaties and the mid-channel division. A working group of diplomatic and military experts from both sides was established in 1988 to demarcate the border, and the border was re-opened. Except for a small island adjacent to the Russian city of Khabarovsk, the sovereignty over which has been shelved because of its sensitive
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location, the May 1991 agreement demarcated 98 percent of the boundary between China and Russia. This enabled border troops on both sides to be drastically reduced and bilateral trade to be greatly expanded. Before we proceed to investigate what made it possible for Russia to forgo territory which only a few years before it was prepared to go to war over to retain, and for China to accept territorial concessions over which it was prepared to go to war to refuse, it will be useful to describe the geography and the historical background of the site, and the focal point of the most confrontational episode of the Sino-Soviet split – the island of Damansky/Zhenbao.
The geography of Damansky/Zhenbao Island2 Damansky/Zhenbao is a half-kilometer by one-kilometer-long island on the Ussuri River, which forms the boundary between China’s Heilongjiang Province and the Primorye Krai or Maritime Province of the Soviet Union, now Russia (see Figure 4.1). Zhenbao Island is located to the Chinese side of the mid-channel of the Ussuri. The Ussuri is a north-flowing river that originates from Lake Xinkai/Khanka and meets the easterly-flowing Amur River before the latter takes on a northeasterly course that ends on the shores of the Okhotsk Sea. The river typically freezes over for four to five months in winter, making overland travel to the island possible from both Chinese and Russian banks. Otherwise, the island can be reached by river craft. The Ussuri is a major fish-producing river, yielding some sixty different types of fish, the most abundant of which are cod and salmon. As a result, most inhabitants on both banks of the river derive their livelihood from catching fish. However, except for itinerant fishermen cutting holes in the ice to fish in early spring, Damansky/Zhenbao Island and the other islands on the Ussuri and Amur rivers have no permanent inhabitants.
The historical background of the Damansky/Zhenbao Island dispute3 Prior to 1858, both the Ussuri and the Amur were internal waterways of China. This is because according to the Treaty of Nerchinsk signed in 1689 between czarist Russia and Qing China, the Sino-Russian boundary ran along the crest of the Outer Xing’an/Stanovoy mountain range north of the Amur. However, since the early seventeenth century, Russia’s exploratory expeditions and military movements toward southern Siberia and the Far East had been accompanied by the colonization and settlement of these territories and the development of towns and commerce which reflected both the national and state interests of Russia. On 28 May 1858, czarist Russia took advantage of a siege by British and French forces of the Chinese capital of Beijing, then called Peking, and pressured the Qing court into signing the Treaty of Aigun. This treaty ceded to Russia some 600,000 square kilometers of land north of the Amur, and established a Sino-Russian condominium over some 400,000 square kilometers of
Figure 4.1 The Amur-Ussuri boundary between China and the USSR
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territories east of the Ussuri. In 1860, following the occupation of Beijing by Anglo-French forces, Russia entered into the Treaty of Peking (Beijing) with China and established sole ownership over the territories to the east of the Ussuri, thereby denying to China access to the Sea of Japan. While Chinese scholars depict the two treaties of Aigun and Peking as a manifestation of “czarist Russian aggression” resulting in the “annexation of Chinese lands,” Russian scholars on the whole argue that neither those lands nor their population had ever been fully incorporated within the traditional domains or regular administrations of the Chinese empire. Whatever the case, the Amur and the Ussuri became the international boundaries in the Far East between Russia and China. However, the fate of some 700 islands on the Ussuri and an island at the confluence of the Amur and the Ussuri was left undetermined by what subsequent Chinese administrations would term the two “unequal treaties” of Aigun and Beijing. Rather, each country simply assumed that it and not the other had ownership over the islands.
Prelude to the Sino-Soviet border conflict: 8 March 1963–1 March 1969 The immediate background to the border conflict between China and the Soviet Union in the spring of 1969 was China’s rejection of the Soviet Union’s claim to lead the world Communist movement, and its bid to become leader of the developing world against both American “capitalist-imperialism” and Soviet “social-imperialism.” However, the territorial issues that divided the two countries had been long brewing. As relations between them deteriorated from the late 1950s onward, what had started out as a dispute over ideology and doctrine, such as the desirability of Stalinist personality cults, the feasibility of Chinese “Great Leap”-style collectivization, and the wisdom of pursuing “peaceful coexistence” with the West, took on the impetus of assertive nationalism on both sides. In December 1962, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, enraged by Chinese criticism of the weak Soviet response to the American blockade of Cuba during the missile crisis, publicly denounced Beijing and taunted the Chinese for bullying India over the Sino-Indian border dispute in October-November 1962 while allowing “strong imperialist powers” to remain in control of Hong Kong.4 Not to be outdone, Beijing indicated in a statement published on 8 March 1963, that the “unequal treaties” imposed on China by “imperialism,” including those signed with czarist Russia, might have to be reexamined and renegotiated.5 There was no doubt then that the Sino-Soviet border issue required formal attention by the two parties. In “consultative” talks at deputy foreign ministerial level in Beijing in February 1964, both USSR and PRC delegations agreed that minor boundary adjustments should be made, especially over riparian islands, and that a new boundary treaty could be considered.6 Beijing was then on the ideological and polemical offensive against Khrushchev, and insisted that the new treaty should include the Chinese contentions that the old treaties were
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invalid because of their “unequal” character, and that the border rivers of the Amur and the Ussuri should follow the main channel or thalweg, as it is known under international maritime law.7 However, the Chinese side expressed its willingness to use the “unequal treaties” as a basis for negotiating a new boundary between China and the USSR.8 The Soviet side refused to admit to the unequal character of the old treaties, let alone agree to their revision, and rejected the main channel as the basis for the riparian boundary.9 The Soviet delegation favored instead the Manchurian bank, which it claimed was demarcated as such on an old, small-scale map appended in 1861 to the text of the Treaty of Beijing, which would give ownership to the Soviet Union of some 600 of the 700 or so islands on the Ussuri, totaling 1,000 square kilometers.10 The Beijing round of talks ended inconclusively, but mutual agreement was reached to continue these consultations in Moscow on 14 October 1964. However, these talks were not resumed, ostensibly due to Khrushchev’s fall from power, but perhaps also because the Soviet leadership was upset over an interview given by Mao Zedong that July to a visiting Japanese delegation, in which he voiced support for Japan’s claim to the four Kurile islands occupied by the USSR since the end of the Second World War.11 For some years since 1964 or even earlier, China had orchestrated, or at least turned a blind eye to, occasional demonstrations by local fishermen and inhabitants on the Sino-Soviet border as a means of expressing defiance of Soviet “revisionism.”12 After the border clashes had occurred in March 1969, Hong Kong newspapers and news magazines obtained photographs from the Chinese authorities purportedly showing Chinese fishing boats being chased by Soviet river patrol craft, and Chinese fishermen being attacked by Soviet border guards and their dogs, as early as 1960.13 Then in 1966, the Cultural Revolution erupted in China. A salient feature of the behavior of the Maoist radicals and Red Guards was their intense hostility toward the Soviet Union and all things foreign, and there were occasional violent anti-Soviet demonstrations by Red Guards and soldiers along the Manchurian frontier.14 The Chinese were concerned over the progressively intensifying Soviet military patrols along China’s northern frontier, and became alarmed after the invasion of Czechoslovakia on 21 August 1968, and the subsequent proclamation of the Brezhnev Doctrine, which declared the right of the Soviet Union to intervene in socialist countries to preserve their “social system.” Following the invasion, Beijing expressed support for the people of Czechoslovakia and encouraged Albania’s withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact.15 Since Sino-Soviet relations had by 1969 reached the point of no return, Mao permitted the border demonstrations to continue, to “signal” to the Soviet Union that China was no Czechoslovakia, and that the Brezhnev Doctrine could not be applied to Mao’s “social system.” Declassified documents from the Khabarovsk Krai territory in the Russian Far East alleged that in 1969 alone, about 300 incidents of daily cross-border incursions by Chinese citizens occurred.16 It becomes clear as events progressed in the Soviet Union and China how important are the preferences of leaders and the orientation of powerful
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domestic Level II constituencies in promoting or retarding negotiations. Early in 1969, during premier Alexei Kosygin’s prolonged absence as a result of illness, a “hawkish” group in favor of a more confrontational foreign policy line seemed to have formed around Secretary General Leonid Brezhnev, which included the Party’s chief ideologue Mikhail Suslov and defense minister Andrei Grechko.17 It was Suslov who delivered a report to the Central Committee plenum on 12 February 1964 castigating the Chinese leadership as the “main danger” to world Communism; who demolished the strongly proChinese position taken by fellow Politburo member Frol Kozlov; and who engineered Khrushchev’s fall from power.18 This group was antagonistic toward the Mao regime, both because of Beijing’s flouting of the Leninist principles of the supremacy of the Party’s collective leadership during the Cultural Revolution, and China’s aggressive anti-Soviet international behavior. It wanted more forceful action in the Far East to teach Beijing a lesson and force Mao to back down from his “adventurist” anti-Soviet policy. The Kremlin leaders might have calculated that such a course of action would divert world attention from the Soviet action in Czechoslovakia and reinforce Moscow’s foreign affairs position against its Warsaw Pact allies, while at the same time creating a popular issue at home. As for the Chinese, a forceful demonstration of strength along the frontier would help create an appropriately militant atmosphere for the Ninth Party Congress scheduled for the middle of March, and reinforce the image of Lin Biao and the PLA as the indispensable guardian of national security. Stickfighting, kick-boxing Red Guards waving “little red books” of quotations from Chairman Mao were replaced by soldiers carrying weapons with orders to use them if provoked.19 On 19 February 1969, a plan initiated by the Heilongjiang military authorities to station three infantry battalions on Damansky/Zhenbao for defense against “revisionism” was approved by the PLA General Staff, and perhaps mindful of possible international repercussions, the PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs.20 In other words, the fighting in March on Damansky/Zhenbao and other islands along the Ussuri in March 1969 and subsequent months was a conflict waiting to occur. By then, hostile feelings among both elite and masses in both countries toward each other had been incited to such a degree that the chances for resolving the border issue were as good as nil.
The Sino-Soviet border conflict: 2 March 1969–21 March 1969 Whatever happened on the little island of Damansky/Zhenbao on 2 March and 15 March 1969 is still subjected to differing claims and interpretations pending the full declassification of records. What is certain is that an exchange of fire between Soviet and Chinese troops occurred on these two occasions, and what transpired were day-long affairs of short, bloody engagements and quick withdrawals from the island, which could be of no interest or significance to general or military historians.
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Although Sino-Soviet border incidents were frequently reported to have been occurring since January 1967, the Soviets appeared to have been caught by surprise in the first attack.21 The Chinese apparently ambushed and mauled a Soviet detachment on Damansky/Zhenbao.22 The Chinese seemed not only militarily but also politically prepared, quickly launching a mass movement the following day which included more than 400,000 people. Even more people participated in public protests and demonstrations over the next few days, and altogether some 260 million people, or one third of the PRC population, took part.23 However, these public displays of support were nowhere near as violent as the staged attacks on the Chinese embassy in Moscow on 7 and 8 March by rock-throwing “mobs” numbering 50,000 and 100,000 respectively, for the purpose of breaking the embassy’s windows and terrorizing its staff.24 On 15 March, Soviet troops had their revenge, by initiating a confrontation with the Chinese that resulted in a clear-cut Soviet victory on the island, with superior firepower and heavy Chinese casualties.25 Both sides lodged diplomatic protests against each other immediately after the occurrence of both incidents. As the conflicts were occurring, the Soviet side started a flurry of diplomatic activity aimed at both isolating China diplomatically and forcing it to come to the negotiating table on Soviet terms. Soviet defense minister Grechko arrived in India on 2 March, the day the first conflict started, and held talks with Indian officials on coordinating policies against China.26 While Soviet ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin briefed American secretary of state William Rogers on the border incidents,27 Soviet embassy officials in West Germany, Japan, France, Austria, Italy and Canada kept themselves busy explaining the Soviet case to their host government officials.28 On 17 March, Brezhnev tried but failed to rally support from socialist countries represented at a Warsaw Pact meeting in Budapest, Hungary.29 The crisis with China was not having the effect of drawing the Warsaw Pact countries militarily or politically closer to the Soviet Union, as the Soviets had hoped. The “Euro-communists” were non-committal, never having forgiven the Soviets for invading its “fraternal socialist country” of Czechoslovakia. However, the most important factor behind the shift in thinking of the Kremlin leadership that prodded Soviet premier Kosygin to telephone Beijing on 21 March to discuss means of easing the border crisis, was not the result of Moscow’s failure to assign blame for the border clashes with China. Rather, it appeared to be the concern of the Soviet leadership that excessive pressure on China might impel the Mao regime to strike back militarily or seek a rapprochement with its arch enemy the United States.30 The Kosygin telephone call appeared to mark a watershed in Soviet management of the Sino-Soviet conflict. In the earlier phases, when Moscow appeared to have been desirous of teaching the Chinese a lesson without any serious effort to seek a border settlement, Brezhnev “the hard-liner” had figured prominently. In the latter phase, Kosygin “the dove” seemed to have assumed a leadership role, when military and psychological pressure were accompanied by offers of
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talks aimed at resolving the border issue.31 However, whether playing coy or genuinely confused by his offer, the Chinese leadership refused to speak with Kosygin, and insisted that he communicate through regular diplomatic channels.32 Although Kosygin’s bold attempt at promoting “reverberation” with the Chinese had for the time being failed, nonetheless, the diplomacy of Moscow’s China border policy may be dated from this moment.
“Chicken” diplomacy in the aftermath of the conflict: 29 March 1969–10 September 1969 The most likely explanation for the 2 March Chinese provocation is that a calculation by Chinese leaders that, since confrontation with the Soviets was deemed unavoidable, initiating a short but sharp warning blow would deter future Soviet encroachments and force them to reassess their border policy. A high-level defector to the US recounted how the events on Damansky had the effect of an “electric shock” on the Kremlin, with the Politburo “frantically” worrying about how inadequate their superiority in weaponry would be in coping with the assault of “millions of Chinese.”33 What followed was a high-stakes game of “chicken,” with the Soviets trying all ways and means to cajole, exhort, threaten and entice the Chinese back to the negotiating table, and the Chinese holding out for as long as they deemed was advantageous or safe for them to do so. As a follow-up to Kosygin’s telephone call, the Kremlin dispatched a note to Beijing on 29 March proposing a cease-fire and the resumption at the earliest possible date of the stalled 1964 SinoSoviet border talks.34 On 11 April, Radio Moscow proposed that talks re-open in Moscow on 15 April or “in the near future convenient to the Chinese side.”35 Interestingly, the 29 March note was sent to China one day before the opening of the Ninth Chinese Communist Party Congress, and the 11 April proposal on reconvening the border talks was floated while the Congress was still in session. The Soviets under the direction of Kosygin probably felt that Mao Zedong and Lin Biao were basically opposed to the border talks, and sought to boost the influence of moderates like Zhou Enlai by demonstrating flexibility on the conditions under which talks would proceed. It might have been with this objective in mind that the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Pravda, published an article on 3 May charging Lin Biao with personal responsibility for the first Ussuri clash.36 The precise effect of this attempt at Soviet “reverberation” to seek out a negotiating partner on the Chinese side was admittedly difficult, if not impossible, to gauge. Lin Biao had not fallen from power as yet, and the Chinese were sounding as bellicose as ever. However, we have to credit the Soviets for making the effort to attempt a breakthrough in the tense border standoff. On 24 May the Chinese finally sent a long-awaited reply to the Soviet note of 29 March. The reply charged the Soviet Union with sole responsibility for the border incidents and reasserted China’s claims to Zhenbao Island. However, the note also proposed a cease-fire along the “line of actual control” on the AmurUssuri frontier, demanded the annulment in principle of the “unequal treaties,”
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but agreed that these treaties might be taken as the basis for the settlement of border disputes. In view of the fact that the 15 April date proposed by Moscow for the reopening of boundary negotiations had already long passed, the Chinese suggested that another date be agreed upon through diplomatic channels. The Soviet answer to the Chinese reply was to insist on Soviet ownership of Damansky Island and alleged Chinese responsibility for the clashes. Nevertheless, it welcomed Beijing’s agreement in principle to hold border talks and suggested that they be resumed in Moscow within two to three months. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union started to apply even more pressure to force Beijing into renewing the 1964 talks. On 7 July, at the international conference of Communist parties, Brezhnev tried to reach out to moderate elements within the Chinese Communist Party by declaring that the Soviet leadership “did not identify with the declarations and actions of the present Chinese leadership with the aspirations, wishes, and true interests of the CCP and the Chinese people.”37 Brezhnev also made an ominous pitch for his “Asian Collective Security Conference” at the same meeting, leading to Chinese suspicions that it was a ploy to involve India and some Southeast Asian countries in containing China.38 Not to be diplomatically outmaneuvered, China returned fire with a propaganda blitz of its own, showing “documentary” films in its embassies in Asia, Europe and Africa in August and September on the “real” story behind the Soviet “provocation” of the Chinese border. These films bore deliberately provocative titles like Anti-Chinese Atrocities of the New Tsars and Down with the New Tsars. After an intense skirmish on 13 August at the Kazakh-Xinjiang border, the first time fighting had taken place outside Manchuria, the Soviets were sufficiently alarmed to have a Soviet embassy official in Washington sound out an American State Department official on the likely US reaction to a Soviet strike on Chinese nuclear facilities.39 It was later revealed that the Soviet leadership seriously considered a pre-emptive strike at this time, with defense minister Grechko advocating the use of nuclear weapons to “once and for all get rid of the Chinese threat.”40 With no reply yet from Beijing as the three-month deadline set by Moscow passed, a Pravda editorial on 28 August warned China of worldwide conflagration if war were to break out under conditions of modern technology.41 It was under such a dark and foreboding cloud of possible nuclear war that Kosygin, on his way back to Moscow from Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh’s funeral in Hanoi, received word from Beijing that Chinese premier Zhou Enlai would meet with him at Beijing airport to discuss the border crisis. Perhaps after all, the threats and cajoling by the Soviet leadership had managed to alter the preferences of their Chinese counterparts a little, if just enough to move them away from intransigence against any form of meeting.
Resumption of border negotiations: 11 September 1969–14 December 1969 When Kosygin and Zhou finally met at Beijing airport for four hours in the afternoon on 11 September 1969, Zhou had with him vice-premiers Li
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Xiannian and Xie Fuzhi.42 While Li was a key moderate in the CCP Politburo, Xie was a political ally of Mao’s leftist radical wife Jiang Qing, and Zhou must have brought him along as an insurance against possible future accusations of having sold the Chinese position short if the Chinese were to reopen negotiations. In a conversation described as “frank” by both sides,43 Kosygin proposed leaving aside ideological differences and proceeding with the resumption of border talks at deputy ministerial level, reestablishment of ambassadorial relations, by then suspended for three years, and restoration of trade and economic ties.44 Proposals of such importance could not of course be accepted or rejected on the spot by Zhou, but it seemed quite likely that the ensuing deliberations within the Chinese leadership found the Maoist faction at the very least rather reluctant to accommodate the Moscow “revisionists.” The slogans for the 1 October celebrations made public on 16 September struck an uncompromising tone: one exhorted the Chinese populace to prepare for a war with both (American) “imperialism” and (Soviet) “social-imperialism.”45 That the absence of any conciliatory response from Beijing to Kosygin’s proposals deeply annoyed Moscow was suggested by the fact that on the day the slogans came out, the London Evening News published an article by Victor Louis, a Soviet journalist known to have close official contacts in the Kremlin.46 Louis warned China of the Soviet Union’s capability to apply a “surgical strike” or mount an invasion, clearly implying that that such options had been or were still being considered. Perhaps the tactics of applying external pressure adopted by the Soviet leadership, culminating in Louis’ explicit warnings, finally convinced Beijing that the situation was becoming too risky and it should soften its stand toward Moscow. Perhaps the moderates in the CCP leadership eventually managed to persuade Mao to drop his principled opposition to the resumption of concrete border talks with “revisionists.” The Chinese leadership might have concluded that they had succeeded in proving to themselves and the world that the Chinese people had the guts of the revolutionary in challenging both superpowers at the same time. In any event, the Chinese government on 18 September reiterated its constant demands for a cease-fire and mutual disengagement of military forces to status quo ante positions, a proposal it repeated in an official letter to the Soviet authorities on 6 October.47 Having contacted the Soviets, the Chinese announced the following day that both sides had compromised and decided that the boundary negotiations would commence on 19 October in Beijing – a victory for the Chinese position – and that talks would be at the level of vice-foreign minister – a victory for the Soviet position.48 After China’s willingness to begin talks was made known to the Chinese populace, its government had to explain the sudden change from its longstanding policy of first securing Soviet recognition of the “unequal treaties” before border negotiations could commence. To this end, articles by PLA soldiers soon appeared exhorting the general public to guard against “the enemy’s dual tactics of negotiating on one hand, while vigorously attacking on the other,” and pointing out that “imperialism, social imperialism, and all reac-
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tionaries often use peaceful negotiations as a cover to launch surprise and largescale aggressive war … we must face this with high vigilance.”49 We can thus see from this that, even for a country like China, not usually identified as a representative democracy with institutional checks and balances, the governing elite still has to mold domestic opinion in order to legitimize its foreign undertakings, especially if there is a drastic change from established policy. Why were the Soviets so insistent on bringing the Chinese to the negotiating table to resume boundary talks that had already been stalled for five years? Of course there was always the chance that the intermittent clashes occurring along their common border could turn into a full-scale war of uncontrollable passion and devastating magnitude between the armed forces and nuclear arsenals of both sides, the prospect of which no sane person would want to entertain. Many in the international Communist movement were plainly dismayed by the spectacle of two major socialist states engaging in armed conflict and were calling on both sides to settle their differences.50 The North Vietnamese, then at the height of their war against the Americans in South Vietnam, certainly had no wish to see their logistics and material supplies from the Soviet Union, which were transported by rail through China, interrupted. Coming so soon after the widely criticized invasion of Czechoslovakia, Moscow was not having any success in using the border conflict with China to rally Warsaw Pact allies around its defense posture, and the Chinese did not seem to have been cowed by Soviet threats of nuclear annihilation. These are all important reasons why Moscow was so impatient for the Chinese to take their seats at the negotiation table; but perhaps the most important reason was its concern that continued Soviet posturing might impel Mao to seek a rapprochement with the Americans, which was what ultimately transpired. In December 1969, Beijing proposed reopening two sessions of Sino-American ambassadorial talks, which were accordingly held on 20 January and 20 February 1970.51 The Nixon administration seemed also to be reaching out to China with a limited relaxation of trade and travel restrictions to China by US citizens, and strong hints of a phased American military withdrawal from Vietnam and the Far East with the announcement of the “Guam Doctrine.”52 Like the Chinese, Moscow was not above playing a little international politics of its own. To convince Beijing that Moscow was contemplating the question of whether mainland China or Taiwan or both should henceforth represent China in the United Nations, the Soviet leadership dispatched Victor Louis on an “unofficial” visit to Taiwan in October 1968. Unfortunately for the Soviets, but fortunately for the Chinese, Taipei’s Chiang Kai-shek was adamantly opposed to having anything to do with Communists in general, and Chinese Communists in particular. Chiang would rather resign his Republic of China seat at the UN, which he eventually did, than to have his delegation sit there with those whom he had always considered to be Chinese Communist “rebels.” And China knew that the Soviet Union could not fail to support Beijing for the China seat if and when a vote should come up, as the Soviets had always done so. Illustrating the point that an incredible threat or implausible blandishment is never a good
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bargaining tool, Moscow’s use of the United Nations vote to put political and psychological pressure on Beijing failed. It was time for negotiations to begin. The Soviet delegation to the Beijing talks was headed by deputy foreign minister and former ambassador to Beijing, V. V. Kuznetsov, while the Chinese delegation was led by its deputy foreign minister Chiao Kuan-hua.53 The negotiations were carried out in great secrecy, but before long press reports indicated that the talks were stalled over Beijing’s insistence that the Soviets agree to mutual troop withdrawals from the disputed islands,54 a demand the Soviet side was understandably reluctant to concede, for their main bargaining advantage was force concentration in close proximity to the Chinese mainland. Later reports showed that Kuznetsov seemed prepared to offer Damansky/Zhenbao and several hundred islands on the boundary rivers to the Chinese in a plan for border readjustment, but no headway was made because the Chinese insisted that the Soviet Union first acknowledge that it was in possession of vast tracts of land acquired by the czars through “unequal treaties” imposed upon China, which the Soviets refused.55 As such, there was no sign of progress on the border talks when Kuznetsov and his deputy returned to Moscow on 14 December to report to his political bosses on the talks and receive fresh instructions.
Border negotiations stalled: 1970–1986 Kuznetsov returned to Beijing on 2 January 1970,56 and the talks resumed shortly thereafter. The Russians again offered Beijing several hundred islands, including Damansky/Zhenbao, on condition that the Chinese abandon their claim to other parts of Soviet territory, but the Chinese response was to insist that Moscow acknowledge the illegality of all past treaties. Moscow obviously could not agree to this condition without prejudicing Soviet sovereignty over the disputed areas for the future. Since neither side would move from their own position, the talks could achieve no result, and Kuznetsov returned to Moscow “for health reasons” on 10 June 1970. By the time the new Soviet chief negotiator, deputy foreign minister L. F. Ilichev, arrived in Beijing on 15 August, it was clear to both sides that he was there only to keep open a channel of communication, for even if the negotiators could agree on anything at all, the Level II win-sets on either side for ratifying whatever Level I bargains that were arrived at were next to non-existent. In the meantime, in July 1970, Kosygin again tried to put out peace feelers to the Chinese by sending a letter to Zhou containing a proposal to agree on the demarcation of the Soviet-Chinese border from Mongolia to North Korea, and an invitation to the Chinese premier to meet him in the Soviet Union.57 For his efforts, Kosygin received no reply. When the Soviet government proposed an agreement on “no first use” of nuclear weapons and the termination of war propaganda, the Chinese again did not respond.58 By the end of August, even Kosygin and Brezhnev had to admit that the talks were stalemated.59 Furthermore, given Ilichev’s background in ideological training
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and Chiao Kuan-hua’s leftist leanings, little could be expected from the talks’ continuation. Meanwhile, all was not quiet at the front line of the Sino-Soviet territorial dispute. Soviet military expenditure had increased by 33 percent between 1964 and 1969,60 most of it spent on equipping its forces in the Far East. From March 1969 to the summer of 1970, Soviet forces near the frontier were increased from fifteen to thirty-five divisions,61 peaking at a height of forty-three divisions in 1975.62 In addition to long-range and medium-range ballistic missiles, the Soviets deployed hundreds of tactical nuclear missiles and bombers along the entire length of the border.63 As for China, following the launch of the “War Preparedness Campaign,” an elaborate program of defensive military construction had been underway in the border regions in the summer of 1969, and the intake of conscripts to the armed forces was increased substantially.64 By 1970, China had committed sixty-seven divisions to the defense of Manchuria and Inner Mongolia.65 Extensive civil defense measures such as the digging of air raid shelters and evacuation drills were initiated in many parts of China, especially in urban areas, and many defense and related industries were decentralized and transferred to remote locations in Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou and other parts of China’s southwest, far from the Soviet border.66 If the campaign had been conducted for the purpose of “regularizing” the hitherto chaotic atmosphere of the Cultural Revolution by directing the country’s attention and energy to the external threat posed by the “revisionist” Soviet Union, then it had largely succeeded. However, if Lin Biao had used the campaign to boost his own influence as heir-apparent to Mao, then their falling out during the second plenary session of the Ninth Party Congress at Lushan from 23 August to 6 September 1970, could only have had the effect of tempering the war hysteria and war preparedness campaign. By October 1970, the attention of Mao and Zhou had turned to United States’ maneuvering over Chinese representation in the United Nations, American journalist Edgar Snow’s much touted visit to Beijing, and the removal of more trade barriers and travel restrictions between America and China, some of which had been first relaxed in July 1969. When ambassadorial relations between China and the Soviet Union were resumed after four years at the end of 1970, Sino-Soviet ties were still icy, but they were no longer on the brink of war. In January 1971, to break the impasse over the border talks, the Soviet delegation proposed that the two countries sign a “non-aggression treaty” renouncing the threat or use of force against each other. The Chinese rejected this as unnecessary, for they considered the 1950 Sino-Soviet Treaty of Alliance as still being in force.67 The Soviet negotiators were also willing to concede that the disputed Amur and Ussuri river boundaries should run along the thalweg, except for Bolshoi/Heixiazi, an island of 128 square miles lying at the confluence of the two rivers, which the Soviets regarded as of strategic value for the defense of Khabarovsk, the city literally a stone’s throw away from the island (see Figure 4.2).68 Indeed, to bolster Khabarovsk’s claim to Bolshoi, the Khabarovskii
Figure 4.2 The Amur-Ussuri junction
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Krai Party Committee authorized the building of a large farm and dachas on the island.69 The Chinese did not move from their prior position of demanding that both parties maintain the status quo and withdraw armed forces from disputed areas. Given that Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, and the Trans-Siberian railway were all close to the Sino-Soviet border, Soviet strategic concerns seemed to argue against border concessions that would increase the vulnerability of Soviet cities, communications links and military installations.70 There was to be no new proposal or movement on the boundary question during the Brezhnev era, although the ritual of border talks in Beijing continued. However, even these were broken off after fifteen fruitless rounds in May 1978 by the Chinese,71 displeased at the Soviet-inspired coup in Afghanistan the month before, and the conclusion of a friendship and cooperation treaty between Vietnam and the Soviet Union that February, which effectively turned both countries into Communist client states of the USSR. Annual negotiations between PRC and USSR officials on navigation on the boundary rivers had continued uninterrupted since 1951, except for 1975 and 1976, when the talks broke down because the Soviets had insisted that Chinese ships ask them for permission to use the river channel to the east of Heixiazi (Black Bear) Island, or adhere to the river channel to its west. The Chinese refusal to do so was based on their contention that the international boundary runs along the eastern channel, which they regarded to be an arm of the Ussuri, while the Soviets insisted that the western channel was an arm of the Amur, where the proper boundary should be (see Figure 4.2).72 However, the navigational negotiations that resumed in 1977 were soon to be completely overshadowed by Soviet support for the invasion of Cambodia by Vietnam in December 1978, and exploratory talks by both sides to restore state relations were canceled when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. Beijing then insisted that the Soviets fulfill three conditions: withdraw troops from Afghanistan, end support for Vietnam’s occupation of Cambodia, and drastically reduce forces along the Sino-Soviet border, before the Chinese would agree to resume normalization talks. Although Mao had died, and overtures for dialogue were made by Brezhnev’s successor as CPSU secretary-general Yuri Andropov, and Andropov’s successor Konstantin Chernenko, the Chinese held fast to their “three conditions” for normalization, and no progress was made until Mikhail Gorbachev succeeded to the leadership of the Soviet Union in March 1985.
The Sino-Soviet boundary dispute 1962–1986: a look back Although it was not altogether clear at that time, the release on 10 March 1969 of a statement by the Chinese Foreign Ministry would have far-reaching implications for the ultimate resolution of the Amur-Ussuri border between China and the USSR. After reiterating China’s historical claims to the areas that it regarded to have been alienated to czarist Russia after the “unequal treaties” of 1858 and 1860, the Chinese statement went on to say:73
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The Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute According to established principles of international law, in the case of navigable boundary rivers, the central line of the main channel forms the boundary line which determines the ownership of the islands. Chenpao Islands and the nearby Kapotzu and Chilichin Islands are all situated on the Chinese side of the central line of the main channel of the Ussuri River and have always been under Chinese jurisdiction. … During the Sino-Soviet boundary negotiations in 1964, the Soviet side itself could not but admit that these islands are Chinese territory.
It must be pointed out that the thalweg principle, or the fixing of riparian boundaries along the median of a navigable channel, is but one of several techniques sanctioned by international practice, although perhaps it is one that is most widely used because it is seen to be “equitable.” However, one must still be impressed by the fact that a Chinese socialist country saw fit to formulate a concrete and substantive case in international law, no doubt devised through the diplomatic practices of Western “bourgeois” countries, to support their contention in a territorial dispute. While China had earlier resorted in its arguments to moralistic, pseudo-juridical concepts such as “unequal treaties,” distinguished more by emotional appeal than by legal veracity, this was the first time that the Chinese government had made an effort to draw on international law to bolster its claim to a disputed piece of territory. Understandably, the Chinese felt cheated of valuable pieces of real estate by czarist and other imperial European powers in the nineteenth century. Indeed, there is some parallel between the “unequal treaties” argument of the Chinese and the notion of the invalidity of contracts signed under duress or not entered into willingly in Western capitalist countries. However, if the test of the validity of a treaty under international law is one whereby the threat or use of force is absent, then we will likely find that most treaties between states had been entered into under circumstances not usually considered “fair” or “equal.” By concentrating on the near-universal norm of international law, the Chinese posted an easy propaganda victory over the Russians, who then had to explain why their treatment of the border issue was even more discriminatory than the respective practices in the “bourgeois” camp.74 By appearing to champion the status quo position according to international law against the unjustified Soviet challenge, the Chinese largely succeeded in playing to the gallery of Western journalists, diplomats and statesmen. Relying on international law and using the “unequal treaties” position to formulate the border issue also had the effect for the Chinese of concretizing the boundary question and isolating it from the ideological quarrel which formed the background to the islands conflict, so that the aggravation of tension on one issue would not automatically precipitate a clash over the other. Even if the thalweg principle was used by the Chinese for the purpose of scoring propaganda points and nothing more, this was the first indication that the PRC intended to abide by the rhetoric, if not the substance, of international law in boundary negotiations. The Amur-Ussuri boundary question was eventually settled a dozen years later by dividing the rivers between China and Russia
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along the thalweg, after the Chinese publicly renounced all claims based on the supposed “unequal treaties.” Why did the Soviets consistently refuse to recognize the treaties related to the Sino-Soviet boundary as unequal, even though the Chinese were prepared to use these treaties as the basis for settling the boundary question? In the words of the sinologist George Ginsburgs, the Soviets apparently felt they were being asked to gamble for too high a stake – first concede the “illegitimacy” of the conventions creating the present frontiers and thereafter trust that the Chinese would consent to preserve the frontier’s former contours. … [T]he prospect for forfeiting a key down payment did not appeal to the men in the Kremlin, if, having collected this much, the Chinese then reneged on the balance of the contract. By this time, the Soviets would have done irreparable damage to their claim of possession of legal title to the disputed land by admitting that it rested on documents whose validity was suspect and would have found themselves with nothing worthwhile to show in return.75 Ginsburgs added that, “even assuming all went well, public opinion would undoubtedly credit the successful outcome to the moderation and generosity of the Chinese team.”76 In such a situation of “heads you win, tails I lose,” it is hard to blame the Soviets for not wanting to be cast to the mercy of their adversaries at the negotiating table. No country would wish to compromise its national pride, prestige and security by putting itself in the demeaning position of having to obtain charity from another country, least of all a great power like the Soviet Union. The incidents surrounding Damansky/Zhenbao and several islands on the Ussuri and the Amur ostensibly arose as a result of a dispute over whether China or the Soviet Union had ownership of the islands. Recalling the fact that Soviet negotiators to the border talks had on four separate occasions in 1964, 1969, 1970 and 1971 explicitly offered the Chinese the islands which they had claimed, one cannot but be puzzled by the insistence on the part of the Chinese that the Soviets first recognize that the “unequal treaties” signed between czarist Russia and Manchu China were invalid. In fact, Zhou Enlai, in his meeting with Kosygin, said that the Chinese side did not demand that the border treaties be annuled, although he considered them unfair, and that China“recognizes the border which exists in accord with these treaties.”77 However, once Zhou submitted this proposed settlement to Mao, nothing further was heard from it. Why did the Chinese miss four opportunities to recover and establish undisputed claim over a string of islands which they had always insisted were theirs, even on account of the supposed “unequal treaties?” The intense mutual hostility between Mao and Khrushchev; Mao’s feelings that he rather than Krushchev was the logical successor of Stalin to the leadership of the world Communist movement; Khrushchev’s attack on Stalin’s cult of personality and his advocacy of “peaceful coexistence” with the West; Mao’s
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belief in perpetual world revolution and his castigation of the “partial nuclear test-ban treaty” as a “dirty fraud” designed to preserve superpower “nuclear monopoly”;78 and Khrushchev’s failure to support Mao on his prospective Taiwan adventure in 1958 or supply China with a nuclear device as promised – these were all contributory factors to the Sino-Soviet schism and border crisis. However, the most direct explanation of why the Chinese leadership under Mao consistently refused accept the Soviet offer of the disputed islands was simply that, after Mao had tendered the bill for a million square kilometers of land to Khrushchev in 1963, national pride and pretensions to leadership of the Communist camp left Mao little choice but to refuse the small change of several hundred tiny dots of earth in the boundary rivers adding up to no more than a thousand square kilometers. As such, Mao could do no worse than attach conditions to the resolution of the border crisis, conditions that he knew the Soviets would have to reject. We learn the lesson here that strong leadership in the absence of a will to compromise cannot resolve disputes, and may even exacerbate them. Unable to accept the existence of a world order dominated by two “status quo” superpowers, but lacking the “imperialist” capability of overturning it, China under Mao adopted a foreign policy stance of “prestige-maximization.”79 In the sense used by Hans Morgenthau, “prestige-maximization” involved technical assistance to developing countries, arms supplies and moral support to third-world revolutionaries, and arguments on doctrinal purity vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. Accepting from Soviet “revisionists” territory that China already considered its own would be worse than receiving handouts from one’s enemy, a notion entirely unacceptable to official or public opinion in China. In fact, unbeknownst to Mao, the Soviets had relinquished control of Damansky/Zhenbao as early as May 1969, before the Zhou-Kosygin talks. Knowing that the Soviets would never admit to the invalidity of the treaties under which the czars acquired the Far Eastern territories, the Chinese demand that they do so could be interpreted as a desire to demonstrate to one and all that the nature of Russian imperialism had not altered but was simply carried forward to the present as Soviet “socialimperialism,” and that China had been a victim of the aggression of both czars and commissars. Mao apparently figured that the postponement of a border settlement could do no harm as long as retaliation by the Soviets was not of such a scale that the Chinese could not handle alone, or with their new-found American ally. The Sino-Soviet boundary negotiations in the 1960s and 1970s thus constitute a good illustration of the fact that the strategies of Level I negotiators, especially those on the Chinese side, may not necessarily be to win over their opponents, but rather to stall. In this case, Mao had calculated that the benefit of achieving a border agreement with the Soviet Union was far exceeded by the cost to his own political standing and his country’s reputation. The outcome of the 1969 incident was thus a non-cooperative stalemate, based on physical intimidation through military build-up and deliberate avoidance of confrontation, in the sense that the distribution of gains (or losses) took place in a situation where neither war nor peace prevailed.
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Given that the contested islands were little more than mud flats with no intrinsic value or permanent inhabitants to speak of, no material advantage would accrue from triggering a crisis over who should own them. The total obscurity from which after many years the territorial issue had only then emerged confirmed the general impression that it never represented an independent factor in the Sino-Soviet dispute. The purely localized nature of the incidents demonstrated the desire of both Chinese and Soviet authorities to confine the outbursts of violence, if they should occur, to an acceptable minimum. To retain optimal control over the situation, the trial grounds were shifted to a safe distance from the prime site at the junction of the Amur and the Ussuri to a sprinkling of forlorn mud flats farther upstream … A volatile experiment conducted at a doorstep of a major concentration, such as Khabarovsk, entailed excessive risk if a scheduled or ad hoc rehearsal still managed to go awry – while in these sparsely populated stretches of land, neither side had much at stake and so had no reasonable cause to panic, overreact and set in motion a chain of events leading to a full-dress military showdown.80 In other words, confining the trading of quick, small-scale and occasional blows and counterblows to tiny, non-strategic and unpopulated islands was itself a bargaining strategy to keep the business of “border adjustments” strictly compartmentalized as a separate package while firing up the polemics about “unequal treaties” at a doctrinal level. For the purpose of China’s prestige politics and Mao’s ideological polemics, the boundary issue with the Soviet Union must be kept alive but “de-linked.” China as a self-defined great power must file a ritualistic claim to lost territories and rely upon it to secure a symbolic renegotiation of the historically “unequal” border treaties. However, care would be taken by the Chinese to ensure that this live territorial dispute was not exacerbated in any way on the ground so as to trigger an armed conflagration between the two countries. “De-linking” issues, it seems, can be applied as a technique not only for conflict resolution, but short of that, also for conflict minimization. The contested islands thus represented a “salient point,” in the sense employed by Thomas Schelling, to be transgressed by either belligerent party only if it should want to widen the conflagration. Since that was not the case, the dispute over the islands, which meant little in the larger scheme of things, was no longer an issue when both sides agreed to a rapprochement beginning in 1986.
Border negotiations in the Sino-Soviet rapprochement: 28 July 1986–16 May 1991 In January 1983, China suddenly dropped its demand that the Soviet Union acknowledge the nineteenth-century border treaties as “unequal” as a precondition for a general border settlement.81 In July 1985, for the first time since Soviet technical aid and personnel had been withdrawn from China in August 1960, a
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bilateral agreement on technical cooperation was signed between China and the USSR.82 Between 1982 and 1986, China reduced its troop strength from 4 million to 3 million. These gestures encouraged Gorbachev, in a landmark speech at Vladivostok in July 1986, to speak of a new era in Asian and Chinese relations and offer a package of Soviet concessions. He pledged to open the Soviet Far East to trade with the outside world, and more pertinently to Beijing, agreed to withdraw Soviet troops from Mongolia and Afghanistan. Gorbachev further conceded that the riparian boundary between China and the Soviet Union could run along the main navigational channel, and ordered an intergovernmental agreement to be drawn up jointly on this score.83 Propelled by the impetus of Gorbachev’s Vladivostok address, the foreign ministers of China and the Soviet Union agreed to resume border talks the following year, after a nineyear hiatus. The first round of Sino-Soviet talks on border questions was held in February 1987 in Moscow, and as in past boundary negotiations, the government delegations from both sides were once again headed by deputy foreign ministers – Igor A. Rogachev on the Soviet side, and Qian Qichen on the Chinese side.84 Rogachev had been appointed by Gorbachev the year before to replace Mikhail Kapitsa, a hard-line holdout from the Brezhnev era.85 Although the course of the state boundary between the two countries was to be examined along its entire length, work was to begin first on the more contentious and intractable eastern section of the border.86 According to a diplomatic source from the Eastern Bloc, the Chinese were surprised at the attitude of compromise displayed by the Soviets.87 According to Rogachev, the Chinese did not raise the issue of “the three obstacles” to normalization, which might have contributed to the easy atmosphere of the talks.88 The delegates had agreed to alternate the venue of the talks between Moscow and Beijing this time, unlike in the past when the Chinese stipulated that these could only be conducted in the Chinese capital. Accordingly, the second round of border negotiations took place “in a calm and businesslike atmosphere” in Beijing in August 1987, headed again by Rogachev and Qian.89 The talks this time seemed to be restricted to dealing with questions pertaining to the eastern sector of the common border. Both sides agreed to decide the boundary question “on the basis of appropriate treaties governing the present Soviet-Chinese border” and “in accordance with the principle of division along the center of the main shipping channel on navigable rivers, and along the center of the river or its main branch on smaller, non-navigable ones.”90 Agreeing to decide the border issue on the basis of “appropriate” treaties was a clear concession on the part of the Chinese not to question the validity of what they had called the “unequal treaties,” while the Soviets relented by agreeing to adopt the thalweg principle in demarcating the riparian boundary. Given the spirit of compromise, it is not surprising that, by the end of 1987, the two sides had reached comprehensive agreement on the principles that would guide future demarcation of the border. A working group of experts was created in September 1987 at the conclusion of the Beijing meeting, to make
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specific examination of the course of the boundary line along the length of the eastern portion.91 Beginning 17 May 1988 for three months, this group of experts, which included aviators and engineers from the air forces of both countries, completed mapping the border through a joint aerial photographic survey.92 Altogether, three border meetings were held in 1988. When Soviet foreign minister Edward Shevardnadze visited Beijing in February 1989, he announced the reduction from the eastern and western sectors of the SinoSoviet border of 200,000 and 60,000 Soviet troops respectively, and the withdrawal of three quarters of Soviet troops stationed in Mongolia, the remainder to be withdrawn by 1992.93 With two of Beijing’s three conditions for normalization met, the path was cleared for Gorbachev to come to China. Except for Heixiazi Island at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri rivers, the two negotiating teams had reached enough agreement by the spring of 1989 to be able to present their proposal for consideration at the planned Sino-Soviet normalization summit awaiting Gorbachev’s visit to Beijing in May 1989.94 Gorbachev’s visit signified the end of the Sino-Soviet split which had begun some thirty years before, and replaced ideological polemics between the two Communist parties of China and the Soviet Union with the so-called “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence” based on mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-aggression, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual advantage, and peaceful coexistence.95 Party-toparty relations were from then on to be subsumed under and subordinated to state-to-state relations, at least with respect to boundary affairs, to give both sides some measure of stability in the changing Soviet political landscape. As expected, the joint communique issued at the end of the summit endorsed the general rule of locating demarcation lines in the middle of river channels, and charged the two countries’ foreign ministers with holding discussions on border issues.96 The communique also noted Soviet support for China’s position that Taiwan “is part and parcel of the territory of the PRC and is strongly opposed to any attempts to create ‘two Chinas,’ ‘one China and one Taiwan,’ or an ‘independent Taiwan’,”97 thereby foreclosing the possibility of Moscow succumbing to any financial inducements from, and extending any diplomatic feelers to, Taipei. After the 1989 summit was over, the foreign ministers of both sides conducted new rounds of intensified negotiations on the border dispute. The upgrading of the border talks from the level of deputy foreign minister to foreign minister demonstrated that the boundary negotiations were nearing fruition. According to Soviet sinologist Vladimir Myasnikov, deputy director of the Far East Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, “bilateral delegations and working groups engaged in negotiations of the border issue have been working in a very good environment, incomparable to those of the 1960s, 1970s, and even the first half of the 1980s.”98 In response to Gorbachev’s call for total demilitarization of the Sino-Soviet border, and to create a friendly atmosphere for the continuation of the border talks, China and the Soviet Union started talks in February 1990 on the reduction of troops massed at their common border. The Soviets at the end
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of 1990 retrenched 200,000 troops in the eastern sector consisting of twelve army divisions, eleven air force regiments, and sixteen warships of the Soviet Pacific fleet, and ordered the destruction of all 436 medium- and short-range nuclear guided missiles deployed in the Far East theater.99 The mutual desire to maintain a close working relationship was reinforced by the quick and decisive victory of American and allied forces in the Gulf War in early 1991, which served to bond Chinese and Soviets together to some degree, as both shared the apprehension that the United States might seek to translate that achievement into what they perceived to be world hegemony. After two years of secretive but obviously productive meetings to finalize details, the leaders of both Chinese and Soviet teams initialed a boundary agreement on 16 May 1991, when Chinese Communist Party secretary-general Jiang Zemin paid an official visit to Moscow. Except for Heixiazi Island and an isolated 55-kilometer stretch in the mountainous Altai region between Mongolia and Kazakhstan, this boundary accord settled 98 percent of the 7,400 kilometers-long common border, including the entire eastern sector from the headwaters of the Argun River to the mouth of the Tumen River. The agreement thus confirmed that the troublesome island of Damansky/Zhenbao and the rest of the disputed islands in the Ussuri and the Amur were from then on uncontestable Chinese property.100 The agreement also allowed the free passage of all types of ships from both countries on the boundary rivers,101 including the Tumenjiang/Tumangan all the way to the sea,102 which would in future years lead to charges by the Russians of smuggling and over-fishing by Chinese fishermen. The 1991 Sino-Soviet border agreement soon faced opposition from local authorities and military leaders on both sides. Vitaly Churkin, head of the Soviet Foreign Ministry’s Information Administration, chided articles in regional newspapers and magazines on the need to defend “certain” territories, calling the question “an impetuous act and illogical,” since “Zhenbao” island “had already been under China’s control for twenty years.”103 Since the Soviet breakup, Russian Far Eastern government leaders like Khabarovsk Krai governor Viktor Ishaev and Primorsky Krai governor Evgeniy Nazdratenko have issued protests because of concern over the loss of historical grazing lands and fishing areas with the proposed transfer of Damansky and other islands to China as a result of the border accord.104 Many Russian Far Easterners were displeased that concessions were made at the national level on issues which affect their lives without the consultation, much less agreement, of regional and local leaders. As for some Chinese, it was felt that since Moscow had from 1964 seemed prepared to settle the riparian boundary question along the thalweg and prepared to concede the disputed islands, China in effect gained nothing in exchange for giving up claims to the territories lost by the treaties of Aigun and Beijing to Russia. They felt that China should have at least asked for a few miles of land along the mouth of the Tumen to regain access to the Sea of Japan (see Figure 4.1). Although opposition to the agreement was noisy, especially on the Soviet side, it was scattered, unorganized, and disregarded by Moscow. Even then, due to the domestic political
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chaos of the Soviet Union and its collapse, the treaty needed the solid support of both heads of state to push it through the Russian parliament, which succeeded to all treaty obligations incurred by the former Soviet Union, and the Chinese National People’s Congress, for ratification in February 1992.105
Ratification and demarcation: persistence amidst adversity Now that the boundary treaty had come into effect, the process of demarcating the eastern sector of the border had to begin. The last demarcation work had been carried out by Manchu China and czarist Russia in July 1886, and many border markers had long since disappeared into the marshes and swamps.106 The official go-ahead for the new bilateral demarcation commission to break ground was given by Jiang Zemin and Boris Yeltsin, when Yeltsin paid his first visit to China as Russian president in December 1992. Yeltsin later told Li Peng, premier of China’s State Council, during the latter’s visit to Moscow in June 1995, that demarcation work would be completed no later than 1997.107 According to Article 86 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, promulgated on 12 December 1993, the president of Russia shall supervise the execution of foreign policy, conduct negotiations and sign international treaties on behalf of the Russian Federation. In fact, rival ministries, the military apparatus, the legislature, the personal emissaries of the president and the premier, and the increasingly powerful and autonomous regional governors, all conducted their own China policies according to their own political, security and economic interests. In February 1995, Russian deputy foreign minister Aleksandr Panov complained to the major Russian daily Izvestia that the Russian side had fallen behind schedule in field operations to erect markers at the Sino-Russian border, expressing fear that this would “explode” Russia’s relations with China.108 Panov’s fears might have been exaggerated, but he was certainly expressing a legitimate concern, shared by his president and the Moscow establishment, which was that the hard-fought border agreement could flounder on the ground, sabotaged by the obstructionist actions of recalcitrant Far Eastern political bosses championing narrow regional interests over the economic and security well-being of the entire Russian Federation. Demarcations of the border were to be completed in 1997, but operations in the Maritime Territory had been blocked by its governor, Yevgeny Nazdratenko, who had gained an ally in this matter in the deputy speaker of the Council of Federation, Anatoly Dolgolaptev.109 When Dogolaptev complained that the border settlement was “unfair” and Nazdratenko threatened to denounce the entire border agreement before the state Duma, Russia’s foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev firmly dissuaded the governor from his actions by reiterating that the border agreement would be implemented “no matter what.”110 China, in the meantime, went about demarcating its own side of the border and did not express any official opinion on the argument between the Russian Foreign Ministry and Governor Nazdratenko and his allies both in the Far East and in
84 The Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute the Duma. Since Far Eastern Russians obviously have trouble viewing their Chinese neighbor as a friend, the Chinese side must have recognized that pressure from them would only endanger the implementation of the agreement, and so wisely kept quiet. In contrast with the troubled eastern sector, the demarcation at the Altai border in the west proved mostly to be a technical problem, which was quickly settled with the initialing of an agreement at a summit meeting in Moscow between Jiang and Yeltsin in September 1994.111 Since the opening of the Sino-Russian border in 1988, trade and personal contacts between the two countries have increased tremendously. Large numbers of Chinese went to the Russian Far East (RFE) in search of jobs and opportunities to buy and sell. The numbers of Chinese workers in the RFE are not well known because no systematic efforts have been made to compile such information by Beijing, Moscow or the regional authorities. In 1993, according to estimates made by the Association of Siberian and Far East Russian Territories, about one million Chinese were living along the Chinese-Russian border and in Siberian cities, and more than 200,000 were living in the RFE alone.112 The Russian government estimated that there were 150,000 Chinese in the RFE at that time.113 A senior researcher at the Economic Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Khabarovsk documented 30,000 foreign workers living in the three territories of Amur, Khabarovsk and Primorye, and employed mainly in jobs requiring unskilled or semi-skilled manual labor such as timber-cutting, farming, construction and light manufacturing, but these foreign workers include both Chinese and North Koreans.114 Even though most Chinese entered the country legally, their visible presence caused many Russian Far Easterners to fear being numerically overwhelmed through sheer demographic pressure. In the mid-1990s, Russia’s population east of Lake Baikal was under 7 million, while China’s three northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning contained 94 million people.115 The Russians’ atavistic fear that a “yellow peril” could overwhelm them just as the Mongols had done in the thirteenth century often manifested itself as outright racism. Russians in the Far East have criticized itinerant Chinese merchants for selling them adulterated alcohol, poisoned meat and shoddy manufactures, and accused Chinese visitors of everything “from common, petty thievery to murders, rapes and violent robberies.”116 To control and monitor the influx of Chinese immigration, Russia in January 1994 introduced new travel restrictions by replacing the regular passport issued by the Chinese for travel in Russia with a Russian visa, which required an invitation from a Russian source not easily arranged.117 Despite the lack of hard currency on the Russian side, and complaints about the quality of imports from the Chinese, the border trade accounted for $350 million in 1988, one year after the border trade was officially resumed, $700 million in 1989, and almost $1.7 billion in 1990.118 Bilateral trade between Russia and China reached $4 billion in 1991, $5 billion in 1992, $7.7 billion in 1993, and $10 billion in 1994, of which border trade constituted $2.95 billion, $6.16 billion and $9 billion in 1992, 1993 and 1994 respectively.119 Although in
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1993 China became Russia’s second largest trading partner after Germany, with the new visa system in place, a marked decline in overall Russian-Chinese trade was registered. Comparing the first quarter of 1994 over the same period of the previous year, Heilongjiang’s trade dropped by almost 45 percent,120 while at the same time, the trade volume between Amur Oblast and China fell by almost 80 percent.121 Still, Russian-Chinese trade went from $5.46 billion in 1995 to $6.84 billion in 1996.122 Russia had always maintained a healthy balance of trade against China, through its exports of computer equipment, electronics, and especially weaponry, in the form of fighter aircraft, surface-to-air missiles, and interceptors.123 President Yeltsin had enthusiastically commented at the April 1996 Beijing summit on the desirability of bilateral trade reaching $20 billion in the year 2000.124 Although trade between Russia and China eventually came to less than $12 billion in 2000,125 it was likely the expectation of economic gains, more than any other, which made Moscow so keen to overrule the Russian Far Eastern authorities in their efforts to obstruct border demarcation efforts. Opposition to transferring any land to China had become a mark of nationalism in Vladivostok and Khabarovsk, and a test of credibility for local politicians. Governor Ishaev of Khabarovsk Krai even went so far as to speak against navigation rights already granted to Chinese ships to sail past Khabarovsk from the Ussuri into the Amur, charging that so doing “creates border incidents.”126 To advance the border demarcation work, President Yeltsin had to dispatch a letter to the residents of Primorski Krai to assure them that “by completing this work, we will fulfill the international responsibilities of our country, in this fully taking into account both all-Russian interests and the interests of the residents of the region.”127 The boisterous Yevgeniy Nazdratenko was appointed governor of Primorski Krai by President Yeltsin in May 1993, at a time when Yeltsin was attempting to gain support from the local politicians in his struggle with the Russian parliament. Up till 1993, Yeltsin had attempted to balance the need to implement his privatization policy at the local level with efforts to gain the backing of regional leaders against the Communist opposition within the Congress of People’s Deputies at the national level. At the same time, local leaders used this dependence in their attempts to extract more autonomy in their political and economic decision-making at the local level. The local authorities in the Far East wanted to increase the pace of privatization and decentralization for the purpose of gaining control over foreign trade, customs revenue, and joint ventures involving foreign firms, a move hotly disputed by the center.128 However, the center was expected to subsidize energy costs, which were kept low by the local governor to win popularity.129 The economies of the territories and provinces bordering China are weak, primarily based on fish and lumber. The region was, in fact, subsidized by the rest of the USSR up until its last years, and consumed 50 percent more output than it produced.130 Insufficient subsidies meant energy outages, electrical suppliers in debt, wage payment delays for coal miners, strikes and unemployment. As such, the huge drop in federal financial allocations to the regions with the collapse of the Soviet Union created fertile ground for the rise
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of localism. Articulating the loudest about Far Eastern grievances, Nazdratenko then decided that the best way to strengthen his position against his local rivals and the center would be to play the role of a strong leader in the MoscowVladivostok contest by opposing furiously the transfer of border areas to China.131 The other regional barons were not slow in following his logic. In March 1995, the governors of Primorye, Khabarovsk, Amur and Sakhalin indicated that they would not respect the terms of the agreement to transfer borderlands to China, and threatened to call a referendum to decide the territorial issue.132 Although this proposed referendum did not take place, it should be recalled that every deputy to the regional Maritime Krai Duma (legislature) voted against the 1991 agreement to transfer land to the Chinese.133 Responding to newspaper reports of illegal border crossings and smuggling from the Chinese side into Amur province and the territories of Khabarovsk and Primorye, where “hordes of Chinese rushed to develop virgin or long-fallow land,” Russian defense minister Pavel Grachev urged the Russian Federation’s Federal Border Service to be vigilant, expressing the common fear of Far Easterners that “persons of Chinese nationality are trying to conquer the Far East by peaceful means.”134 The deputy chief of the Federal Border Service also complained of border violations, illegal fishing on the Russian bank of the boundary rivers, and Chinese tourists overstaying their visa in Russia.135 The ownership status of Heixiazi/Bolshoi Island had yet to be resolved, and nine posts around the SinoRussian border with North Korea were then yet to be demarcated. On 17 October 1995, Russian and Chinese negotiators acknowledged their failure to resolve the dispute over Heixiazi/Bolshoi, and decided to leave to “future generations” the final disposition of this island.136 Leaving boundary discussions for “future generations” was, of course, the original formula proposed by Deng Xiaoping in 1978 as a “no-solution” solution to the Diaoyudao/Senkaku dispute. One possible scenario for the resolution of the dispute over Heixiazi would be for China to agree to demilitarize the island before administrative control is handed over from the Russians to the Chinese. Alternatively, the island can be divided along a narrow stream which runs the entire breadth of the island northsouth in the middle, with China claiming possession over the western half and Russia taking control of the eastern half, which lies adjacent to Khabarovsk. Another solution may be for China to recognize Russian ownership over the entire island in exchange for the right to dredge the Tumen and control the right of navigation on the river all the way to the sea. However, the last option may be the hardest to achieve, for even if an accord could be reached to that effect, it would be difficult for both Russian and Chinese central governments to implement it, for the regional Khabarovsk and Primorye authorities run Heixiazi and Tumen respectively, and there are good reasons to expect them to form a common front against what they would see as careless attention to, if not outright betrayal of, the economic and military security of the Russian Far Eastern territories by Moscow. Even the prospect of transferring just 1,600 hectares of land near the mouth of the Tumen river became controversial, as Russians prepared for their presi-
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dential election in June 1996, in which incumbent president Boris Yeltsin, the main driving force behind the border agreement, faced a serious challenge from nationalist forces led by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and the resurgent Communists headed by Gennady Zyuganov, neither of whom were sympathetic to territorial concessions. In a television interview in late 1993, Zhirinovsky mentioned the territorial transfer in the Russian Far East as part of a list of territorial demands by countries who had wanted to divided up and “humiliate” Russia.137 Earlier, the Russian nationalist had claimed that China was “occupying” the Russian Far East “through immigration and is preparing for a military invasion.”138 Zhirinovsky might have lost the election to Yeltsin, but he succeeded in capturing a majority of the Far Eastern vote. Even a Yeltsin supporter like Sergei Belyayev, leader of the “Russia is Our Home” faction in the Duma, hoped to make political capital out of the territorial issue by declaring that he considered the border agreement solely to the advantage of China and therefore “unacceptable.”139 In response to Yeltsin’s reiteration of his government’s intention to observe the 1991 border agreement “strictly and to the letter,” a member of the demarcation committee, Major General Voktor Rozov, resigned from the committee, saying he could not supervise measures that would damage Russian security by giving China strategic access to the sea.140 The United Nations Development Program began promoting the idea of a Tumen River Economic Development Area with the participation of China, Russia, Japan and North and South Korea in 1991, and China launched the Hunchun Border Economic Cooperation Zone in 1992.141 Since then, local inhabitants of the Russian Far East have shared Rozov’s fears that China would develop a free economic zone with a large port, which means that it would stop using Russian seaports like Vladivostok or Nakodha for transit. I. P. Lebedinets, chairman of the Maritime Krai Duma, expressed his worry that the Chinese would follow up their construction of a port at the mouth of the Tumen with a naval base.142 A September 1993 article in a Russian magazine warned that the “handover of Russian land to China” occurring as part of the demarcation process “is merely the first step on the path of China’s further territorial claims against Russia.”143 Some Russian Far Easterners also consider it nothing short of sacrilege to abandon land containing the remains of hundreds of soldiers who fought for Russia against a Japanese detachment that probed the border around Lake Khasan in 1938 (see Figure 4.1).144 To prevent the placing of the last nine posts, the chief of the Ussurisk Cossacks, Vitali Poluyanov, vowed to send a team of his warriors to the Chinese border, to chain themselves to the border posts if necessary to stop demarcation efforts by both Russian and Chinese sides.145 Aside from such dramatics, the Cossacks had decided to set up a joint-stock company known as the “Cossack Khasan” to encourage settlers to build settlements, farm the land, and protect the state borders from violators, that is, the Chinese.146 Cossacks had been the first Russians to settle in the Far East, so their sentiments were perhaps understandable. Then a strange thing happened. As late as May 1995, Governor Nadzratenko of the Maritime Territory was bellowing that he would resign “if even one meter
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of Primorye land were given to China.”147 Then the governor flew to Moscow in early 1996 to meet with Yeltsin, where he secured the president’s order to remit to Primorye Krai emergency credits guaranteed by the finance ministry and partial settlement of budgetary debts to the territory of 1,270 billion rubles.148 More importantly, Nazdratenko had himself selected as the official proxy of Boris Yeltsin in Primorye, which meant that Nazdratenko had pledged his support to Yeltsin in the Russian presidential election of June and July 1996. When Yeltsin issued a decree on 11 April 1996 reconfirming his commitment to the 1997 timetable for the demarcation works, ahead of his visit to Beijing on 24 April, the governor first claimed that he had failed to convince the president to delay final demarcation of the border, then later claimed that he had never asked for concessions on the border demarcation.149 As to his resignation threat, Nazdratenko argued that, while before he was answerable only to the president who appointed him, after his election to the governorship in December 1995, he could not be so irresponsible as to “make an ostentatious point by resigning.”150 The governor then accompanied Yeltsin to China, where he did not raise the boundary issue even once. Nazdratenko’s insubordination thus reflects less of a desire to create difficulties for Sino-Russian relationship in the Far East than a broader domestic struggle for power and money within the milieu of post-Soviet Russian “clientalist capitalism and nomenklatura democracy.” Nazdratenko’s subordination, on the other hand, reflects satisfaction with the “side-payment” that he and his government received from Yeltsin in exchange for quietening his opposition to the boundary agreement. The border demarcation was finally completed in November 1997, when President Yeltsin issued a joint statement with his Chinese counterpart to that effect on yet another visit to China.151
Findings and conclusions Why was it possible for a claimant country like Russia to forgo territory that, only a few years before, it was prepared to go to war to retain? Certainly, there could not have been movement on the border issue in the aftermath of the SinoSoviet schism and the enunciation of the “Brezhnev Doctrine” following the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in the 1960s, when Beijing was in the grip of a pathological megalomaniac and its xenophobic Cultural Revolution and preparing for nuclear war with Moscow after the Zhenbao/Damansky conflict. There could also not have been any boundary negotiations in the 1970s and early 1980s, when Moscow added more than a quarter of a million troops in the Far East in response to warming relations between China and the United States, supported the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, and invaded Afghanistan. What changed? The macro-climate in international politics, principally resulting from Gorbachev’s program to restructure a near-bankrupt Soviet economy, and defuse military tensions with its neighbors and the West, increased the Soviet win-set for border negotiations. The waning years of the Soviet Union were characterized by budget deficits, price increases, falling production, and chaotic property rights.152 A resolution of the border problem in the Far East would
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enable Moscow to reduce its expensive military presence there while also encouraging the development of local resources by promoting trade and investment from the countries of East Asia into what was hitherto a heavily subsidized region. Russia after the Soviet collapse also wanted to do everything it could to entice the Chinese into purchasing Russian weaponry, in order to keep its armament factories open. Obviously, a Soviet Union that is more dependent on trade with countries outside its own Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) economic bloc will rate the cost of non-agreement on issues of boundary, trade and security with its biggest neighbor higher than when it was relatively economically self-sufficient. Meanwhile, combating inflation and ostracized by the rest of the world after the Tiananmen Square incident, Beijing looked to a speedy resolution of one of its major border disputes to reduce Russian mistrust and suspicion, boost cross-border trade, and create a foreign policy success to forestall possible post-Soviet Russian overtures to the Taiwanese. In fact, the economic relationship is a good barometer of the political climate and boundary difficulties between the two countries (Figure 4.3 and Table 4.1).153 From a base of 522 million rubles in 1950, trade between the PRC and the USSR grew swiftly, reaching a peak of 1,849 million rubles in 1959. From 1952 to 1959, some half of China’s foreign trade was with the Soviet Union. From 1960, when the Soviet government withdrew all its technicians from China, trade began to decline precipitously, to reach its lowest level of 42 million rubles in 1970, in the aftermath of the Zhenbao/Damansky crisis. Afterward the trade figures showed a slight increasing trend, reaching 317 million rubles in 1980. Meanwhile, the 1969–1978 series of border talks had begun and ended. As a result of a partial trade embargo enacted by the PRC to punish the Soviets for invading Afghanistan, mutual trade again fell to 177 million rubles in 1981. However, it increased again from the following year onward, until it surpassed the previous high in 1988, soon after cross-border talks reopened. Trade-dependency of an economy does seem to vary proportionately with the cost of non-agreements and the size of bargaining win-sets, although admittedly, the willingness to revive negotiations and resume trade both have politics as a common denominator. It might have seemed as though China had “gained” Damansky/Zhenbao and 600 other islands at the expense of Russian “losses.” However, we should note that settling the riparian boundary according to the thalweg principle only meant that Russia had resolved a border dispute by adhering to widely accepted international law, and that, in exchange, China announced openly that she had abandoned all territorial claims to the Russian Far East, although it was territory which she had little opportunity to recapture anyway. Aside from domestic difficulties and the threat of American dominance faced by both states at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s, which drew them closer together, it must not be overlooked that they never fought a war against one another, although March 1969 probably had the perverse effect of making them realize how easily they could have started one. Once Gorbachev decided to apply “reverberation” on the Chinese to achieve “synergistic linkages,” he could count on a reservoir
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Figure 4.3 Sino-Soviet trade, 1950–1989
of goodwill dating back to the 1950s, when the two countries were ideological comrades and the Soviet Union rendered much technical aid to their Chinese brethren in exchange for ideological support. Aside from feelings of past friendship, the fact that all boundary negotiations were conducted away from public scrutiny, or even knowledge, until the day they were announced upon conclusion, helped to lessen public attention to the tradeoffs and possible concessions. Measures taken by both sides to keep fishermen and herb-gatherers from the disputed islands after the Zhenbao/Damansky incident also prevented local interests which might have opposed the border settlements from organizing, or at least not fast enough to obstruct the border talks. The fact that there are no territorial seas, much less
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Table 4.1 Sino-Soviet trade volume 1950–1989 (millions of rubles) Year
Trade volume
1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989
521.58 727.45 867.48 1062.31 1204.01 1247.41 1347.66 1154.12 1363.70 1849.40 1498.70 826.90 647.80 540.20 404.50 375.50 286.60 96.30 86.40 51.10 41.90 138.70 n.a. 195.75 213.90 200.60 314.40 248.80 338.70 347.90 316.60 176.80 n.a. 562.50 864.89 1598.64 1796.03 1621.35 1977.98 2517.85
Source: For 1950–1955, G. Grause, History of Economic Relations Between Russia and China, trans. M. Roublev (Jerusalem: Israel Program for Scientific Translation, 1966), p. 284. For 1956–1971, The USSR National Economic Yearbook. For 1972–1973, Facts On File Yearbook. For 1974–1982, Soviet Foreign Trade Yearbook. For 1983–1989, China’s Custom Statistics.
200-mile radius “exclusive economic zones,” to claim around these riparian islands certainly expedited the settlements, once a friendly atmosphere prevailed between the two states. However, this in no way meant that the
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border settlements went unchallenged. Having long perceived that Moscow had been siphoning off natural resources from the region, residents of the Russian Far East then felt that the Russian central government was leaving them to the mercy of Chinese illegal immigrants, profiteering traders, laborers, spies, poachers, bootleggers and drug-traffickers. Although the governor and the legislature of the Primorye Krai (Maritime Province) rejected the border agreement as compromising to their territory’s sovereignty, this objection came after the fact, and the introduction of a visa to regulate Chinese visitors took much of the wind out of his nationalist sails. The anti-agreement position of the governor, local politicians, and nationalists like the self-styled “Ussuri Cossacks” was also undercut when Beijing suggested both sides withdraw troops and armaments 100 kilometers from the common border, Moscow transferred all border posts back to central control, and the Russia’s president and foreign minister personally reassured their Chinese counterparts that all border markings would be put in place and the transfer of islands completed. In the Chinese case, in the 1987–1991 stage of the boundary negotiations, both state and society were “uniformly” in favor of the agreement, for they stood to gain all they had asked for in exchange for giving up virtually nothing. In fact, Heilongjiang was so enthusiastic about promoting border trade with the RFE in the early 1990s that, in response to Russian complaints of Chinese illegal immigration and the smuggling of drugs and contraband goods, the Chinese central government had criticized the provinces’ leaders for laxity in administering border trade properly.154 Preferences within the Russian federation were clearly divided between Moscow, which favored the agreement and would seek all ways and means to apply it, and the RFE inhabitants and authorities, who wanted to scuttle it for being detrimental to their own interests. Unfortunately for the region, Moscow was much stronger politically, economically and militarily, and its gains would be more than balanced by the region’s losses, and this allowed the Russian central government to reach a deal with the Chinese over the heads of its provincial bosses. It should not be forgotten that monetary transfers from Moscow to the region constituted a blatant but attractive form of side-payment to the cash-strapped regional leadership to induce them to compromise on the boundary and other issues important to the center. Although pressure groups within Russia did adopt a hard-line attitude against territorial transfers to the Chinese in defense of what they defined as the “national interest,” Yeltsin’s support for negotiations and synergistic linkages between the two states established in expectation of joint gains was strong enough in this case to isolate and override potentially disruptive influences against implementation of the negotiated agreement. From the time hostilities between Chinese civilians and Soviet border guards were first reported in 1967 until Gorbachev’s Vladivostok speech in 1986, the top leaders of both China and the Soviet Union were in firm control of their respective domestic political scene. They did not yet have to manage rising centrifugal forces or a gathering populist discourse. Neither set of leaders saw any need to engage in diplomatic negotiations with each other to
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construct or affirm domestic political support, nor were Soviet leaders like Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko, or Chinese leaders like Mao and Deng, under pressure to accommodate the domestic political needs of the other. They saw no need to confront each other with anything more than polemics after 1969, but also felt no pressure to compromise. In terms of distribution of gains, the outcome of the Damansky/Zhenbao incident was a non-cooperative stalemate, based on physical intimidation through a matching military build-up of manpower, conventional arms and nuclear weapons. In fact, all pretenses at engaging in boundary discussions ceased in 1978 when the Soviet Union turned its attention to providing material and moral support to pro-Soviet regimes in Vietnam, Afghanistan, South Yemen, Ethiopia, Angola and Mozambique, and the Chinese were kept busy trying to recover from the devastating chaos of the Cultural Revolution by experimenting with economic reforms. It was only in 1987, 1988 and the first half of 1989 that both Mikhail Gorbachev and Zhao Ziyang tried to emulate each other in promoting domestic price reforms and relaxation of political controls by restarting border trade and boundary negotiations. Leaders’ strategies of domestic reconfiguration may critically affect their assessments of the cost and benefits of synergistic linkages. The Soviet economy was in bad shape by the mid-1980s. Total factor productivity had been decreasing for the last ten years. In the first term and the first half of the second term of his presidency, US president Ronald Reagan was determined to engage the Soviet Union directly in a conventional and nuclear arms race, and indirectly by supporting covert resistance against Soviet-inspired Marxist-Leninist regimes in Afghanistan and other parts of the Third World. This put Moscow in the difficult position of having to retrench its military forces in order to avoid imposing more sacrifice on its Soviet consumers.155 Once such a decision was taken, it was only natural for the Gorbachev government to desire a settlement of outstanding boundary issues in order to boost trade, especially in a region like the Russian Far East, which depended so much on economic subsidies from the center. Thus the Soviet leadership under Gorbachev identified tangible benefits from a security agreement that would permit economic restructuring (perestroika) and its prerequisite of political openness (glasnost) to take place. Meanwhile, the sudden relaxation of controlled prices for basic commodities led to spiraling inflation in China, and Zhao was blamed by Deng for the recession which followed the equally sudden re-imposition of price controls. To shore up his faltering political standing, Zhao and his associates attempted to use the reforms inspired by Gorbachev to legitimize and rationalize China’s own reform program, by suggesting the inevitability and irreversibility of China’s market, bureaucratic and legal reforms. Furthermore, as the Cold War wound down, Beijing’s “pivot position” since the early 1970s as the “strategic balancer” on the side of Washington against Moscow was no longer of much value to the United States. China was facing an increasingly unfriendly world,156 especially after the “Tiananmen Massacre” and the collapse of Communism worldwide, and sought a speedy resolution to historical differences with its northern neighbor.
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Having witnessed how Mao’s intransigent behavior doomed all earlier border talks with the Soviet Union, and how even Zhou Enlai apparently spewed polemics at Kosygin during their Beijing airport meeting by vowing to continue the ideological struggle against the Communist Party of the Soviet Union for the next ten thousand years,157 the role of leadership in international negotiations can never be gainsaid. At least in the first two years after the Zhenbao/Damansky conflicts of March 1969, the general feeling of the Soviet leadership seemed to be that Beijing was keen to maintain the border issue to provoke the Soviet Union for its own “anti-Soviet and chauvinistic goals.”158 With class warfare having destroyed the fabric of Chinese society and amidst the chaotic violence of the Cultural Revolution, Mao looked to an old formula for regime unity – the struggle against imperialism. The political purpose of the military conflicts of 1969 and the extended boundary altercations before and after was the mobilization of the Party and the Chinese people on his terms to divert public attention from domestic troubles to external threats.159 Conversely, once Gorbachev decided to mend ties and settle the boundary dispute between China and the Soviet Union, he set about creating a constituency for negotiation with China by expanding the win-set of the Chinese leadership. While Gorbachev’s Vladivostok speech in July 1986, in which he conceded the thalweg principle in drawing the riverine section of the Sino-Soviet boundary, provided the Chinese with sufficient political space (face) to reopen border negotiations, his visit to Beijing in May 1989 was, in the words of political scientist Janice Gross Stein, a victory for “suasive reverberation,”160 or in plain speech, public diplomacy. Gorbachev’s leadership on both counts succeeded in normalizing Sino-Soviet relations by personally breaking the deadlock over the border question, shaking Chinese assumptions and expectations that any Soviet leader since Khrushchev must be unrelentingly hostile toward their country, demonstrating the irreversibility of his goodwill by his public pronouncements and concrete actions, and employing his considerable charismatic charm and image of honesty to create or mobilize public opinion in China toward his visit to that country. Given the high visibility of the Chinese reform movement, Gorbachev probably hoped that a high-profile visit there would provide him with a boost to the momentum of his reforms back home. From this aspect, the result of his visit to China was uncertain. On the other hand, Gorbachev’s “suasive reverberation” struck such a chord with Chinese students, intellectuals and journalists that after the Tiananmen incident and the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, Deng referred to the corrosive effects of Gorbachev’s reform policies as constituting “a great danger from the north” to China,161 against which China’s Communist leadership must be vigilant. Insofar as threats to security in a deteriorating political economy constrain domestic reconfiguration, a boundary agreement that reduces uncertainties about security in a potentially hostile environment will only be more welcomed now than in the past. In other words, shrinking domestic-economic and foreignsecurity win-sets forced the leaders of both countries to seek agreement on the basis of positions (options, preferences) that their predecessors had the luxury of
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rejecting. Because leaders saw the border issue as “synergistically” linked, any agreement that was reached at one (inter-state) table had consequences for the other (intra-state) table. If there was no settlement of the boundary question, then military tension between the two countries could not be lowered, as troop withdrawals from the border regions could not be carried out, nor could profitable cross-border trading take place, since the border would remain more or less impassable. On the other hand, if there were no moves to withdraw troops or reopen the border, then there could have been no question of achieving a boundary agreement. Domestic imperatives, in this case by pressuring the two sets of leaders toward more accommodating positions, worked to favor Level I agreement rather than hinder it, at least with regard to the boundary question and the related issue of encouraging cross-border trade. Besides, achieving agreement on the long-running border dispute would crown a comprehensive and final settlement of the equally long-running split in the socialist bloc. There would be no better way to dramatize the reconciliation of two Communist giants, not to mention distract attention from the domestic unpopularity of both Gorbachev and Zhao, than to have a summit meeting take place between the then leaders of the Soviet Union and China. With anti-Sovietism no longer the main, or even major, ingredient in the foreign policy orientation of the Chinese leadership since then, both sides could finally proceed to resolve the border territorial issue amicably, or set it aside for the time being. “Synergy” as an expectation of joint gains through cooperation from negotiations should, therefore, not be seen as being derived from an “additive” game, with separate dynamics driving each level of the game independently, or with the causal force coming out of one level of the game to drive the other level. Rather, “synergy” should be perceived of as an “interactive” game, with intertwining dynamics, where bargaining advantages (or setbacks) are mutually reinforcing, as is demonstrated in this analysis. This is the understanding on which rests the basis of two-level game analyses, and this case of Sino-Russian boundary dispute illustrates this aspect of the framework very well.
5
The McMahon Line/ Aksai Chin dispute
Introduction At the heart of relations between China and India for the last four decades lies the boundary dispute that brought forth tension and hostility and ultimately led both countries to war in 1962. The Sino-Indian boundary question has historical roots involving aspects of international law as part of British imperial frontier policy in India in the last century, which is an interesting field of inquiry in itself. However, we will make reference to history and law only if they enlighten our quest to explain why the negotiating process to fix the boundary between the two countries failed, but curiously led to fruitful confidence-building security measures and the near-dissipation of border tension in the last decade. Compared to the previous two cases, then, the territorial dispute between China and India may be regarded neither as a complete failure or a resounding success; it is somewhere in between, which like the other cases, makes it an excellent study of the goals and constraints of China’s policy, strategy, and behavior toward the resolution of territorial disputes.
Sino-Indian relations before March 1959 The government that took power in India in 1947 quickly realized that among its inheritance was the problem, unresolved since the last century, of its mountainous borders with Tibet, which soon became China’s problem as well when the PLA entered Tibet in 1950 to establish its authority there. Stretching to almost 2,000 kilometers, the international border between China and India lies for the most part along the towering ranges of the Karakoram in the western sector, and the Himalayas in the eastern sector, interspersed with a few valleys and passes, and almost year-round covered with snow. Adding to the difficulties of locating or defining the frontier is the fact that the demarcation lines drawn on the maps of British India were the results of agreements between the colonial British authorities of India and the Tibetan government, which China had always considered an unacceptable colonial imposition.1 A major part of what would become the disputed Sino-Indian boundary took shape at a conference in Simla from October 1913 to July 1914, with the foreign
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secretary of British India Henry McMahon as host and mediator. Throughout the nineteenth century, as British power was expanding from Assam northwards up the foothills of the Himalayas, the Tibetan authorities still insisted on collecting their customary taxes and dues from the tribes and monasteries in that area. When a Chinese warlord from Sichuan entered Tibet in 1910 and sent probes into the foothills, the British authorities in India were alarmed that the unsettled borders with Tibet might constitute cause for future Chinese intervention in the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA), as the foothills were known administratively. Following the collapse of the Qing dynasty, the British sought to organize a conference with the participation of the self-proclaimed independent Lamaist State of Tibet and the republican Chinese government to determine Tibet’s boundaries with both British India and the rest of China. The conference at Simla resulted in a tripartite agreement, which, although initialed on 27 April 1914 by all three representatives of Britain, China and Tibet, was immediately repudiated by the Chinese government. Although China had denied the binding force of the Simla Convention on itself, Henry McMahon returned to New Delhi, secure in the understanding that the existing boundary between Tibet and India from Bhutan to Burma now lay along the crest of the Assam Himalayas, henceforth referred to as the McMahon Line (see Figure 5.1). China has always maintained, before and after the conference, that the true boundary between India and Tibet as part of China lies along the foothills of the Himalayas and not at the crest. From 1938 onwards, the Survey of India maps began to show the McMahon Line in the eastern sector as a broken line, indicating that it was a delimited (on paper) but not demarcated (on ground) boundary. In the western sector, the border between Kashmir and Tibet on the desolate and windswept plateau of Aksai Chin was recorded as undefined, although shaded with the same colour on maps of the colonial government as the rest of British India. Several versions of the proposed boundary here had been put forward on maps and in correspondence by British officials, cartographers and explorers at various times in the last century, all lying across the Aksai Chin plateau between the Karakoram and Kunlun Mountains (see Figure 5.2). The British authorities in India actually proffered a boundary line to the Qing government in 1899, but the Chinese rejected the offer because it would have led to the partition of Aksai Chin between British India and Chinese Tibet.2 Whatever the case, by 1954 all Indian government maps showed the McMahon Line and elsewhere on India’s northern boundary as a thick, continuous line, with the Kashmiri border running along the Karakoram, making Aksai Chin a part of India. The Chinese never accepted the McMahon Line qua McMahon Line as indicating the border between India and China. China based its stance on the fact that it did not ratify the Simla Convention of 1913–1914. In the mid-1950s, unbeknownst to India, China would construct a road across Aksai Chin to consolidate its claim to this remote and uninhabited part of its borderlands. Jawaharlal Nehru, as independent India’s first prime minister and minister of external affairs, was first questioned in November 1950 in the Lok Sabha, India’s
Figure 5.1 The eastern China-India frontier
Figure 5.2 The western China-India frontier
100 The McMahon Line/Aksai Chin dispute lower house of parliament, on whether India had a well defined boundary with Tibet. His reply was that “Our maps show that the McMahon Line is our boundary … That fact remains and we stand by that boundary, and we will not allow anybody to come across that boundary.”3 Upon further consultations with defense minister Krishna Menon and K. M. Pannikkar, Indian ambassador to China, Nehru decided that India would refuse to subject the border question to serious negotiation even if the Chinese did raise it,4 in the hope that China would have no recourse but to accept the fait accompli. Preoccupied with consolidating their rule and socializing the economy, the Chinese Communist leadership did not pursue the boundary question until Premier Zhou Enlai raised that issue on his first visit to New Delhi in 1956. It would be wrong to assume that, by holding firm on his position on the border, Nehru did not have good feelings for the Chinese. On the contrary, Nehru’s foreign policy of non-alignment between the two superpower blocs, anti-colonialism, and emphasis on Asian solidarity made him sympathize with the Chinese revolution and led him actively to seek and maintain friendly ties with Mao’s China. He often spoke of China as a “great power.” In the Panchsheel Agreement of 1954 reached between China and India, so named because it gave special mentioned to the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, the Indian government recognized Chinese sovereignty over Tibet and surrendered all its extra-territorial rights in Tibet inherited from the British.5 After the failure of the revolt in Tibet in March 1959, Nehru would be severely and repetitively censured in the Indian parliament, by opposition and independent parliamentarians, for failure to secure a commitment from the Chinese to respect Tibetan autonomy or the McMahon Line as the legal Sino-Indian frontier. Many Indians had felt cheated by the Panchsheel Agreement. They had given away to the Chinese what they had considered to be the buffer state of Tibet, by agreeing to its absorption into China, with not even the recognition of a valid border in return. According to Nehru’s subsequent account, Zhou Enlai informed him at their summit in 1956 that China was prepared to accept the McMahon Line.6 As Zhou was to repudiate this position in a later correspondence with Nehru, it seems clear that his offer was forthcoming only in the context of comprehensive boundary negotiations between the governments. While Nehru believed he had been given an undertaking that China would accept the McMahon Line as the boundary without negotiations, Zhou realized that a revolutionary Chinese government and people would never accept the McMahon Line as it was, a boundary imposed on his country through an act of imperialism. However, Zhou’s statement seemed to imply that, although China would not simply confirm the McMahon Line, it would be prepared to accept the McMahon alignment, if a new boundary treaty could be negotiated between equals, thus erasing the stigma of the old “unequal treaties.” Chinese pride demanded no less. Nehru does not seem to have appreciated the political discourse or have understood the diplomatic nuances of the PRC government, with disastrous consequences for himself and his country.
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Trade between China and India had been governed by the state of their political relations since the PRC was established in 1949. As is true of trade between developing countries even today, items of trade between the two neighbors in the 1950s were few and the monetary value low due to a lack of complementarity. They both essentially depended for export on raw materials, agricultural products and simple machinery, in addition to silk (China) and carpets (India). Even with the signing of the eight-year Sino-Indian agreement on trade and travel between China and India on 29 April 1954 (not renewed because of the 1962 border war) in which both governments opened up three towns on each side of the border for trade, the only significant items of exchange in the mid-1950s was 9 million pounds of Indian tobacco for 90 metric tons of Chinese silk.7 The volume of bilateral trade, meager to begin with and largely restricted to the border towns between India and Tibet, plummeted from 1960 onwards with the deterioration of Sino-Indian political relations. Bilateral trade was virtually discontinued for fifteen years after the war of 1962, and border trade was resumed only in December 1991.
The breakdown of boundary negotiations and the prelude to war: March 1959–November 1962 In the Karakoram borderlands between India, Xinjiang and Tibet lies the disputed high plateau of the Aksai Chin. This windy, bleak and arid place has no permanent inhabitants, and is hardly on anyone’s itinerary except for the occasional transient nomad. In September 1958, on receiving news that the Chinese had completed a highway linking Xinjiang and Tibet through Aksai Chin, an Indian reconnaissance unit was sent to the area, only to be detained by Chinese frontier guards, and deported. This led to the beginning of the trading of notes by both sides alleging violations and counter-violations of the border that was to become a characteristic feature of the Sino-Indian border dispute. On 14 December 1958, in his letter to Zhou Enlai, Nehru denied that there was any boundary dispute between China and India.8 In his reply of 23 January 1959, Zhou pointed out that the Sino-Indian boundary has never been delimited by any treaty or agreement between the central governments of both countries, and that the McMahon Line was the product of British aggression against China. However, Zhou called for negotiations, because “we do not hold that every portion of this boundary line is drawn on sufficient grounds.” Before that, Zhou proposed that each side should not go beyond the border areas under its jurisdiction.9 In his reply, Nehru again denied the existence of a boundary dispute, considering it to be fixed by geography, tradition and treaty, but counterproposed that both sides should withdraw behind each other’s claim lines.10 This in effect amounted to a demand for the Chinese to evacuate the entire Aksai Chin area while India withdraw the few frontier guard posts it had lately established, and it was rejected by the Chinese. After the Tibetan rebellion in March 1959 and the granting of political asylum to the Dalai Lama in India, there was open advocacy for independence
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for Tibet in the Indian press, and calls by members of parliament to review ties with China, and demonstrations to that effect in major Indian cities.11 Needless to say, the Chinese had no appreciation of the tradition of a free press and open parliamentary debate in India. Deputies to the National People’s Congress, meeting in Beijing in April 1959, then condemned the Indian government for fomenting the Tibetan rebellion and interfering in the internal affairs of China by allowing the Dalai Lama to establish a government-in-exile in India.12 To assert its sovereignty over the territory it claimed, Nehru’s government started in 1959 to establish as many military posts along the frontier as possible, contrary to the advice of his army chief of staff, who was cognizant of the poor state of training, weaponry and logistics of the Indian Army.13 The pursuance of this provocative but as yet unannounced “forward policy” led to the first major armed clashes between Chinese and Indian troops at Longjiu in the eastern sector in August 1959, and the Kongka Pass near Aksai Chin in October 1959. All this led then Chinese foreign minister Chen Yi to warn the Indians that, in attempting to impose the McMahon Line on China, they had “not given the slightest consideration of the sense of national pride and self-respect of the Chinese people.”14 Chinese forbearance was apparently beginning to wear thin. News and public opinion regarding Indian casualties at Longjiu and the Kongka Pass were made use of by members of parliament to press the government to disclose all diplomatic correspondence between China and India over the boundary tussle since April 1954. The release of the first White Paper on India-China Relations in September 1959, the first of many, began the public phase of the Sino-Indian dispute, which would end with Nehru being denied all room for maneuver by his domestic critics and parliamentary opponents. Nehru had hitherto tried to keep matters under control by referring to Chinese incursions as “petty intrusions” and taking the position during parliamentary questioning that “minor border incidents and border differences should be settled by negotiations”. The non-Communist parliamentary opposition coupled disillusionment and bitterness over China’s behavior with sharp criticism of the government for withholding information from parliament. They also called on the government to force the withdrawal of Chinese troops from what they considered to be occupied areas before negotiations could begin. Acknowledging that under the Indian constitution, parliament was supreme and government could not muffle public criticism or the free press, Nehru accepted the “sharp but legitimate” criticism of his failure to disclose the Aksai Chin road, the capture of the Indian patrol there, and his own prior correspondence with Zhou Enlai. It became apparent, as events unfolded, that the Britishtrained, legalistic-minded lawyer that was Nehru was not prepared to surmount or circumvent the institutional constraints provided by the rules and procedures of the Indian parliament to offer or accept compromises at boundary negotiations over the objections of the parliamentary opposition or the hesitations of members of his own party. It is one thing to make use of a fractious legislature as a tool of international bargaining by leveraging the opponent with the threat of non-ratification, but quite another to have one’s negotiating position or flexi-
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bility dictated or limited by its moods and temperaments, which was what happened here. In an attempt to ease the growing tension and settle the border dispute before further complications arose, Zhou again sent a letter to Nehru, on 7 November 1959, proposing a meeting between them, meanwhile complying with a withdrawal of the armed forces of both sides to 20 kilometers from the McMahon Line in the east, and to the line of actual control in the west.15 Nehru’s reply was essentially to reiterate his prior position that both sides should withdraw behind each other’s claim lines.16 Zhou wrote and pleaded with Nehru again the following month for a summit meeting between the two, which Nehru initially refused but later agreed to. Deputies from the major non-Communist opposition parties such as the Jana Sangh, Praja Socialist Party, and Swatantra, as well as independent members of parliament, urged the government to refrain from negotiations unless and until the acceptance by China of India’s frontier and its vacation of Indian territory. Only the Communist Party of India supported a policy of pursuing negotiations, warning against the dangerous consequences of “war psychosis” that was building up in the country. Nehru was reluctant to hold further debates on the subject, but his objections were overridden by the Speaker of the House, who did not want to go against the truculent and combative mood of parliament.17 To show how much India was missing out by not reciprocating China’s flexibility, generosity and spirit of compromise, the PRC concluded its first boundary settlement with India’s neighbor Burma in January 1960.18 When U Nu, prime minister of Burma, went to Beijing in 1956 to propose a boundary settlement, he found that, after repudiating all past boundary agreements imposed by the British, the Chinese were quite prepared to open negotiations on the very boundary lines the British had drawn. By claiming that the border was not formally delimited, it was clear that what was unacceptable to the Chinese was the origin of those boundaries in “unequal treaties,” and not the alignment the British had proposed. China would settle, provided Burma restored to it a group of three villages, the Hpimaw tract, on the Burmese side of the British-imposed line. In exchange, China would cede to Burma an area called the Namwan tract, which was originally under “perpetual lease” to the British from the Chinese. China was initially in no hurry to conclude the onand-off boundary talks, but public opinion in Burma was soon alive to the boundary issue, limiting U Nu’s room for maneuver and jeopardizing China’s proposition. So after General Ne Win seized power in 1958, he was told that an agreement could be had if he could attach the Panghung-Panglao tract to the Hpimaw tract to be ceded to China to make up for the larger size of the Namwan tract to be given to Burma. Although village chiefs from the areas to be handed over to China voiced public displeasure at the exchange, they were quickly overruled, effectively demonstrating the efficacy of negotiations between dictatorships. After five days of further negotiations in Beijing, Ne Win signed with the Chinese a boundary agreement on 28 January 1960, which was converted into a treaty on 1 October 1960.
104 The McMahon Line/Aksai Chin dispute When the Chinese argued that the Sino-Indian boundary had not been formally delimited, they clearly meant that there had never been a negotiated bilateral instrument recognized by them as embodying the agreed definition of the boundary. This appeared to be an opening gambit for the boundary negotiations, as in the Sino-Burmese boundary, for the Chinese had never denied the existence of a “traditional and customary” frontier along the ridge of the Himalayas between China and India, as was also the case with China and Burma. When China subsequently held up the Sino-Burmese boundary agreement to India as a model for resolving the Sino-Indian border dispute, the Indians were unresponsive, preferring not to settle on what they perceived to be Chinese terms. During a ten-day working meeting in Hangzhou in January 1960, the CCP Politburo Standing Committee discussed the Sino-Indian border issue, and decided that it should be settled swiftly through negotiations based on the principle of “give and take.”19 Zhou was consequently tasked to seek Nehru’s agreement to hold talks as soon as possible. The summit meeting between the two prime ministers, held in New Delhi from 19–25 April 1960, failed to resolve the boundary deadlock. Zhou again demonstrated what he considered to be flexibility and initiative on the part of the Chinese government by proffering a “package” deal by which China would accept Indian claims in the eastern sector in exchange for Indian recognition of China’s claims in the western sector. Although he had agreed to talks, Nehru maintained that the boundaries were already delimited and could not be persuaded to abandon his position of nodispute, no-negotiation. After Zhou’s visit, which was met by demonstrations and rallies organized by India’s major opposition parties,20 both sides examined historical documents, records, maps and other material relevant to the boundary dispute, and drafted an official report each for their own government. However, neither side could agree to the facts as presented by the other, let alone the inferences. As such, there would be no further meeting on the border issue until after the Sino-Indian border war of 1962. Meanwhile, China began negotiations with Nepal on their outstanding boundary question, and a border treaty was signed in October 1961 whereby China conceded ten out of eleven villages which the king and government of Nepal had demanded. This agreement was denounced by the Indian government as a Chinese attempt to assert influence in South Asian affairs and to put pressure on India to conclude a comprehensive boundary treaty with China along the terms offered first to Burma and then to Nepal. Criticism of the Indian government’s China policy became more strident as time passed, and debates in parliament became more acrimonious. Although still supported by large segments of his own Congress Party and the CPI, Nehru was assailed by all political parties for incompetence in handling the boundary issue and duplicity in playing down the Chinese menace, thus endangering India’s honor and territorial integrity. The government was repeatedly criticized for its complacency and failure to respond to the continued build-up of Chinese forces along the border, and was advised to mobilize the nation on a war footing. Pressure amounted on Krishna Menon, the defense minister, who had tremen-
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dous difficulty convincing parliament that his country’s armed forces were well trained, logistically prepared and competently led to protect India’s borders. Parliament’s hostility to any kind of negotiations with China until it vacated all “occupied” Indian territories remained unchanged. Queried in parliament on every piece of news from the northern border, a hapless Nehru was reduced to pleading that a newly discovered Chinese post did not imply Chinese territorial possession; Longjiu was only a village of a few huts and of no strategic importance to India; the government must not take adventurist action while preparing for war; and any talks that he might engage in should not be construed as a “surrender.”21 Parliament and public opinion increasingly felt that Nehru was consciously or unconsciously misleading them on the Sino-Indian border question, consciously because of his fear of exposing the weakness of the Indian Army to the world, and unconsciously because of his life-long pro-China sympathies. While people had hitherto been largely content to take their cue on foreign relations from the prime minister, they now had reason to feel betrayed. In other worlds, Nehru’s government was no longer trusted to conduct India’s China policy on its own terms, but must be subjected to the scrutiny of the public, the mass media and the politicians. The compulsions of democratic politics on India’s side to obstruct negotiations, and the subsequent careless indifference to India’s national dignity in behaving intransigently on China’s side, doomed whatever chances both sides may have had of resolving this dispute sensibly and realistically. While the opposition parties were advocating war preparations and taking full political advantage of the situation by accusing the government of appeasement, Nehru conveyed his last border initiative to China in May 1962 by again calling for a mutual withdrawal behind each other’s claim lines. As if to sweeten the deal, he further offered to permit civilian traffic from China to pass along the Aksai Chin road, to which China’s reply was to pour incredulity on its need to ask India’s permission to use its own road.22 To put pressure on India to return to the negotiating table, the Chinese government suddenly agreed to conduct negotiations with the Pakistani government to locate and align the boundary between China and Pakistani-held Kashmir, more than a year after Pakistan first publicly brought up that subject. When Sino-Pakistani negotiations began on 12 October 1962, it was only one week until the Sino-Indian clash. Meanwhile, all trade between China and India was terminated when the eight-year trade agreement of 1954 was allowed to lapse. Despite its public pretense of Sino-Indian friendship, at least up till the aftermath of the Tibetan revolt, the Chinese leadership had always regarded Nehru as somewhat representative of his country’s bourgeoisie and a “lackey” of imperialism. With increasing Soviet and American economic assistance to India during the late 1950s and early 1960s, which occurred during the period of China’s great famine and the withdrawal of all Soviet technical blueprints and personnel from China, the Chinese suspected that both superpowers were now colluding to build India up as a counterweight to China. When the Sino-Soviet split came into the open at the Bucharest congress in June 1960, Krushchev not
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only took India’s side in its border dispute with China, but denounced China’s handling of the dispute as a major plank of his attack on war-mongering “leftist dogmatism.” What was till then an essentially nationalist quarrel between two Third World countries had turned into part of a world-wide ideological conflict between Communism and capitalism, and within the Communist bloc itself, and would remain so for almost three decades. The immediate cause of the war was an unpremeditated clash over a disputed valley near the tri-juncture of the China-India-Bhutan border lying to the southeast of the Thagla Ridge, which dominates the terrain of the tri-border area. India placed the boundary as defined by its interpretation of the McMahon Line, along the top of the Thagla Ridge. China located the boundary along a small icy stream flowing some three miles across a valley to the south, which, it pointed out, was as according to the original map of the McMahon Line, even though that boundary line was one it did not recognize. It was in this valley that Indian troops established a post call Dhola Post in June 1962, which, on being overrun by Chinese soldiers three months later, led both sides to prepare for war. By then, convinced of the righteousness and legitimacy of the Indian claims, and boxed in by parliamentary and public opinion and his own rhetoric that negotiations would be unnecessary and unproductive, on 6 October 1962 Nehru rejected the last offer from the Chinese for talks on the border question. Even when Nehru publicly stated on 12 October that the Chinese would be driven out of Indian territories by force if necessary,23 the Indians apparently believed that the Chinese would not launch an attack to defend their territorial claims. This was the fundamental illogical premise of India’s forward policy that led it to so much grief.
The Sino-Indian War and after Four days after Chinese troops crossed the McMahon line in force on 20 October 1962, Zhou again proposed a cease-fire along the line of actual control, whereby the armies of each side would withdraw 20 kilometers from this line, and both prime ministers would begin peace talks. Nehru’s reply was to urge China to revert to its position along the boundary prior to 8 September 1962, to which Zhou replied that he meant the line of actual control existing on 7 November 1959. Afraid that accepting Zhou’s position would mean having to vacate more than forty Indian strongholds established in the period between the two dates, Nehru decided to recall parliament and let members have the responsibility of debating and deciding the issue of his cease-fire proposal. After Menon was force to resign as defense minister on 7 November by the Congress Party’s own executive committee, Nehru practically surrendered India’s China policy to parliament for the next quarter century when he moved a resolution the next day in the Lok Sabha affirming the Indian people’s resolve to drive the Chinese “aggressor” from the “sacred soil” of India before starting any meaningful negotiations on the border dispute. Parliament’s debate on Nehru’s
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proposed cease-fire line was rancorous and divisive, with members of the ruling Congress Party joined by the small Communist Party of India urging acceptance, while the mood of members of the major opposition parties remained uncompromising.24 As parliament was arguing the ways and means of stopping the war, China declared a unilateral cease-fire along the border on 21 November, and announced that its troops would withdraw 20 kilometers behind the line of actual control as existing on 7 November 1959. Shortly after the war, between December 1962 and January 1963, a conference of six non-aligned nations, comprising Burma, Cambodia, Ceylon, Egypt, Ghana and Indonesia, met in Colombo to work out a cease-fire acceptable to both China and India. In the eastern sector, the proposal called for the line of actual control to be treated as the cease-fire line. In the western sector, the proposals stipulated a Chinese withdrawal of 20 kilometers from the traditional customary line as claimed by the Chinese without any corresponding withdrawal by the Indians, creating a demilitarized zone to be administered by civilian posts of both sides. While the Chinese accepted the proposals as conditional on the basis that the civilian posts would not involve Indians, the Indian government, after much debate in parliament again, insisted that it would negotiate with China only if China accepted the proposals without reservations, like India. With the failure of the Colombo conference to bring both countries back to the negotiating table, China signed boundary agreements with Mongolia, Pakistan and Afghanistan in December 1962, March 1963 and November 1963, after only a year, ten months and six months of negotiations respectively. All these boundary agreements were achieved through minor territorial concessions on China’s part, and recognition on the part of the other signatories that their mutual boundaries with China were hitherto undefined, as in the case of Mongolia and Afghanistan, or as with Pakistan, the product of colonial imposition. India started to adopt the foreign policy posture of the Soviet Union after the 1965 Indo-Pakistan War; and during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War, after China threatened a showdown on the Sino-Indian border to show support for Pakistan, India effectively abandoned its non-alignment stance by signing a security treaty with the Soviet Union. This security stand-off on a continental scale between India and the Soviet Union on one side, and China and Pakistan, joined by the US after the Sino-American normalization of 1972, on the other, would remain the overarching dynamic of Sino-Indian relations from the war of 1962 for the next twenty-five years. India not only lost territory in the war; it suffered a humiliating blow to its national dignity, made worse by China’s magnanimously voluntary retreat from captured Indian soil and subsequent call for further negotiations on the last proposal put forth by Zhou Enlai in 1960. All three non-Communist main Indian opposition parties – Swatantra, the Praja Socialist Party (PJP), and Jana Sangh – condemned the Chinese invasion, castigated their own government for trusting Chinese intentions, and cast expletives at Pakistan and its increasingly warm ties with China.25 Jana Sangh even went so far as to call for diplomatic ties with “Formosa.”26
108 The McMahon Line/Aksai Chin dispute In an ironic twist, China’s attack on India did the most damage to the political standing of the Communist Party of India (CPI) leadership and Nehru, who until then had been the most consistent supporters of Chinese ideological aims and foreign policy actions, especially the Indian Communists. In the face of increasing pressure on the country’s northern borders and the upsurge of nationalism, and the open rift between Beijing and Moscow, the CPI condemned the Chinese “aggression,” and in April 1964 split into two parties with internationalist and nationalist positions, neither of which was pro-Chinese. Shocked and saddened by what he considered the “Chinese betrayal” of his friendship, Nehru became despondent after the Sino-Indian War and died within two years. The Chinese did not use their Indian allies in parliament and CPI-controlled states like West Bengal to create more favorable political conditions for border negotiations, like making more concessions on the western sector. Instead, they allowed themselves to be perceived as being aggressive and demanding, thus putting their Indian supporters in the very difficult position of being viewed as too sympathetic to the adversary’s cause. Perhaps the Chinese failed to create “synergy” with their most steadfast constituents in India because they did not appreciate the difficulties that Nehru and the CPI leadership were encountering in trying to manoeuver through India’s rancorous democratic system in its mood of nationalistic fervor. Perhaps they just did not care that what they destroyed was not only Nehru’s vision of a non-aligned India promoting pan-Asianism with China and Third World nationalism through peaceful means, but that his vision was also that of India’s self-perceived role of its own identity in the community of nations. Whatever the case, the attack would leave China with no more real friends in India. I think the second hypothesis is the more accurate one, at least up till the start of the war. In a study on the perceptions of threat in the Chinese press in 1962,27 it was found that while the authoritative People’s Daily was all excited about possible American collusion with the Chiang Kai-shek “clique” to launch an invasion of the mainland from Taiwan, it devoted little space or emphasis on Indian verbal and diplomatic actions. While the Chinese press had always treated Indian military activities along the border with some concern, it was only after Nehru rejected the last Chinese proposal for troop withdrawals and border negotiations in July 1962 that the Chinese press sharply escalated its tone of alarm. We should also be reminded that although mass demonstrations were orchestrated throughout Chinese cities to support Cuba during the US-USSR confrontation over the missile crisis, at no time before or during the border war did this become the subject of a mass rally.28 Symptomatic of Chinese perception of India, the country just did not evoke much of a relevance or concern, let alone alarm, for the Chinese as a whole, which perhaps best explains their “insensitivity” toward India’s national dignity or institutional gridlock in foreign policy making. Although the chances of promoting a favorable outcome to the border dispute practically ended with the failure of Zhou’s final mission to India in April 1960, China’s decision to turn border skirmishes into a major war is still
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very much a puzzle of China’s foreign policy undertaking. We do know that it was taken at the highest level. General Zhang Guohua, the Tibet Military District commander, was recalled to Beijing and returned to Lhasa on 8 October 1962 with orders to prepare for war.29 According to a Chinese documentary film on the Sino-Indian War, it was Mao himself who, despite wiser counsel not to create too many enemies for China, gave the order to drive the Indians out of NEFA and back from Aksai Chin, saying: “Let’s not fight if we don’t have to; but if we have to, let’s give them a good one.”30 This had seemed to be Mao’s one sure calculus of deterrence, to secure his country’s frontiers from possible foreign “nibbling,” be the foreigners Indians, Soviets or others; and to make China’s strength felt throughout Asia and the world. In the case of India, it also seemed to have become a safe but calculated challenge to Moscow to come out clearly on where it stood with regard to its support for Beijing or New Delhi in the immediate border conflict and the larger issue of Sino-Soviet relations. At least, we know this was what Khrushchev believed was Mao’s calculation.31 Neville Maxwell made a cogent argument in assigning principal culpability for the war to Nehru for agreeing only to hold mere “talks” rather than real negotiations which would have required him to make the meaningful concessions he was not prepared to. However, I am more partial to Indian Chinese scholar Nancy Jetly’s argument that Nehru had a genuine desire to negotiate an end to the border dispute while holding fast to India’s national dignity and adopting a “forward policy” he thought best protected India’s security position. However, Nehru’s initiative and room for maneuver vis-à-vis China over the boundary issue was severely compromised by the hostile mood of the parliamentary opposition, the vacillating attitude of sections of his own Congress Party, and nationalist sentiment throughout the articulate portion of the country. Nehru’s failure to settle the border crisis was that, in spite of his towering nationalist standing and his party’s overwhelming majority in parliament, he still sought parliamentary and public advice and approval for his foreign policy direction, and accepted the constitutional constraints providing for parliamentary supremacy and a free press. On the other hand, the blame for turning a dispute into war on the Chinese side must be laid at the foot of a helmsman with a penchant for reckless pronouncements and grandiose fantasies who wanted to teach territorial “nibblers” a lesson, and at the same time sought to challenge Soviet leadership in the Socialist bloc and limit Nehru’s influence in the Third World. Unfortunately, the war not only did not solve the boundary dispute, it would lead to a virtual freezing of Sino-Indian diplomatic, military, cultural and trading ties for the next fifteen years. While Mao was still alive, there was one last subtle attempt by the Chinese to normalize relations with the Indians. During the May Day parade in Peking on 1 May 1970, Mao summoned the Indian chargé d’affaires to the Tiananmen Square rostrum and chatted with him. From the Chinese cultural point of view, it was a very major gesture and message – an audience by the Great Helmsman to a mere diplomat. However, although then Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi welcomed the Chinese peace feelers, the Indian government reacted
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cautiously, to avoid any possible public ridicule, and there would be no follow-up to this attempted opening.32
Normalization and Sino-Indian dialogue: 1976–1987 By the spring of 1976, of the two protagonists of the 1962 War on the Chinese side, Zhou Enlai was dead and Mao Zedong was dying. Prime Minister Gandhi and her advisors decided that the time was ripe to normalize relations with China, even in the absence of a guaranteed Chinese response. Later, foreign minister Y. B. Chavan was to point out that the decision was taken in the face of “considerable skepticism” on the part of the “pro-Soviet” faction in the Ministry of External Affairs, and stubborn resistance within the bureaucratic machinery.33 To explore possibilities of restarting discussions on the border question, K. R. Narayanan was dispatched by the Indian government as ambassador to China in April 1976, after a hiatus in diplomatic representation of fourteen years, during which both countries made do with chargés d’affaires to head their respective missions. China in return named Zheng Zhaoyuan as ambassador to India. When Morarji Desai became Indian prime minister in March 1977, as head of the first non-Congress Party government since India’s independence, he was determined to correct what he thought to be India’s over-reliance on its alliance with the Soviet Union. Then foreign minister Atul Vajpayee was dispatched to China in February 1979 to explore the possible basis for settling the territorial issue and further improvements in relations. Although he won concessions from the Chinese not to support any longer the tribal insurgents and Maoist agitators in NEFA and elsewhere in India, Vajpayee’s visit was cut short by his decision to return to India on being notified of China’s attack on Vietnam, which he took as a deliberate insult reminiscent of China’s behavior in 1962. The limited weight India carried in the policy-making decisions of the Chinese leadership was harshly criticized by Indira Gandhi as opposition leader, but after her return to the premiership in January 1980, and following the visit of Chinese foreign minister Huang Hua in June 1981, both sides agreed to restart discussions on the border issue. That the China visit by the Indian foreign minister took place two years after it was first mooted demonstrates how factionalism can undermine a leader’s control over foreign policy. The Janata party in power from mid-1977 to mid1979 was a loose political coalition constantly threatened with defection by its constituent units. Furthermore, Prime Minister Desai and his foreign minister Vajpayee often disagreed on foreign policy, for example on the importance of the border issue to the pace of Sino-Indian normalization. The fragile consensus within Janata made it pertinent to build a consensus within the political party, and even without, on issues over which contention may arise. For this reason, the views of ordinary members of parliamentary committees and cabinet advisors had real influence on foreign policy decisions for the first time since the SinoIndian War.34 With Mrs Gandhi’s return to power in January 1980, foreign policy was back again firmly in the hands of the prime minister. Since then, the
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government had not considered it necessary to mobilize or assuage public, or even parliamentary, opinion for its major foreign policy undertakings, such as initiating a dialogue with the PRC on the disputed border question.35 More than anything else, it was Mrs Gandhi’s confidence in her parliamentary majority, and also the willingness on the part of the Chinese leadership, which made possible the resumption of boundary negotiations. India officially maintains that China had occupied and held on to more than 38,000 square kilometers of the Indian territory of Aksai Chin and adjacent parts of the western sector. China asserts that more than 90,000 square kilometers of Chinese territory in the eastern sector is still under Indian occupation, the former NEFA that was subsequently incorporated as the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. While India stressed that resolution of the boundary question was central to the restoration of confidence and normalization of relations between the two countries, China maintained that by seeking common ground and reserving differences, a favorable atmosphere would be generated for resolution of the dispute when time was “ripe” for its settlement. Their negotiating positions were indeed far apart. Then in June 1980, Deng Xiaoping resurrected Zhou Enlai’s 1960 proposal for a resolution of the Sino-Indian border dispute along the line of actual control and reciprocal abandonment of claims in the eastern and western sectors, a proposal that Indian foreign minister Narasimha Rao welcomed as a point of departure for the forthcoming series of border talks. Although never acknowledged by either government, it was understood that any permanent border settlement between India and China must be acceptable to public and political opinion in both countries, impinging as it did on national pride and dignity, which must be openly espoused and upheld by the authorities in power. As such, negotiations would have to proceed slowly, and any trade-off or concessions to be made toward an eventual agreement would have to be given careful attention by both sides, taking into consideration the probability of ratification by each other’s domestic constituencies. Hoping to preempt the forthcoming boundary talks, a group of Indian parliamentarians including members of the ruling Congress Party, sent a publicized message to the government in Taiwan on 10 October 1981, greeting the seventieth anniversary of the founding of the “Republic of China.”36 Chinese animosity was not aroused, the Indian government was not intimidated, and the attempt failed. However, this just demonstrates one possible expression of domestic political opposition in a democratic country to any form of territorial compromise. The first round of official talks on the border issue was held on 10–14 December 1981, and five subgroups were formed consisting of representatives from both sides to deal with matters concerning the boundary, trade and economic cooperation, cultural exchanges and science and technology.37 China offered to accept Indian claims over NEFA and the validity of the McMahon Line in anything but name in exchange for India’s recognition of China’s claims over Aksai Chin. India was looking for some recognition of its rights over
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Kashmir and Sikkim, but China refused to deal. As it has been said that many in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs had bitter memories of the humiliating defeat inflicted on India by China, it was apparent that the “doves” in the MEA who were in favor of the Chinese proposal failed to convince the “hawks” to settle. The second and third round of talks, held in New Delhi in May 1982 and Beijing in January 1983 respectively, made no progress on the border question. However, both sides used the occasions to expand cultural, technical and economic exchanges, hoping that so doing would create the constituency and augment the momentum conducive to the continuation of negotiations by widening the support for bilateral links and increasing the cost of non-agreement. To move the stalled talks forward, Beijing agreed at the fourth round in October 1983 to deal with the issue on a sector-by-sector approach. A sectorby-sector approach would allow India to resist Chinese pressure to make concessions in the west in exchange for a formal recognition of the unstated McMahon Line in the east. India in turn agreed to China’s suggestion that normalization should proceed in other spheres irrespective of the border settlement, which would prove to be important for mutual understanding and confidence building, in light of the subsequent lack of success in coming to a final agreement on the border. Both sides also agreed to work toward defining principles, such as the use of a watershed or the highest crest of a mountain range, which could be applied in working out a comprehensive boundary settlement. In the end, it was again Indian domestic politics that led to the abandonment of the proposal, which was perhaps the closest both countries ever came to resolving the border dispute. Indira Gandhi did not want to risk her coming re-election by being attacked by her opponents for settling the dispute on China’s terms. This is definite proof of the argument that it is harder to resolve a dispute with a democratic country made up of diverse political interests than with a non-democratic country such as a one-party state. Unfortunately, the subsequent assassination of Mrs Gandhi left the border issue very much where it was. The overwhelming mandate with which Rajiv Gandhi and the Congress Party was returned to power in late 1984 allowed him to pursue serious negotiations with China on the border issue. When the new Rajiv Gandhi administration was formed early in 1985, it was decided to give high priority to developing a new thrust in good neighborliness. The formulation of foreign policy was increasingly shifted from the Ministry of External Affairs to Rajiv Gandhi’s foreign secretary Romesh Bhandari and a circle of advisors, who advocated a bold, non-bureaucratic approach to achieve breakthroughs in Indian diplomacy. Ministers such as Natwar Singh, who led the Indian team to the fifth round of talks, and N. K. Narayanan, the former ambassador to China, were taken into confidence by Rajiv in drafting his China policy.38 The result was that the pro-Soviet Gopalaswamy Parthasarathy and the hitherto powerful policy planning committee that he headed became progressively shut out of the foreign policy decision-making process.39
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By the sixth round of talks in November 1985, China initially agreed to India’s standing proposal to discuss the eastern sector in detail. However, the Chinese then unexpectedly proceeded to argue that the border issue should be settled on an overall basis, thereby once again implying a desire to trade off Chinese claims in the eastern sector for Indian claims in the western sector. China’s sudden re-emphasis on the eastern sector might have been part of her bargaining strategy to compel the Indians to close on the negotiations by conceding China’s claims to Aksai Chin. China probably believed that Rajiv’s strong parliamentary mandate would enable him to make concessions that previous leaders had eschewed or found politically impossible to do. This might have been a shrewd negotiating gambit, at least according to our theoretical framework. However, the Indians believed that the Chinese were hinting at a return of the Tawang Tract in the eastern sector, which had been taken by India from Tibet in 1951, before China would agree to recognize the McMahon Line. This mutual misperception would prevent the breakthrough both sides had expected at this round of talks, and for the next two rounds, both sides merely restated old claims and positions. As if to complicate the already difficult negotiations, India accused China of sending military patrols south of the McMahon Line into the Sumdorong Chu Valley in the Tawang District of NEFA, site of a ferocious battle between Chinese and Indian forces during the 1962 war. China countered by claiming that Indian troops had instead penetrated north of the line of actual control into Chinese territory. In view of the increasing tension and suspicion between the two countries, the seventh round of border talks, held in July 1986, not surprisingly ended in complete failure. Adding insult to injury for the Chinese, the Indian parliament granted statehood to NEFA in December 1986 as the state of Arunachal Pradesh, and from October 1986 to March 1987, India conducted a large-scale military exercise along the Sino-Indian border involving more than ten army divisions and the air force. In response, China mobilized its army and weapons in Tibet, with the result that some 400,000 troops from both sides were deployed across the mountainous border by the spring of 1987. This so unnerved the Indian government that it dispatched its defense minister to Beijing in April and its foreign minister to the same destination two months later to conduct high-level talks on reducing tension. This set the stage for the last round of official talks between the two sides on the border in New Delhi in November 1987; not surprisingly, given the bad aftertaste of the recent Sumdorong Chu incident, although neither side was in a fighting mood, nothing was achieved. When Gorbachev was asked during his visit to India in November 1986 about his stance on the Sumdorong Chu incident, he pointedly refused to take sides on the merits of the Sino-Indian territorial dispute, and instead called for better relations between the Soviet Union, China and India.40 Indian officials undoubtedly noticed that the scaling down of the Soviet military in areas close to the Chinese border got under way while the confrontation at Sumdorong Chu was escalating. As Sino-Soviet relations became increasingly cordial from the mid-tolate 1980s, New Delhi felt less certain about the degree of Soviet support for
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India in the event of a crisis, hence the Indian leadership’s desire not to fall too far behind Moscow in improving relations with Beijing. India’s defense establishment was also apprehensive that improved Sino-Soviet relations would enable China to re-deploy troops from the Soviet border to Tibet and so complicate India’s security environment. Given the growing recognition at the national level that India had very little chance of retrieving lost territory short of a major war, the need for resolving the border dispute through a political approach rather than relying on a narrow framework of moral-legalistic considerations became self-evident. The eight rounds of border talks did not lead to a breakthrough, or even much progress, in the border question. However, in a significant shift from Nehru’s policy of no dispute and no negotiation, the Indian side accepted that a border dispute indeed existed, which both sides agreed should be resolved through peaceful means. As if to demonstrate that the Sino-Indian quarrel had always been nationalistic but never ideological, even though it became caught up in the dynamics of the Cold War, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Indian Congress Party established party-to-party ties in May 1988. The CCP had already re-established party ties with the CPI in 1983. Sino-Indian economic relations have moved parallel to the state of their political relations, as predicted by the “two-level game” framework. Commerce between the two countries had resumed on an ad hoc basis since 1977 after a break of almost fifteen years. In 1977, Sino-Indian trade was US$2.5 million. Despite the conclusion of a comprehensive trade agreement and mutual bestowal of most favored nation status in 1984, bilateral trade remained paltry. India accounted for only 0.5 percent of China’s export value, and 0.4 percent of its import value.41 Fluctuations in the total turnover and lack of complementarity in the needs of both countries did not augur well for closer economic cooperation. India’s trade and investment posture throughout the 1970s and 1980s was very inward oriented, or else very much tied to the Soviet bloc and West Asia. Indian scholars have often asserted that China made considerable inroads into India’s traditional export market for engineering goods and industrial machinery in the US, and had overall increased its exports to third countries at India’s expense by offering identical items for sale.42 Given the low degree of trade dependency between China and India, moreover the high degree of trade competitiveness, the constituency pushing for greater bilateral economic and overall relations within each country will remain small, even insignificant. As such, trading ties will not set, but can only follow, the pattern and pace of political interaction between the two countries.
Confidence building and Sino-Indian relations since 1988: rapprochement or rivalry? Eight rounds of largely fruitless official talks must have convinced both the Indian and Chinese leaderships that the border problem would never be resolved at the bureaucratic level and that a political initiative was necessary. Rajiv
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Gandhi, who had by them taken an active interest in relations with China, then made the bold move to visit Beijing in December 1988, with the risk that there would be little to show for it. Privileging domestic explanations of foreign policy making, we may argue that Rajiv needed a foreign policy success to restore some of his prestige lost due to his failure to quell the Punjab separatist rebellion and the accusation by opposition leaders that he had received bribes from Swedish arms manufacturer Bofors to approve defense contracts. Whatever the case, the Rajiv visit was an expression of qualitative change in India’s border policy, from “boundary settlement or nothing,” to overall development of peace and cooperation in all fields of bilateral relations. Although Rajiv’s visit to China did not lead to any breakthrough in the border negotiations, it led both sides to agree on the establishment of a Joint Working Group (JWG) to deal exclusively with the border question under the supervision and direction of the Indian foreign secretary and the Chinese viceforeign minister. The JWG was entrusted with the task of achieving an overall boundary settlement within a definite time frame and ensuring that peace and tranquility prevailed at the border in the meantime.43 For its membership the JWG would draw on the foreign ministries, legal advisors, military officers and surveyors of both sides,44 reflecting the need for a comprehensive approach to deal with the boundary question in all its political, legal, security and technical aspects. The two governments obviously believed that organizing a joint committee of experts that would meet regularly away from the glare of publicity would increase the chances of solving the border question by turning an emotional political issue into a technical one to be tackled by knowledgeable people familiar with one another. Whatever the results of the boundary discussions, at least in terms of building trust and promoting understanding between political and defense personnel on both sides, and reducing general tension and suspicion between the two countries, this negotiating technique has already proved an unqualified success. Rajiv Gandhi’s visit was also historic because it was only the second time an Indian prime minister had visited China, and the first in thirty-four years since Nehru’s trip in 1954. The visit would come to symbolize the arrival of a more relaxed phase in a Sino-Indian relationship that had moved from a legacy of prejudice and dogma toward a more constructive and businesslike dialogue. It demonstrated that, with the requisite political will on the part of state leaders to give high priority to developing a new thrust in forging good neighbourliness, years of inherited rigidity could be exorcized. By upgrading the political dialogue to the highest level and conducting talks with then Chinese premier Zhao Ziyang and senior leader Deng Xiaoping, Rajiv was able to promote “reverberation” by directing both countries’ media and public attention to the need to reduce tension and create opportunities for security and other forms of cooperation. Most of the national Englishlanguage newspapers in India supported Rajiv’s visit, as did the government-controlled Chinese media quite naturally, with protestations mostly confined to a small number of people like the ex-leader of Jan Sangh,
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Balaraj Madhok, and V. P. Venkateswaran, former foreign secretary and exambassador to China.45 Rajiv’s ability to convince China’s leaders that he was both able and prepared to negotiate on the border was demonstrated by his successful sponsorship of a resolution passed by the All India Congress Working Committee on 5 November 1988. Urging the government to seek a settlement based on “mutual interest” and “acceptable to the peoples of both countries” through “peaceful negotiations,”46 this resolution basically rescinded the parliamentary resolution of 8 November 1962 binding the government to obtain the return of every inch of India’s “sacred soil.” There was always the danger that opposition parties in the Indian parliament would reintroduce an emotional dimension to a proposed visit by the Indian prime minister to China in the absence of a border settlement favorable to India. After all, it was the accusation by opposition politicians that the Indian government was negotiating behind the back of parliament which prevented Nehru from entering into any meaningful settlement on the border issue, even while he had that chance. However, this time the main opposition parties did not openly oppose Rajiv’s move to reopen border negotiations, partly because a parliamentary consensus on the issue seemed to have been tacitly struck when Janata foreign minister Vajpayee visited China in 1979. This demonstrates the need for multiparty consensus, or at least broad agreement among politicians of all stripes, in pushing through sensitive and tentative foreign policy initiatives. Both countries have come to realize in recent years that the most serious and immediate threat to their military security and territorial integrity comes from within rather than without. While China had problems with separatists in Tibet and Xinjiang, India had internal security issues to deal with regarding Kashmir, Assam, and elsewhere, as well as seriously deteriorated relations with Pakistan to attend to. Neither government needed border incidents to add to their worries. A durable peace between China and India and stability along their common border would enable both to limit unnecessary increases in military expenditure and devote their energy and resources to economic development and domestic reform. The dramatic improvement in Sino-Indian relations occurred in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square incident while the Beijing regime was feeling isolated and vulnerable, and as the New Delhi leadership was witnessing the rapid disintegration of its erstwhile ally the Soviet Union. When premier Li Peng embarked on his Indian visit in December 1991, both China and India were facing a very altered global strategic environment following the end of the Cold War. To forestall any Western or American-led attempt to impose its values on their countries, both Chinese and Indian premiers came to an understanding against perceived meddling by the United States on issues of human rights, environmental protection, intellectual property rights, economic liberalization, nuclear detonation, missile tests, weapons sales and nuclear technology transfers. While China called for India’s membership in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), India supported China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO).
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Still, even if the territorial dispute were resolved, India and China would still retain a competitive relationship in the Asia-Pacific region, being as they are, two Asiatic giants aspiring to great power status. As far as China is concerned, the occasional sympathies expressed for exiled Tibetans’ calls for their country’s autonomy, if not outright independence from China, by the Indian public and sometimes even Indian politicians, are interpreted as flagrant foreign interference in Chinese domestic affairs. China is also concerned that Southeast Asian countries may enter into some form of security arrangement with India to check the burgeoning Chinese influence in the South China Sea and the contested Spratly Islands. China is now an energy importer, and its demand for oil from the Persian Gulf will only increase. As such, some Chinese analysts are concerned that India will in future “threaten China’s sea lanes of communication.”47 India is in turn greatly irked by Chinese transfer of nuclear and missile technology to Pakistan, and it considers reports of Beijing’s involvement in developing Myanmar’s naval base at Hianggyi Island and a radar station at Cocos Island as a direct challenge to New Delhi’s strategic pre-eminence in the Indian Ocean.48 Adding to China’s traditional warm ties with India’s arch-enemy Pakistan, its growing interest and involvement in Myanmar only serves to reinforce India’s view of China as an interloper in the South Asian region out to contain India’s influence. Although China no longer supports the Pakistani position of “self-determination” for the people of Kashmir, urging instead that the Kashmir dispute be settled by both India and Pakistan, it has still to accept the integration or annexation since 1974 of Sikkim into India. Although the value of bilateral trade has been increasing steadily and even impressively for the past ten years, the present size of bilateral trade between India and China remains practically insignificant in terms of percentage of their total trade volume. In 1988, China’s exports to India totaled a mere US$149 million.49 In 1990, the value of Sino-Indian trade was US$33.8 million, just 0.038 percent of the value of China’s foreign trade; in 1991, bilateral trade was only 0.07 percent of the value of India’s foreign trade.50 In 1993, the value of bilateral trade totaled US$675.73 million, with China exporting goods to India worth US$259.16 million and importing US$416.57 million from India. In 1997, bilateral trade was US$1.83 billion.51 Although Sino-Indian trade has reached the figure of US$5 billion in 2003,52 it is still a little more than 10 percent of the trade value between China and the eleven countries of Southeast Asia.53 Direct flight and telephone links between the major cities of both countries were inaugurated at the end of Rajiv Gandhi’s 1988 visit. Direct border trade between India and China through Tibet was resumed after Chinese prime minister Li Peng’s visit to India in 1991. Although both sides were eager to enlarge and diversify their bilateral trade, signified by the December 1991 Memorandum on the Resumption of Border Trade, and the July 1992 Protocol on Entry and Exit Procedures for Border Trade, scope for so doing has been slow, limited by the similar and competitive nature of their economies. There is much similarity in exportable commodities such as carpets, garments, textiles,
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handicrafts, hand tools, industrial components and light engineering goods, with an acute lack of complementarity and thus inevitable competition. Except for a few small joint ventures in consumer electronics and an ironworks producing 50,000 tons of steel per year,54 industrial cooperation is virtually non-existent. China has not shown much interest in India’s engineering items, agricultural machinery or transport equipment, preferring instead to manufacture them itself or import them from the West, much to the disappointment of the Indians. India had also hoped that China’s burgeoning output of steel would mean an increase in demand for its rich and plentiful deposits of high-grade iron ore, but this did not occur. India was also looking to import petroleum and rare metals from China, but considering that China is today importing oil and even resource minerals from abroad, India’s desire does not seem realistic. Telecommunication links, shipping lines, and banking channels and clearing house facilities between the two countries are rudimentary. Furthermore, an economic race for scarce foreign resources, capital, investment and markets is pitching both economically liberalizing China and India headlong into the global marketplace, more as competitors than as comrades. Both have directed their trade promotion efforts to industrialized countries rather than to each other. China’s trade is now concentrated with Japan and the United States, in whose markets it has outsold every product marketed by India except for hand-knitted carpets,55 and perhaps computer software. If the degree of economic ties between two countries is a reliable indicator of the warmth of their political relationship, competition for markets and investments may ultimately dampen enthusiasm for further improvements in relations. It certainly does not help. The first JWG meeting took place in July 1989, and two further meetings took place during the next two years. However, it was Chinese premier Li Peng’s high-profile visit to India in December 1991, the first by a Chinese premier in thirty-one years, that provided that impetus needed to concretize the talks on the border. Also, by then, the geo-strategic community of interest which held India and the Soviet Union in a common anti-China posture no longer existed with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Although Chinese relations with Pakistan still irritate Indian sentimentalities now and then, and the reverse is true for the Chinese regarding Indian concerns for religious freedom and human rights in Tibet, Sino-American relations no longer constitute a threat to Indian security. At the fourth JWG meeting held in February 1992, it was agreed that military personnel from both sides would meet twice a year at Bumla Pass in the eastern sector and Spanggur Gap at the western sector, and that telephone links or “hotlines” would be established between area commanders on the two sides.56 Since 1992, as part of the confidence-building process, defense ministers and members of the general staff of both sides have been paying yearly visits to each other’s countries and military bases. At the sixth meeting of the JWG held in June 1993, both sides decided to further enhance transparency by including information about the location of military positions and giving prior notice of military exercises along the lines of actual control to the other side.57
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Then Indian prime minister Narasimha Rao visited Beijing in September 1993. During the course of the visit, both governments agreed “pending a final resolution of the boundary question, the two sides would strictly respect and abide by the lines of actual control and undertake no military exercises of specialized sizes in special areas recognized by both sides.”58 Initiating the first agreement on Confidence-Building Measures (CBM) between two Asian countries without outside participation, prime ministers Rao and Li Peng signed the eight-articled “Agreement on Maintenance of Peace and Tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control” on 7 September 1993.59 Article I highlights the undertaking by both sides to “strictly respect and observe the Line of Actual Control” and never “use or threaten to use force.” Most importantly, Article III behooves each side not to “undertake specified military exercises in mutually identified zones” and to “give the other notification of military exercises along the border.” Article VIII brings forth the CBM process by setting up an expert body consisting of diplomats and military officers of both countries to formulate and implement measures to settle the boundary question. Besides regular summit-level meetings then, there are now two other levels of contact associated with the Sino-Indian negotiation process: a joint working group (JWG) operating to develop a confidence-building regime, and an expert body charged specifically with determining the border. This is a remarkable move by both countries to “de-link” the contentious issue of territorial sovereignty from the desired effect of border security, which, by our theory, should enhance the chances of achieving a satisfactory negotiation outcome by reducing the saliency of territoriality, postponing difficult issues, expanding on common interests, and accumulating the goodwill of people on both sides. Rao’s meetings with senior leaders of opposition parties before his departure for China suggests that his signature on the agreement on maintaining peace and tranquillity along the line of actual control reflects a new multi-party consensus on China policy, especially with respect to the territorial issue.60 India seems to have accepted the Chinese position that the border issue should be shelved in favor of other confidence-building measures in the interim. In any case, the Chinese hold the upper hand in any negotiation because they already occupy the disputed lands which India desires, and so are understandably in no hurry to make any concessions to solve the dispute. As to the degree of trust built, it seems that there is now “almost total lack of opposition in parliament, in the media and even from former generals to what is seen as acceptance of the de facto border with China.”61 The trust-building momentum built up by the Rao visit led to visits to India of such high-level Chinese dignitaries as Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Wu Yi, foreign minister Qian Qichen, and defense minister Chi Haotian, and return visits of the Indian chief of army staff and vice-president to China, all in 1994. Relations progressed markedly so that, at the JWG meeting in August 1995, both delegations could agree to pull back troops from four border posts, two on each side, which are located within fifty to a hundred yards from each other. In fact, relations between China and India improved to such an
120 The McMahon Line/Aksai Chin dispute extent that another agreement on CBM was signed during Chinese president Jiang Zemin’s visit to New Delhi in November 1996. This twelve-articled treaty, which is practically an arms control agreement, sought to extend and deepen the existing CBM agreement to more specific and sensitive military aspects.62 Article I stands out as a virtual no-war pact, by stating “neither side shall use its military capability against the other side.” Concretizing the on-going talks on troop and weapons reduction along the border, Article VI provides for the withdrawal of “offensive” weapons such as combat tanks, infantry combat vehicles, guns and howitzers of 75mm or larger calibre, mortars of 120mm or larger calibre, surface-to-surface missiles and surface-to-air missiles. Both sides also agreed not to hold military exercises involving more than one division (15,000 soldiers) in close proximity to the line of actual control, and to inform the other on “type, level, duration and areas of exercise” if and when more than a brigade (5,000 soldiers) are involved. In Article V, both sides agreed that no combat aircraft of any type would be allowed to fly within ten kilometers of the line of actual control except by prior permission by the other side. With the coming to power in India of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in March 1998, relations took a turn for the worse when the new government voiced suspicions of Chinese activities in Myanmar and Southeast Asia. During the visit to India of the PLA chief of staff Fu Quanyou in April 1998, the Indian government uncharacteristically allowed a hunger strike by six Tibetan youths protesting what they referred to as Chinese aggression against Tibet, and as if to signal that a BJP government did not intend to appear weak before China, prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee subsequently met with the Dalai Lama.63 The Chinese believe that India’s BJP government regarded China as the country’s top security threat by justifying its surprise series of five nuclear tests in May 1998 with references to “an overt nuclear weapon state” on its border, a clear reference to China.64 In an interview with the PLA newspaper, former Chinese envoy to India Cheng Ruisheng voiced concern that Indian leaders were attempting to use the unsettled border and the “China threat theory” to foment nationalist sentiments at home to gain political support and to deflect international criticism of its nuclear tests.65 This still appears to be the prevailing opinion among Chinese officialdom. When the sixth meeting on the Diplomatic and Military Expert Group on China-India Border Questions in Beijing in June 1998 made no headway, the Chinese spokesman accused the Indians of “making remarks slandering China and undermining the sound atmosphere for improving relations.”66 A nationalist BJP-led coalition government of regional parties facing a fractious Congress opposition will be no more able than a Congress-led coalition to show flexibility on the border negotiations, and may be even less likely to do so. Significantly, however, there have been no troop movements by either country to disturb the tranquility of the by now de facto if not de jure Sino-Indian border. As opposed to the euphoric bonhomie of the 1950s, Sino-Indian relations in the 1990s and early years of the twenty-first century are clearly based on pragmatic self-interest. Given the many annual diplomatic, military, cultural,
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sporting, economic and scientific exchanges between delegations from both countries in the last fifteen years, constituencies may hopefully be emerging that would support an eventual compromise solution to the border question. However, despite best intentions, conflict situations may still occur if the border dispute with China is not settled. The territorial issue, as in all territorial issues, raises primeval reactions touching on the holy cows of any state – a nation’s sovereignty and a people’s dignity. While Aksai Chin is strategically important to China, as the highway cutting through the area is still more or less the only allweather road that allows for quick deployment of troops and material between the adjoining PLA commands in Tibet and Xinjiang, another restive region in China, holding the McMahon Line is critical for the political survival of an Indian leader. Perhaps both China and India could do well to agree on turning the present line of actual control into a formal de jure boundary to avoid committing themselves to making unilateral concessions or preparing for a war in the future. So saying, a stable peace between India and China would have to rest not only on a satisfactory resolution of the border dispute, which would necessarily involve some territorial concessions on the part of both sides. A durable framework of Sino-Indian friendship would need to be underpinned as much by a legal settlement as by a clear recognition of their relative power status and acceptance of each other’s geo-political stakes in its respective region of the world. China should recognize India’s dominant position in South Asia without diminishing its existing commitments to Pakistan and other countries in the subcontinent, and India should act likewise for China in East and Southeast Asia while maintaining its relations with countries in those regions. The Indians may be well advised to cut a deal with the Chinese fast, for Aksai Chin is less strategically important to China today than it was in the 1960s, due to the construction of other roads and airfields linking Tibet with other parts of China, but as China becomes more powerful militarily and economically, it may be increasingly unwilling to settle territorial disputes at the negotiating table. Beijing may want to keep alive some claims with which it can bargain with New Delhi for more concessions on territory or other matters in the future, and China’s refusal thus far to recognize India’s incorporation of Sikkim may just turn out to be such a bargaining ploy; or China may use the claims to justify strengthening its ties and securing its influence with countries in South Asia, such as Pakistan, Burma, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.
Findings and conclusions The two-level games framework predicts that when the costs of an agreement are heterogeneous rather than homogeneous, that is, when they are relatively concentrated on certain segments of a population while the benefits are diffused throughout the country, then those sectors and regions whose interests are most negatively affected by the agreement will organize and agitate to thwart the negotiating process, or failing that, derail its ratification.
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As for the quieted but as yet unsettled Sino-Indian boundary dispute, both the costs and benefits of a border agreement, or for that matter the absence of one, are small and diffuse for the governments and peoples of China and India. The major benefits of an agreement for both countries are largely strategic, through an improvement in the security climate, which would enable both sides to withdraw troops and arsenals from the border area and reduce the chances of accidental cross-firings. However, the cost of supporting the military would not be significantly reduced. The Chinese would still need to maintain a sizeable military presence in Tibet to guard against the threat of Tibetan separatism, and India would simply be re-deploying most of his troops along the Himalayan frontier to the border with Pakistan and Kashmir. The principal costs of such an agreement, if they can be considered as such, would accrue to the BJP and nationalist Indian politicians, who would be deprived of the chance to make political capital out of taking a militant and expansionary stance on the SinoIndian border. Hence material costs or benefits have not been, and will not likely be, a significant impediment or incentive to a border agreement. Do democratic governments actually make it much easier than nondemocratic governments for latent boundary, territorial, or other disputes between states to surface into very real conflicts? This is not an unreasonable view, assuming that political forces in a competitive electoral system have to respond effectively to public opinion that has the potential to be created, manipulated, and galvanized by well organized and well funded groups with their own nationalistic agenda. This seems to have been the problem with the domestic political scene in India. From the time of the release of the first White Paper on India-China relations in September 1959, the Indian press, leaders of India’s parliamentary opposition and even members of Nehru’s own Congress Party were vocal and adamant that boundary negotiations with China should be discontinued until the Chinese vacated all of what they regarded as Indian territory. By agitating and arousing the Indian public to new heights of nationalist fervor, Indian politicians and journalists succeeded in asphyxiating Nehru’s hopes for negotiation and pushing the country toward contemplating war to repel the Chinese “incursion.” All the while, the Chinese mass media were toeing the official line in calling for negotiations at the highest level up till two weeks before the start of hostilities, not least because, as a non-democratic country, they could prevent individuals and groups adversely affected by the agreement from organizing to protect their interests. For sure, opposition to Mao’s impending India war could be heard in the highest corridors of power. In early October 1962, at the tenth plenum of the eighth Central Committee of the CCP, Wang Jiaxiang, director of the Central Committee’s International Liaison Department which dealt with foreign Communist and socialist parties, suggested a foreign policy slogan of “three reconciliations and one reduction,” namely reconciliation with the US, USSR and India, and reducing aid to Third World countries, in view of China’s dire economic straits after the onset of famine following the failure of the Great Leap Forward campaign.67 Wang promptly lost all favor with Mao and was removed from power soon after.
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While political elites in China or other Communist or authoritarian countries had managed to keep discussion of foreign policy tightly controlled among themselves while mobilizing carefully controlled public opinion for the purpose of asserting some form of nationalism, there was always the danger elsewhere that public opinion would run ahead of elite opinion, and direct nationalist opinion not only against a foreign target, but also against the state itself. Governments need not only be subjected to public attacks for being “soft” on foreign territorial encroachment; indeed, territorial issues themselves can be used as proxies by public-opinion makers or political opponents to humiliate the government over its failures to address other ills. Many of the non-Communist opposition leaders in the Indian parliament who had called upon Nehru to adhere firmly to India’s policy not to negotiate the boundary with China, were also emphatically seeking to reorientate India’s foreign policy and security posture away from non-alignment and socialism and toward closer cooperation with the United States, Britain and the Western alliance. In this they failed. By adopting an uncompromising stance on the border issues, they had also hoped to remove Krishna Menon from his post as defense minister because of what they perceived to be his all-too-moderate attitude toward equipping and mobilizing an army for a war with China. In this they succeeded. Domestic win-sets for entering into international agreements are theorized to be bigger the more open a country is to trade. Economic benefits accruing to the conclusion of a boundary agreement between China and India are not significant either. It is true that the value of bilateral trade increased fifty-fold between 1990 and 1997 from a paltry US$33.8 million to US$1.83 billion. However, the value of bilateral trade in 1990 was less than 0.1 percent of the value of either country’s foreign trade, and still remained below 1 percent in 1997, the last year before relations took a downturn with the victory of the BJP and India used China as justification for its nuclear tests. In addition to the insignificance of trade volume between China and India, competition for exports to third markets are intense, as has been mentioned, and both countries have been trying to attract overseas investment from the same countries and multinationals in the industrialized world. Although bilateral relations have improved sufficiently such that the Indian prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was able to pay a visit to China in June 2003, and trade volume had reached almost US$5 billion by then,68 commerce is still not a major consideration motivating both parties to pursue a final territorial agreement in this dispute, though there is always hope that this will one day be the case. “De-linking” issues in order to solve those that are most amenable to solution first is a well established concept in bargaining theory. Similarly, “shelving sovereignty for joint development” is an oft-floated proposal in the East Asian diplomatic lexicon to de-link territorial from economic issues. Such a “deterritorialization” of issues would serve to increase the chances of countries engaging in joint economic development in a disputed area while leaving the sovereignty of the area undetermined for the time being. The plan is that, hopefully, by working together for joint economic gains, governments and citizens of
124 The McMahon Line/Aksai Chin dispute the disputant countries would accumulate “goodwill” which would widen the prospective win-set for discussing the final disposition of the ownership question of the disputed area. Following the first Confidence-Building Measures (CBMs) between China and India in September 1993, the boundary dispute between the two neighbors was “de-linked” from their security postures, for while a body of technical experts was set up to take charge of determining the boundary, another joint working group was established to promote arms control and maintain peace along the demilitarized boundary. “De-linking” the eastern and western sectors of the Sino-Indian boundary for the purpose of negotiations, which was the Indian strategy, obviously did not work, but neither did the Chinese preference for “issue aggregation” for the purpose of achieving a comprehensive settlement of the border question as a package deal, which would have involved trading off NEFA to India in exchange for the recognition of Aksai Chin as Chinese territory. Why then did “de-linking” the CBM negotiations from the border talks not achieve productive results? The most probable answer I believe is that, while the security and welfare of both parties were definitely better off with an arms reduction treaty and respect for the existing line of actual control, the Chinese could gain nothing more than what they had already obtained through military action in the 1962 border war and the Indians were in no position to change the status quo short of restarting a major war. An agreement will be signed only if it produces a better result than each party could in the absence of the agreement, and this is clearly not the case here. Our theoretical framework also predicts that the size of the win-sets correlate inversely with the number of votes needed in a country’s highest legislature to ratify an international agreement. In the case of the Sino-Indian boundary negotiations, it became clear very early on that Nehru was not prepared to surmount the institutional constraints provided by the rules and procedures of parliament by cutting off debate or negotiating with the Chinese in secret instead of publicly airing his negotiating position. By deferring to the prerogatives of parliament to debate all matters of foreign policy, especially one as sensitive as the boundary negotiations, we have seen that, although Nehru always kept his party’s overwhelming majority in parliament, he lost all room to maneuver and could not prevent rivals from making political capital by creating and working up nationalistic and anti-agreement sentiments. Nehru might even have mistakenly believed that Mao’s huge win-set in China’s political constituency was a sure bet that the Chinese could eventually be forced to yield on the border question, since on this matter his own hands were already tied. Border negotiations became bogged down by the end of the 1980s because the Chinese side was reportedly split between influential “Level II” moderates in favor of relinquishing the “southern slopes” in the eastern sector, at least for the time being, and prominent hard-liners who were against yielding on any stretch of China’s claim.69 By taking into account the influence of formal and informal institutional constraints on win-set size, two-level games framework has shown itself to be culturally sensitive.
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We do not know of any instance in which negotiators to the disputes we are looking at actually argued to their negotiating counterparts that pressure from domestic constituents prevented them from making concessions that they would otherwise have made if they were sure their agreement could be ratified at home. However, in this case, the minority Indian governments under prime ministers Rao and Gujral in the 1990s were able to garner Chinese support for the CBM agreements. On the other hand, Mrs Gandhi and her son Rajiv could make no progress on the border despite their solid parliamentary majorities, and the latter almost led India to its second war with China. This finding offers indirect support for the proposition that the weaker a government is in terms of its control over votes in the national legislature or Level II constituents required for ratification of agreements, the stronger the position of its Level I negotiators. The success or failure of any negotiating behavior obviously depends heavily on the strategies adopted by the negotiators themselves. We have seen that the presence or absence of leadership in negotiation affects both the duration and direction of the negotiating process, and is instrumental in determining the ultimate success or failure of the negotiation. While the presence of leadership does not equate to a speedy resolution of a dispute, witness Mao’s decision to go to war, the absence of leadership during the negotiation process results in drift and the loss of initiative. This argument is amply illustrated by Nehru’s weak and uncertain role as chief interlocutor with China in the lead-up to the Sino-Indian War. The absence of effective leadership in official negotiations means that the initiative in setting the agenda or blocking an agreement will pass from Level I negotiators to Level II opposition forces both within the governmental institutions and outside in the societal realm. Assuming that leaders are ready to promote rather than retard agreement on a disputatious issue, they should also seek to keep the details of sensitive sovereignty negotiations or talks on territorial compromises as secret as possible until some form of agreement is reached, so that those who might be opposed to the tentative agreement would not be able to join forces. This seems to have been the case with the Sino-Indian JWG sessions on the CBMs and the affirmation of the line of actual control in the 1990s, as opposed to the public airing of official disagreements preceding the 1962 war, which led to the hardening of official positions on the border issue and the rallying of domestic forces against a boundary settlement, especially on the Indian side. The appointment of a “special representative” by each side to work with the other to achieve a political settlement of the boundary issue, arrived at during Vajpayee’s 2003 visit to China, may also be considered as an inconspicuous means to insulate often difficult boundary negotiations from efforts to enhance bilateral commercial and diplomatic ties. Leaders should also suppress or at least play down the activities of nationalistic and other obstructionist organizations and groups. By portraying themselves as champions of their country’s territorial sovereignty, and seizing on nationalist issues which they know few of their fellow citizens can openly disagree with without risking censure, they are able to make use of their
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compatriots’ territorial concerns to create difficulties for negotiators engaging in territorial discussions. If the negotiators proceed with the discussions, they stand to lose popular support within their domestic constituencies; if they yield to domestic pressure and stop the negotiations, they may be accused by their counterparts in the other claimant countries of being unreliable negotiating partners, which may have the effect of decreasing the size of win-sets for future inter-state negotiations. The consistent refusal of the Indian leadership to recognize the Tibetan government-in-exile organized by the Dalai Lama in Dharmsala, despite the preferences of many parliamentarians, and Nehru’s firm rejection of pleas from his parliamentary opposition to sever diplomatic relations with the PRC during the time of the Sino-Indian War, contributed in no small measure to the eventual normalization of relations and reduction of border tension, given the sensitivity of the Chinese government to the issues of Tibetan separatism and regime legitimacy. In a similar vein, as John Garver has observed, the Chinese government seems to have been making sure in recent years that open Chinese publications or official statements should contain nothing that could provoke India’s security concerns and justify Indian efforts to restrict Chinese military-security ties with the South Asian countries. In discussing Indian threats to China, all articles have been expected to make clear that such “threats” are merely Indian perceptions, that those perceptions are inaccurate, and that there is no substance to the “China threat.”70 Another winning strategy for negotiators would be to openly promote the popularity of their negotiating counterpart, in order to increase their counterpart’s win-set and thus increase both the odds of success and their own bargaining power. Zhou Enlai’s last visit to India in April 1960 to try to resolve the boundary dispute was unsuccessful because it was perceived by the Indian mass media, politicians and citizenry as a whole as a visit from the enemy to present them with an ultimatum to settle a disagreement on his terms. The spectacle of Zhou flying around the region to conclude boundary agreements with India’s neighbors only encouraged the perception by Indians that he was attempting to crudely induce or implicitly bully India into reopening border negotiations. On the other hand, Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to China in December 1988 was generally credited by officials and commentators on both sides as changing the course of Sino-Indian relations from one characterized by a boundary stalemate to the building of trust and cooperation in the military, economic and socio-cultural spheres. Rajiv managed to refocus the elite and masses of both countries from suspicion and prejudice to peace and cooperation through high-profile “reverberation.” Further bilateral visits by Indian and Chinese leaders affirmed their respect for the line of actual control as the de facto boundary on the ground and promoted the agreements on the CBMs.
6
Beyond two-level games? The role of subnational, national and transnational actors in the South China Sea islands dispute
Introduction What are the implications for two-level games of China’s current territorial disputes over the Spratly, Paracel, and other low-lying coral reefs, atolls, shoals, rocks and islands in the South China Sea? Popular irredentist sentiments, bureaucratic interests, trade direction and intensity, the strategies of negotiators, the different impact of costs and benefits on sectarian interests, institutional constraints, and the possibility of domestic restructuring of state priorities dominate the discussion of the Diaoyutai/Senkaku, Zhenbao/Damansky and McMahon Line/Aksai Chin disputes. These factors will figure prominently in any serious future attempt by disputing countries to resolve their sovereignty claims over the South China Sea islands. The search for regime legitimacy, and government efforts to manage pressure for democratization in Southeast Asian countries, will also be reflected in heightened sensitivity over national security and perceived threats to the state’s territorial integrity. Furthermore, the contest for influence between China’s foreign ministry establishment and its army and navy over foreign policy making and budget allocation should be carefully watched to see how this affects China’s posture in the South China Sea. However, the South China Sea also lies astride sea-lanes of strategic importance, and its sea-bed is potentially rich in hydrocarbons. As such, it is imperative that we take into account the role of transnational actors such as foreign oil companies or multilateral confidence-building institutions, and the activities of subnational actors, in influencing the actions of state leaders or government negotiators in preventing conflicts or settling claims. Indeed, the possible peacemaking role of (“Level III”) transnational actors such as foreign multinationals and non-governmental organizations in dispute situations must be more fully examined in future studies of domestic-international interactions than has been done in the past.
A brief history of territorial claims The PRC, Taiwan and Vietnam lay claims to all the disputed South China Sea islands; Malaysia and the Philippines claim several but not all of the Spratly
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Islands, and Brunei claims one submerged reef. The PRC and Taiwan both assert the same historical claim that the South China Sea islands have been Chinese territory since ancient times, based on archaeological findings of ancient Chinese coins, pottery fragments and cooking utensils most probably left behind by Chinese fishermen to the area.1 However, it was only when the French colonial authorities of Vietnam asserted their presence over the islands in 1933 that the first effective administration was established over them.2 Between 1939 and 1945, the Paracel and Spratly island groups were occupied by Japan and turned into submarine bases. After the Japanese surrender, a naval contingent from the Republic of China inspected the Paracels and the Spratlys and briefly garrisoned the largest island in the Spratly group, called Taiping or Itu Aba, before withdrawing to Taiwan on the heels of the nationalist’s defeat.3 In any case, since 1947, a U-shaped maritime boundary line partially enclosing the South China Sea has appeared on maps produced in Taiwan and on the Chinese mainland (Figure 6.1). The Philippines’ claim to the Spratlys was based on the discovery of several islands in the archipelago by a Filipino national by the name of Tomas Cloma in 1947, on the basis of which he declared the state of “Kalayaan” (“Freedomland”) with himself as government leader.4 Although Cloma transferred his claim to the Philippines government in 1971, already his earlier proclamation of ownership had spurred Taiwan to reoccupy Taiping Island, and the Republic of (South) Vietnam to assert its claim to the Paracels and Spratlys in 1956.5 In September 1973, the South Vietnamese navy occupied several islands in both island groups, but lost the Paracels to the Chinese after a brief naval engagement in January 1974. The government of reunified Vietnam subsequently took over the South Vietnamese claims, but its position was undercut by previous North Vietnamese support for Chinese sovereignty claims in 1956 and 1958, the latter in the form of a letter sent by North Vietnamese premier Pham Van Dong to the Chinese State Council.6 The more recent South China Sea claims of Malaysia in 1979 and Brunei in 2000 are based on the extension of their continental shelf and 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) respectively. Malaysia’s claim overlaps Brunei’s in its entirety.
Petroleum prospecting and the involvement of multinational oil companies The PRC’s first assertion of authority over the Spratlys came in March 1988, when its navy sank three Vietnamese transport ships and killed seventy-two Vietnamese soldiers in a brief engagement at Johnson Reef.7 By then, the Spratlys were not only developing into an important fishing ground for China, Vietnam and the Philippines; test drilling on the adjacent sea-bed was yielding vast estimates of petroleum. All of the countries that currently claim ownership over the Spratlys are signatories to the Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III), which permits the establishment of an Exclusive Economic Zone of 200 miles around an inhabited island. As such, demonstration of sovereignty over the islands would confer upon the claimants
CHINA Territorial claims
Zhanjiang
VIETNAM
Vietnam Indonesia Malaysia Philippines China
Pratas Island
HAINAN 150 km
Sanya
Paracel Islands
CHINA
150 miles
Macclesfield Bank
CH INA
PHILIPPINES Manila
South China Sea
Scarborough Reef
VIETNAM
VI
ET
NA
SI LAY
Islands
A
A
MA
IN
SIA ONE IND
PALAWAN
Fiery Cross Reef Spratly
CH
PH
ILI
PP
IN
ES
(K
AL
AY AA
N)
Cam Ranh
M BRUNEI
MALAYSIA
INDONESIA
Figure 6.1 The South China Sea
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the legal right to control and develop the area’s energy resources, which they all need to fuel their rapid economic development. There is no question that the technology is available for deep-water drilling, although the size of the reserves and the price of crude oil must be high enough to justify the expense. There is considerable sea-bed within 1,000 meters in the Spratly vicinity; in some parts, 4,000 square miles of sea-bed lies in less than 200 meters of water.8 In the mid1990s, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) estimated that world oil demand would grow by 6.2 million barrels per day between 1995 and 2000, of which China and the countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) would account for an increase of 2.3 million barrels per day.9 To regional governments and major oil companies of the world, the South China Sea thus acquired the tantalizing prospect of providing an underwater bonanza. The China Geological Newspaper reported in May 1989 that surveys carried out by the Chinese Ministry of Geology and Mineral Resources indicated the presence of some 130 billion barrels (bb) of crude in the vicinity of the Spratlys.10 Estimates by foreign oil companies were invariably less optimistic.11 However, even if only one tenth of the Chinese estimate is confirmed, potential oil reserves in the disputed archipelago will still be greater than the proven reserves of 12bb for the East China Sea alone, or 9bb for the Yellow Sea and Bohai Gulf combined.12 China became a net oil importer in 1993. With no new oil finds, shortfalls are conservatively projected to 938 million barrels a year in 2010.13 Due to financial constraints and technological difficulties associated with oil exploration in the Spratlys, foreign investment from Western companies and joint ventures with them by China and Southeast Asian countries will be necessary for the foreseeable future. However, the participation of multinational oil companies from the United States, Japan and Europe in offshore oil exploration in the South China Sea, usually in the form of consortiums, has had the effect of internationalizing the dispute. Many of these oil companies not only have business dealings with more than one country contesting the islands; they also have close connections with their home governments. These companies would not want to get involved in a regional conflagration, and neither would their home governments, which in the event of a crisis, may be reluctantly pulled in to protect the interests of their nationals. Hence these oil multinationals are likely to establish linkages and communication channels to exert influence on both host and home governments to prevent an outbreak of hostilities, which would damage their interests and the collective interests of the oil industry. In this sense, foreign oil companies can exert a positive influence on China and the other regional claimants to adopt a more cooperative posture in order to ensure a peaceful environment conducive to foreign investment. However, it is also conceivable that they may separately call upon their host governments to back up their oil exploration contracts with force, in the event of intervention by an outside party. As oil multinationals have the influence and resources to be employed toward resolving or exacerbating any territorial dispute, their attitude and behavior toward the claims and claimants obviously matter.
Beyond two-level games? 131 In February 1992, the Chinese government enacted a law on territorial waters which stipulated by name the South China Sea island groups of Pratas, Paracel, Macclesfield Bank and Spratly, which they called Dongsha, Xisha, Zhongsha and Nansha, together with some other islands, as belonging to the PRC. Three months later, the Chinese government entered into a joint-venture agreement with Crestone, an American company, to explore for oil in a block of sea at the westernmost edge of the Spratly group. Over Vietnam’s protest that the drilling would be taking place on its continental shelf, Chinese officials reassured Crestone’s chairman that, if necessary, the Chinese government would deploy its entire navy to back up their contract with him.14 The selection of an American company was a shrewd ploy by the Chinese to minimize the chances that Washington would move against Chinese seizure of more islands, in anticipation that its oil companies would be the main beneficiary of any offshore petroleum development projects in the region initiated by China. Also, if Washington did intervene against China, it would undercut the position of, and immeasurably increase the risks for, every American oil company prospecting in China. Involvement of foreign oil companies seems to be the preferred strategy by the Chinese to stake claims to their oil interests and sovereignty in the South China Sea. Between 1979 and 1994, more than US$3 billion in foreign funds has been invested in oil prospecting joint ventures between oil multinationals and companies under the aegis of the PRC’s China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) in the South China Sea.15 Between 1995 and 1996, CNOOC contracted with Chevron to explore three blocks all located between China’s island province of Hainan and the Paracels.16 However, China is not the only country with a strategy to involve foreign oil companies in order to stake territorial claims to the disputed South China Sea islands. China’s move encouraged Vietnam, another oil importer, to invite tenders to develop the Thanh Long (Blue Dragon) and Dai Hung (Big Bear) fields adjacent to the Crestone operation in 1994.17 Until then, all of Vietnam’s oil production had come from a single offshore field that was developed with Soviet help in the 1980s. The Chinese contest that the oil fields to be developed lie within China’s claim of the South China Sea, in response to which Vietnam reiterates that the Crestone concession lies on its continental shelf. In July 1994, China blockaded a Vietnamese rig operating within the Wan’an Bei-21 block, which China had leased to Crestone three months before.18 In 1995, after Vietnam drove off a Chinese seismic survey ship in that Crestone block, Chinese warships blockaded a Vietnamese rig in the Blue Dragon area, which Vietnam had awarded to a consortium of American-Japanese oil interests led by Mobil.19 In April 1996, when the American oil company CONOCO negotiated for Vietnam’s blocks 133, 134 and 135 which overlapped the Wan’an Bei-21 concession, China threatened to retaliate against the interests of CONOCO’s parent, Dupont, in China.20 The presence and involvement of foreign oil companies until now seems only to have fueled the dispute. Indeed, foreign oil companies should also have cause for concern that they may become pawns used by China and other regional countries to extend their influence in the South China Sea.
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Although Malaysia and Brunei are both basically self-sufficient in petroleum, their domestic consumption of the fuel has been rising faster than production throughout the 1980s and 1990s.21 In July 2002, Malaysia’s state-owned oil major, Petronas, struck oil on the sea-bed off the coast of Borneo, in the contested jurisdiction of Brunei’s EEZ claim. Petronas subsequently awarded two blocks of the field to a subsidiary and Murphy Oil of the United States, while Brunei negotiated for prospecting rights with the French major Total and Royal Dutch/Shell to the same two blocks.22 The result was that, in March 2003, Brunei sent a gunboat to drive away a Murphy Oil drilling ship in the disputed area, and Malaysia retaliated by sending its naval craft to block the arrival of a Total ship.23 Discoveries such as this one could bring about more deep-water exploration for Southeast Asia, and even for China, thus involving Western oil companies and bringing their attendant interest and influence to bear on the dispute. With regard to the oil situation, the Philippines is in the direst straits, with a 95 percent dependency on imports and disappointing strikes in offshore drilling between Palawan and the Spratlys.24 Unsurprisingly, the Philippines has been a most vocal and active proponent of joint development of the Spratlys. Indeed, the president and the foreign secretary of the Philippines were prime movers behind the “ASEAN Declaration on the South China Sea” adopted at the group’s annual ministerial meeting in July 1992, by which declaratory states agreed to the principles of joint development, settling all disputes without the use of force, and refraining from further territorial acquisitions.25 Despite having endorsed the ASEAN declaration, China, aware of its market size and bargaining power vis-à-vis its Southeast Asian neighbors and foreign oil companies, shrinks from entering into any cooperative arrangements the terms of which it feels it cannot dictate. Chinese premier Li Peng did say in a August 1990 press conference in Singapore that China was prepared to set aside the question of sovereignty to join with Southeast Asian countries in developing the marine and sea-bed resources surrounding the Spratlys. Still, China proceeded to sign contracts with foreign companies on oil and gas exploration without the participation of any other claimant state.
Track II In the meantime, efforts at building confidence and security cooperation are being carried out by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) through so-called “Track II” channels in the Southeast Asian region. In parallel to the security dialogues that government ministers from ASEAN are having with officials from Asia-Pacific countries at its post-ministerial conferences (PMCs), Track II multilateral unofficial consultative meetings focus on political and security issues considered too sensitive or disputatious to be raised at Track I level. Two of the most well established and comprehensive second-track arrangements in the AsiaPacific region are the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) and the annual “Asia-Pacific Roundtable” organized by the ASEAN Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ASEAN ISIS). These Track II
Beyond two-level games? 133 processes are financed by both government and private academic institutions, foundations and think-tanks, and usually involve meetings of academics, journalists, business people, and government officials from foreign and defense ministries attending in their own capacity. With regard to the South China Sea dispute, China has demonstrated a preference for bilateral negotiations, where it feels it has more leverage over its counterpart. An important function of these informal discussions is to coax the Chinese into committing to multilateral arrangements. The most relevant of these Track II arrangements for our purpose is the annual series of workshops on “Managing Potential Conflicts in the South China Sea” initiated in 1990 by Indonesia’s Foreign Affairs Department Research and Development Agency and funded by the Canadian International Development Agency. Indonesia was able to play the role of a neutral facilitator as it is the largest of the Southeast Asian countries in terms of land area and population, and it is not directly involved in the South China Sea territorial controversies. The first workshop, which met on the Indonesian island of Bali in January 1990, was basically an opportunity for officials, academics, and others from ASEAN and resource persons from Canada to meet, in their “private” capacity, and present their “personal” positions on furthering cooperation in the South China Sea.26 When the second workshop met in July 1991, the invitees included participants from China, Taiwan, Vietnam and Laos, in addition to those from the ASEAN states and Canada. Since China is a major player in the dispute, and Taiwan maintains a military presence in the Spratlys, Indonesia thought it realistic and appropriate to include both countries in that workshop and subsequent ones. China would have uncompromisingly objected to Taiwan’s participation in an official forum, which is a good reason to keep the Track II status of the workshop series. Indonesia had also wanted to invite participants from Japan, for 70 percent of Japan’s oil imports pass through the South China Sea, and it stands to reason that the Japanese are concerned about possible attacks on their merchant vessels and oil tankers in the event of a conflict.27 However, China’s objection to Japan’s participation on grounds that it is not a regional Southeast Asian country, and so has no right to decide on regional issues, could not be surmounted. China does not want to internationalize the Spratly issue for fear of diluting its regional influence and complicating any moves toward eventual settlement. As in the past workshop, the question of sovereignty and boundary delimitation was once again avoided, although the participants did vow to seek peaceful means of resolving disputes, and at the workshop’s conclusion emphasized the importance of joint development of the region’s resources.28 The enactment of China’s Law on Territorial Sea in February 1992, declaring the disputed South China Sea islands to be Chinese territory, exposed China to particular scrutiny by participants from other countries in the third workshop of 1992. Two working groups were established to conduct resource assessment and marine scientific research of the Spratlys at the 1992 workshop, but no further action was taken after they reported their findings to the next
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workshop in 1993.29 By the eighth workshop in December 1997, altogether five working groups – the aforementioned two working groups plus the ones on marine environmental protection, navigational safety, and legal affairs – have been established.30 However, to date, the sovereignty issue has yet to be brought up and seriously debated at the workshops. Since the purpose of the Indonesian workshops is to build confidence and develop cooperation among countries around the South China Sea, the organizers have been most careful to avoid discussions or debates on sovereignty claims, believing that the ensuing arguments would only produce more heated emotions than rational discussions. While this may have been a wise tactical move to lesson tension in the workshops, which might otherwise have floundered, skirting the sovereignty issue means that the participants have yet to discuss the most fundamental cause of conflict in the South China Sea. Disputes over sovereignty should have been, and must become in future, the primary focus of the workshops. Although the governments of the participants are strictly speaking not obliged to act on the recommendations of the workshops, still, whatever cooperative measures that are devised by the participants need the support of their governments to have any realistic chance of being put in place. The individuals involved in the workshops are by and large influential opinion-leaders in their own countries with high-level political contacts gained through current or previous government service and personal associations with state leaders. Although participating in their private capacities, the stature of the workshop participants should hopefully carry weight in the reports and recommendations that they have to submit to their governments. Their opinions may be decisive in shifting the priorities of these leaders from contemplating confrontation to pursuing cooperation, although at present neither course of action seems very likely. At the very least, the Track II process provides a legitimate and respectable forum which allows for usually weak and ignored non-governmental voices to be heard concerning security and other international and domestic issues. In a way, the Indonesian workshops epitomize the so-called “ASEAN way” of problem management, which specifically eschews the formal and structural confidence-building and arms-reduction institutional frameworks favored by Europeans and North Americans. ASEAN as a collectivity has developed an informal and unstructured “consultative process” whereby its leaders and top decision-makers may postpone a difficult issue or bypass a conflict situation, rather than resolve it, in the hope that divisive issues will be made irrelevant or innocuous by time or event. Since they came together as a group in 1967, the ASEAN states were able to put aside their conflicts and cooperate, without necessary solving those conflicts, for two interrelated reasons. First, they realized that, as small, weak states, intramural conflict would leave them open to potential destabilization from the superpowers and their ideological proxies in the region. Second, they recognized the benefits of augmenting their collective influence in the region by creating the appearance and even substance of a united front when dealing with outside actors. ASEAN has been arguably the most
Beyond two-level games? 135 durable transnational economic/security regime outside Europe for the past thirty years, precisely because it is composed of weak states facing a common external threat. However, as the twenty-first century approaches, what ASEAN has to manage is not the threat of superpower intervention, foreign-supported local Communist movements, or Vietnam, which used to be ASEAN’s primary opponent when it occupied Cambodia in the 1980s but is now a member of the collective. Rather, what ASEAN has to manage is the rise of China as a major power, if not the major power in the South China Sea. The Indonesia workshops have previously built on that “ASEAN approach” by relying on informal contacts, avoidance of controversy, and incremental results.31 However, China is neither a member of ASEAN, nor a country facing an external security threat, at least not overtly. It is, rather, a growing economic and military power. Hence it is difficult to convince China of ASEAN’s concerns and rope it into the ASEAN process of issue avoidance and endless consultations. Furthermore, multilateral security cooperation has never been a historical diplomatic norm for China or Southeast Asian countries until very recently, and trust and cooperation among states and peoples take time to build up.
Chinese bureaucratic tangle in the South China Sea dispute It is a well established observation in two-level games and other bargaining theories, that bureaucratic interests and preferences within a country often shift in response to external threats or opportunities. The struggle for the South China Sea islands resulted in just such a contest for influence between the military and the foreign affairs establishment, two major groups in Chinese politics, with respect to the drafting of China’s law on territorial waters in early 1992. Heated discussions reportedly took place between the top brass of the PLA and the PRC foreign ministry as the law was introduced in the NPC, China’s legislature.32 The PLA had, at that time, two representatives in the CCP Politburo, and since the mid-1980s, at least one representative on the CCP Central Committee’s Foreign Affairs Leading Small Group.33 However, the military’s enthusiasm for its burgeoning national security role could not apparently be contained within the highest echelons of power. The foreign ministry had preferred not to specify the islands claimed by China, in order to avoid diplomatic friction with countries disputing China’s claims; however, the general headquarters of the army, navy, the Guangzhou Military Region and Hainan Province insisted that principles must be maintained which would favor China in future negotiations.34 One scholar even argued that the act of creating Hainan Province was a declaration by Beijing of its determination to assert its claims to the natural resources in the South China Sea; for according to the “Decision to establish Hainan Province” adopted by China’s seventh NPC in April 1988, the Xisha (Paracel), Zhongsha (Macclesfield Bank), and Nansha (Spratly) island groups and their surrounding waters were specifically included in Hainan’s geographical boundary.35 In any case, the military’s argument carried the day.
136 Beyond two-level games? China’s sustained push through the South China Sea indicates that the PLAN has been fairly successful in its efforts at lobbying for political influence and budget allocation. After becoming PLAN commander in 1982, Admiral Liu Huaqing became a forceful spokesman for the push to the Spratlys, arguing to journalists that one of PLAN’s main goals was to assert sovereignty over its rich and far-flung maritime resources.36 In 1994, PLAN’s deputy commander Zhang Xusan used the same argument to pitch for more defense expenditure during the NPC budget debate.37 Liu’s elevation to the Politburo Standing Committee at the fourteenth CCP Congress in October 1992 further increased the navy’s influence in policy-making. Since 1983, the PLAN has been escorting research vessels dispatched by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the State Oceanic Bureau to monitor weather and water conditions in the furthest reaches of the Spratlys.38 In the early 1990s, numerous articles in PLA journals used the Spratlys dispute to argue for faster naval upgrading.39 Their authors invariably pointed out the great distance between the Spratlys and the Chinese mainland to justify the acquisition of larger surface battleships, long-range SU-72 type fighters, aerial refueling capability, and forward naval bases in the South China Sea. Of course, a conflict scenario in the Taiwan Straits figured prominently in China’s recent efforts to acquire SU-27s, Sovremenny-class destroyers, and kiloclass submarines from Russia. Still, the primary role of PLAN in organizing and conducting South China Sea operations fits well into the navy’s augmenting organizational interests. This makes the PLAN a powerful domestic interest group in any negotiations over the sovereignty disposition of the islands. It was most likely to elements in PLAN’s South China Sea command that President Ramos of the Philippines was referring when he said he believed the occupation of Mischief Reef to be carried out by low-level functionaries acting without the knowledge or consent of the Chinese authorities.40
Mischief Reef and after: strategic interaction between China and ASEAN and within ASEAN The so-called Mischief Reef incident began when the Philippines armed forces discovered Chinese-built concrete structures on that tiny reef in early February 1995, inside the 200-mile EEZ claim by the Philippines. Three days of bilateral talks in Beijing ended in stalemate, with China protesting that Mischief Reef is part of Chinese Spratly territory, and that the structures were merely shelters for Chinese fishermen and not military bunkers.41 The Philippines government then ordered its navy and air force to destroy the structures. Beijing was surprised by the Philippines’ move, but it was even more so when ASEAN as a group issued a statement condemning the Chinese action for contravening the “ASEAN Declaration on the South China Sea.” Previously, ASEAN members have believed that China would be more amenable to compromise in a context of quiet diplomacy and private dialogue designed to save face, rather than to engage in a public shouting match. Even then, China did not seem persuaded, for when the Philippines government arranged for local and foreign journalists
Beyond two-level games? 137 to visit other islands claimed by Manila, they found their boat blocked by Chinese ships.42 The Philippines navy retaliated by arresting sixty-two Chinese fishermen in nearby waters for trespassing.43 After the incident, China’s top unofficial spokesman on South China Sea affairs, Pan Shiying, told American officials that if China’s offer for talks on joint development were rebuffed, “it will have no choice but to take over the islands forcibly.”44 This could only have meant that, if countries were to negotiate with China, they would be recognizing its claims to parts or all of the Spratlys. If they did not negotiate with China, then China would continue its “salami-slicing” tactics of acquiring one by one the disputed islands, reefs and atolls, thus creating a fait accompli for the Southeast Asian countries to deal with. Ramos had already decided to allow a Filipino affiliate of the American energy firm Vaalco to explore for oil in the Reed Bank area of the Spratlys.45 To forestall further Chinese moves, the president threatened to invoke the Mutual Defense Treaty between the Philippines and the United States, and the Philippines Congress passed a 50 billion peso (US$2 billion) program to upgrade the country’s armed forces.46 In an attempt to bring more countries into the discussion, ASEAN countries highlighted the Spratly issue when the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) on security, a product of the annual ASEAN postministerial conferences, met in Brunei in July 1995. To diffuse regional tension, Beijing told Manila privately that the Chinese would not build any new structures in the disputed area with the Philippines,47 and subsequently offered to discuss the South China Sea dispute with ASEAN as a group at its 1995 summit in Bangkok.48 This offer constituted a major concession on China’s part, given that it had previously insisted on conducting only bilateral talks. However, it appeared with hindsight to have been no more than a tactical ploy to calm the concerns of ASEAN countries, for by March 1996, the Chinese had rebuilt the structures on Mischief Reef which had been destroyed by the Filipinos.49 Coinciding with a series of artillery barrages across the Taiwan Straits, Beijing’s assertive stance on the Spratlys was explained by ASEAN officials and scholars as an attempt by the PLA and its navy to capitalize on CCP secretary general Jiang Zemin’s political vulnerability to promote its own importance and interest. Be that as it may, there is still a prevailing sense within ASEAN that China is stalling for time until it is powerful enough to assert sole ownership of the disputed South China Sea islands. How else can one explain why, while accepting the principles of negotiated settlements and joint exploration, China has proceeded to occupy more islands and grant additional oil exploration contracts? Possession of the Spratlys will not only confer upon the Chinese tremendous pride in the symbolic restoration of China’s great power status in Asia, it would make China a key participant in Southeast Asian affairs. Underlying China’s military interventions at both Johnson and Mischief Reefs in 1988 and 1995 was probably China’s concern that its claims risked being marginalized if it did not actively assert its presence in the Spratlys. China became very suspicious of what looked to it like attempts by ASEAN claimants,
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with the support of the other members of the group, to divide the Spratly claims among themselves, especially after Vietnam joined ASEAN in July 1995. Already in January 1992, Vietnam and Malaysia had reached an agreement to jointly explore for resources in disputed areas.50 In April 1996, Vietnam and the Philippines sent a team of research scientists from both countries on board a Philippines government ship for a fifteen-day mission to take an “inventory of marine organisms” in the Spratlys.51 As to the tussle between China and Vietnam over offshore petroleum concessions, ASEAN, prudent not to add fat to the fire, has been remarkably silent. In fact, China would be putting itself in the most advantageous position in any future discussion on the sovereignty of the Spratlys if it were to demonstrate flexibility on the continental shelf and EEZ claims of Malaysia and Brunei respectively. These countries are contesting the least number of islets and reefs compared to the other claimants, and so doing would not only allow China to delimit its southernmost baseline and legitimize its presence in the archipelago, it might even turn other ASEAN members against them. It would then be interesting to study the dynamics of China’s interaction with two groups of countries within the same “regime” under the framework of “three-level game” interaction, to see if China succeeds in splitting them up, or if ASEAN succeeds in holding together as a cohesive regional grouping. So far, the latter has seemed to be the case. However, any concession on China’s territorial sovereignty claims over the Spratlys would compromise China’s contested claims everywhere else, so this scenario would not likely come true. Although Taiwan maintains its own separate claim to the South China Sea islands, its role in this on-going South China Sea imbroglio has been very contradictory, which perhaps mirrors its own identity crisis. After the 14 March 1988 clash between China and Vietnam, the Taiwanese defense minister said that, if China had requested help from Taiwan’s garrison at Taiping Island, which it had maintained since 1956, the Taiwanese would have given it.52 For nationalistic reasons, people such as political figures in the pro-unification New Party would prefer to see the Spratlys occupied by the PRC rather than by ASEAN countries.53 Since Taiwan was admitted to the Indonesian workshops in 1992, its participating officials and academics have been very vocal in reiterating the PRC’s stance that the disputed islands have historically belonged to the Chinese people and outstanding issues can be settled only if “Chinese” sovereignty is not affected.54 In that spirit, the vice-president of China’s CNOOC could announce that, as of August 1995, China and Taiwan would collaborate on oil and gas exploration and exploitation in the South China Sea, as both sides are “like a family, where no problems such as ‘sovereignty’ issues will bother either side.”55 Although Taiwan’s executive Yuan in April 1993 came up with a policy guideline claiming that “the South China Sea within the historical water limit is the maritime area under the jurisdiction of the Republic of China,”56 the problem with identifying too closely with the PRC’s position on “Chinese” sovereignty for Taiwan is that it may find its own claim marginalized by both China and the other claimant states.
Beyond two-level games? 139
Scarborough Shoal: subnational actors at play Lying in the vicinity of the Macclesfield Bank, 200 kilometers west of the main Philippines island of Luzon, is a shoal called Scarborough, or Huangyan in Chinese. On 1 May 1997, two Chinese Ocean Bureau ships carrying members of an international ham operators’ club from Japan, the US and China were nearing the shoal. It was then that Filipino military jets and vessels appeared and the captains of the Ocean Bureau ships were warned that they were within the 200-mile EEZ of the Philippines.57 Public opinion in the Philippines saw the ham radio operators as pawns in a claim game conducted by China, in yet another effort to use non-military means such as research ships, oil companies, and even foreign and Chinese civilians to advance its territorial claims. The Chinese government was thus seen to be doing in the South China Sea exactly what it accused the Japanese government of doing in the Diaoyu/Senkaku dispute. Such suspicions appeared to be borne out by the words of a Chinese organizer of the trip, who said that the Chinese government paid thousands of dollars to charter the ships, and that the expedition itself was led by a former PLA operator.58 In the aftermath of the episode, Filipino senator Gregory Honasan suggested that his government should train and arm Filipino residents of the Spratly islands to combat future foreign intrusions.59 Then a Filipino congressman led a group of his colleagues and journalists to Scarborough Shoal and hoisted their national flag. Although the Philippines government quickly dissociated itself from the action of the activists by calling the adventure a private initiative, it almost immediately announced that it would continue constructing lighthouses on the disputed islands it already occupied.60 The matter seemed to have been settled after three days of talks in Beijing between the Chinese vice-foreign minister and his Filipino counterpart, with both sides agreeing to establish a committee to review their respective territorial claims.61 Yet in March 1998, the Philippines foreign secretary had to warn the Chinese against installing a ground satellite on a Paracel island and telephone booths on Chinese-occupied islands in the Spratly group.62
Fishing in troubled waters Interestingly, the first attempt on the part of the PRC government to create and maintain a physical presence in the South China Sea was far back in November 1955, when a team of ninety personal was dispatched by the “Hainan Bird Fertilizer Company” to collect guano and construct shelters on Yongxing (Wood Island) in the Paracel group. Taiwan, of course, has occupied Taiping Island in the Spratlys since 1956, and sees no issue with its own fishermen plying their livelihood around those disputed isles. Even so, up till the middle of 2001, Taiwanese authorities have reported over 200 instances annually of what they describe as “harassment” by the Chinese navy against Taiwanese fishing boats, mostly in the South China Sea, whereby armed Chinese sailors supposedly boarded, detained or chased away Taiwanese fishermen operating within what
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China regards as its maritime territorial claims.63 In addition, in 1999 there were at least seven incidents involving Chinese fishermen and the Philippines navy that have resulted in the loss of lives or property or both, and the Chinese fishing boats involved in these incidents were all registered in Hainan Province.64 Intelligence sources have claimed that Chinese authorities have been doling out cash to encourage fishermen based in harbors close to Vietnam to extend their operations into the Spratlys, as a strategy to assist China in its sovereignty claims over what it considers to be its territorial waters and maritime rights.65 Apparently, by sending fishing boats but not warships, China can strengthen its case that Chinese fishermen past and present have cast their nets in the Spratlys, and at the same time, not appear to be provocative. Over 5 million tons of fish are pulled from the South China Sea each year, which is 10 percent of the global fisheries catch, providing 25 percent of the protein needs for 500 million people and a livelihood for some 270 million.66 Unfortunately, the sovereignty dispute has made preservation of fisheries resources in the South China Sea all but impossible. A case in point is the Philippines response to China’s imposition of a fishing moratorium in the South China Sea north of the 12 degree parallel from 1 June to 31 August 1999.67 The 1999 moratorium announcement by the central government was the first to cover the entire South China Sea. The Philippines made a point of asserting its sovereignty claims and deterring “poaching” by Chinese fishermen when its navy sank one of three Chinese wooden-hull fishing vessels operating in the vicinity of Scarborough Shoal on 18 July 1999, right in the middle of the moratorium period.68 While the Philippines denied the right of the Chinese to impose a fishing moratorium on what it considered to be its own maritime claims and resources, it seemed that even China’s own fishermen were prepared, or allowed, to ignore it. Hence, protecting the species could be a rallying point, and shifting the focus to fishery and conservation issues could alert both the domestic and world public, which could be used to pressure governments to take collective action to arrest the declining fish stocks in the South China Sea, thus effectively “de-linking” this pressing issue from the sovereignty argument, a solution to which may be years or even decades away.
Possible future developments As according to our framework, while domestic forces in a democracy like the Philippines needed little probing to organize and protest against the perceived Chinese intrusion, the government of authoritarian Vietnam stayed calm after losing more than seventy men in the 1988 naval confrontation with China. As pressures for political change in the region mount, and information becomes more free-flowing, foreign policy is subjected to greater public debate, and nationalistic positions may harden even more, magnifying the stakes while making compromises harder to achieve. As an illustration, Taiwan’s continued presence in the South China Sea, though minimal, has heightened Taiwanese public sentiments to their country’s involvement there. During the Mischief Reef
Beyond two-level games? 141 incident, when three patrol boats were forced to turn back to Taiwan before reaching their garrison on Taiping Island for fear of being caught in hostile cross-fire, the mission’s failure to defend Taiwanese sovereignty was heavily criticized in the legislature and the local media.69 While the principal benefits of the creeping closure of the South China Sea accrue to international oil companies and their host governments who collect the petroleum royalties, the cost falls heavily on the fishermen from regional countries. There has been an increasing number of incidents in recent years involving fishermen from the region being arrested, fined, imprisoned, and having their boats confiscated by neighboring governments for allegedly trespassing into their countries’ territorial waters or EEZ. These fishermen will have every interest in forming lobby groups to pressure their own authorities to claim as much as possible, or at least concede as little as possible, of their country’s territorial waters, thus further complicating negotiations. There is some danger that, as a result of economic difficulties, nationalistic sentiments might rise in some East and Southeast Asian states, and weakened leaders or governments may be tempted to look for outside diversions to deflect domestic criticisms or failures. As leaders seek to reaffirm the basis of their political legitimacy, especially in the event of a potentially regime-threatening crisis such as the Asian financial and economic turmoil of the late 1990s, they may see value in adopting a hard-line stance on sovereignty disputes, thus increasing the saliency of territorial issues. In fact, Selig Harrison argued more than twenty years ago that South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu precipitated the conflict with China over the Paracels in January 1974 to rally anti-Chinese nationalist sentiments to bolster his faltering political position.70 Public opinion over territorial issues seems to have been equally potent politically, if not more so, a quarter century later, though ironically, it was exerted on the Communist leadership of a united and socialist Vietnam. In the run-up to the ninth Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party in April 2001, general secretary Le Kha Phieu came under criticism from both within and without the party, and from Vietnamese residing overseas, for having conceded too much to China in reaching the land border agreement of 1999 (details of which have never been released by the government), thus leading to his replacement by Nong Duc Manh.71 We have postulated that the higher cost of achieving no agreement means that open trade-dependent economies will have larger win-sets for entering into international agreements than more self-sufficient economies. There is hope that increasing economic interdependence and bilateral ties will both make political leaders more interested in cooperation, and create more domestic groups in support of cooperation, while the option of confrontation is present. A positive aspect of this trade picture is that, at least from 1975, when Sino-ASEAN trade data were first systematically collected and analyzed,72 up to 1992, ChinaASEAN trade increased fifteen times in value.73 Unfortunately, both China and Southeast Asian countries have comparative advantages in products that are substitutes rather than complements for one another. Furthermore, both China
142 Beyond two-level games? and ASEAN in the 1990s are heavily dependent on the US, the European Union and Japan as principal export markets, and these three entities are also the top three of the four main sources of imports for ASEAN and China.74 As a large country with a diversified economy, China competes with Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and Brunei by specializing in the production of primarybased and labour-intensive commodities such as textiles, clothing, electrical appliances and toys, and with more capital-intensive economies like Singapore and Malaysia for the same high-end export markets.75 Its low wage rate and lowered exchange rate since 1979 are considered by trade analysts to be principle factors contributing to export competition among China and ASEAN in the markets of the industrialized world. China as a huge emerging market also attracts foreign investment that might have gone to other regional countries. Still, there may be more room for growth in trade, investment and tourism between China and ASEAN, as the Chinese government undertakes tariff reductions and simplification of investment procedures in the wake of China’s entry into the WTO in 2001 and its contemporaneous proposal to establish the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area in ten years’ time. Trade between China and the ASEAN countries has already increased 168 percent from US$20.4 billion to US$54.8 billion between 1996 and 2002, accounting for 7 percent and 8.8 percent of China’s total foreign trade for the two years respectively.76 If this rate of increase keeps up, it will lead to greater economic interdependence that will hopefully spill into more willingness to cooperate on other non-economic issues affecting the South China Sea region. Despite the occasional pressure exerted by assorted nationalists, militarists and adventurers in China and the ASEAN countries, there is hope that increasing economic interdependence and deepening political ties will make their leaders more interested in cooperation and create more domestic groups in support of peace and cooperation. China remains firmly committed to economic growth, which is as much a part of the Chinese government’s effort to raise the country’s international profile as is its accumulation of military power. ASEAN countries also have an interest in maintaining a common stance with China at international conferences on issues of human rights, environmental protection and democratization against “interference” by the West. ASEAN has also had some limited success in getting China to forgo its prior insistence on conducting bilateral negotiations with claimants only,77 in accepting some degree of multilateralization of the South China Sea issues. Since 1995, China has announced that it will use international law and the law of the sea to examine the claims, and indicated that whatever it does in the South China Sea, it will not threaten the security of the sea-lanes.78 The Chinese leadership also reiterated its desire to shelve sovereignty claims in favor of joint economic development for the Spratlys, in the report of the fifteenth CCP Congress in October 1997. After three years of negotiations between China and ASEAN to draft a regional code of conduct, a non-binding China-ASEAN “Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea” was signed in November 2002. Though the declaration made no reference to specific geographical scope, primarily because
Beyond two-level games? 143 China opposed any mention of the Paracel Islands, an issue brought up many times by Vietnam, it expressed the parties’ voluntary commitment to refrain from further inhabiting new features, and focused on the need for dialogue and the preservation of regional stability.79 This shows that the Indonesian workshops and ARF meetings, which had built on the “ASEAN approach” of problem management by relying on personal consultations among leaders, postponing difficult issues and gradually expanding on areas of common interests, did produce some tangible, though limited results. It is not inconceivable that, some time in the future, the claimant states will consent to mediation of the dispute by the ASEAN High Council, a ministerial level mediation body the establishment of which was provided for by the 1976 Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (Bali Treaty).80 Alternatively, they may agree to submit the dispute for adjudication under the aegis of UNCLOS III, which may involve conciliation, arbitration, special arbitration by technical specialists, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLS), the Sea-Bed Dispute Chamber (SBDC), or even the International Court of Justice (ICJ), depending on the nature of the dispute and the wishes of the disputants.81 Unfortunately, as far as I know, these avenues for dispute resolution have yet to be seriously explored by the parties concerned. Serious engagement in joint development of resources in the Spratlys and the realization of a code of conduct for parties to the South China Sea dispute would provide both China, ASEAN and even Taiwan the best opportunity to show that they are responsible, trustworthy and peace-loving business partners and members of the international community. It would be best for regional governments to come together and establish a consortium of foreign and national oil companies to prospect for petroleum in the disputed Spratly Islands. It should also be stipulated that any formula for the exploration and production of oil or gas and the costs and payoffs associated with it be agreed to and altered only by consensual agreement. So doing will ensure equitable incentive to begin joint development, and at the same time dampen the desire for unilateral seizure of territory. The work of this consortium could be overseen by a committee of technical and financial experts established under the aegis of the Indonesia workshops, or even the ARF, perhaps with a person of Chinese extraction as its chairman, in deference to China’s pre-eminent position in the South China Sea region. Countries should agree that shoals and sandbanks that are presently submerged not be objects of claim, which would exclude the Macclesfield Bank. Given the proximity of the structures to one another, countries should also agree that claims to any island or reef, inhabited or otherwise, carry with it a ½-mile territorial sea. Freedom of navigation and over-flight by both civilian and military craft, a key American demand,82 should be fully guaranteed to all nations, but the establishment of military bases or fortifications in the disputed areas should be discontinued. In this sense, Taiwan’s demilitarization of Pratas Island and Itu Aba (Spratly) in 2000, by removing its marine corps units and placing these islands under coastguard jurisdiction, was a step in the right direction. For the purposes of commercial fishing, the entire South China Sea should be
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regarded as a semi-enclosed sea surrounded by China, Taiwan and the ASEAN countries, whose governments have both the right and responsibility under UNCLOS III to come together to allocate and regulate the catching and processing of fish. Carrying out the above measures should hopefully integrate and “positivize” the roles played by transnational, governmental and subnational actors in the current dispute to the maximum extent possible under the present circumstances. Only when the economic and security interests of all regional countries become compatible, and in good time, can serious discussions on sovereignty claims be started, or postponed indefinitely.
7
Testing the propositions of the two-level game hypothesis
Two-level game analysis and China’s territorial sovereignty disputes: strengths and limitations An integrative perspective has come increasingly to dominate contemporary theorizing on diplomacy and international bargaining. The role of international and domestic factors in the mutual and simultaneous determination of the outcomes of international negotiations has now been widely recognized. While deals reached at the international level change the character of domestic politics, the dynamics of domestic constraints may open up or retard new possibilities for international accords. The framework put forward in Robert Putnam’s 1988 article provided a conceptual springboard for just such an integrative approach to international bargaining. My limited sample of three cases of extended territorial sovereignty dispute negotiation, plus a briefer treatment of a claim that may give rise to sovereignty talks some time in the future, cannot have rigorously tested the propositions generated by Putnam’s two-level game theory, propositions that should have wide-ranging implications for existing theories of international and domestic politics. However, by contrasting the recurrent failure to begin sovereignty talks on the East China Sea islands with the success in settling the Sino-Russian territorial dispute, along with China’s border dispute with India somewhere in between, and the involvement of transnational and subnational groups in the South China Sea islands dispute, I believe I have managed to explore and refine this bargaining theory of diplomacy, and used these recurring territorial controversies to discover more about its strengths and limitations than were apparent. Having identified “win-sets” as the key variables of negotiation outcomes, the Putnam framework identified three broad factors or determinants that shape the size of these win-sets, to wit, societal preferences and governmental coalitions, ratification procedures of political institutions, and strategies of the negotiators. This framework follows closely the three traditional levels of analysis employed in the study of politics, namely society, state and leadership. Each of these determinants in turn gives rise to several propositions or predictions that allow us to make use of the findings derived from our study to evaluate the theory of twolevel games. These are as listed below:
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Testing the two-level game hypothesis
I The two-level game framework predicts that when the costs of an agreement are “heterogeneous” rather than “homogeneous,” that is, they are relatively concentrated on certain segments of a population while the benefits are diffused throughout the country, then those sectors and regions whose interests are most negatively affected by the agreement will organize and agitate to thwart the negotiating process, or failing that, derail its ratification. However, preferences within the Russian Federation were clearly divided between Moscow at the center, which favored the agreement, and the inhabitants and authorities of the Russian Far East, who wanted to scuttle it for being detrimental to their own interests. The costs and benefits of the 1991 SinoRussian boundary agreement have fallen “heterogeneously” or “unevenly” on the Russian Far East as a region, while Russia as a whole has benefited. While the economic and security benefits which flow from the agreement in the form of increased trade and reduction in military expenditure have been readily acknowledged by Moscow, residents of the Russian Far East perceive that they are the ones who are paying its cost in terms of smuggling, illegal immigration, lost employment opportunities and crimes which come with more open borders and greater contact with the Chinese. As such, while the Russian central government has been assuring its Chinese counterpart of its intention to adhere to both the letter and spirit of the agreement and complete demarcation work as fast as possible, local government leaders in the Russian Far East and opposition groups within Russia have been decidedly vocal in opposing the implementation of the agreement to transfer territory to China. However, Yeltsin’s support for negotiations and synergistic linkages between the two states in expectation of joint gains, was strong enough in this case to isolate and override potentially disruptive influences against implementation of the negotiated agreement. It should not be forgotten that monetary transfers from Moscow to the region constituted an attractive form of side-payment to the cash-strapped regional leadership to induce them to compromise on the boundary question and other issues important to the center. Although the Chinese have been trying occasionally without success to get the Russian border authorities to complete the demarcation of the border since the boundary agreement came into force, there has been no record of disagreement between Beijing and regional authorities in Heilongjiang, Jilin and Inner Mongolia, provincial-level administrations which border the Russian Far East. Regarding the 1991 Sino-Russian boundary agreement, both state and society in China were overwhelmingly in favor of it, for they stood to gain all they had always asked for in exchange for giving up virtually nothing. This is because both Beijing and the border towns and counties are in a “win-win” situation together. Ever since China embarked on an “open-door” policy in the late 1970s to promote economic growth and raise Chinese standards of living by attracting foreign trade and investment, both central and local authorities have been very enthusiastic about cross-border trade, where both common people and government officials alike can generate a lot of wealth. As such, while the benefits for
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the Chinese as a result of the 1991 boundary agreement are “homogeneously” positive, the costs to them are practically nil. It is thus no wonder that we do not hear complaints or grumbles on the Chinese side about the agreement itself, which is to them an unmixed blessing. In the case of the Diaoyutai/Senakaku Islands dispute, Taiwan and Okinawa fishermen, both afraid that their livelihood would suffer if their access to waters off the islands are obstructed by the other’s coastguard, repeatedly appealed to their respective national legislators and county councilors for naval escorts. By holding noisy demonstrations and writing petitions through their cooperatives urging their own government to uphold the country’s sovereignty over the islands, the fishermen wanted the authorities to ensure that the interests of their segment of the population were not sacrificed in any proposed territorial compromises. As for the quieted but as yet unsettled Sino-Indian boundary dispute, both the costs and benefits of a border agreement, or for that matter the absence of one, are small and diffused for the governments and peoples of China and India. The major benefits of an agreement for both countries are largely strategic, through an improvement in the security climate that would enable both sides to withdraw troops and arsenals from the border area and reduce the chances of accidental cross-firings. However, the cost of supporting the military would not be significantly reduced. The Chinese would still need to maintain a sizeable military presence in Tibet to guard against the threat of Tibetan separatism, and India would simply be re-deploying most of her troops along the Himalayan frontier to the border with Pakistan and Kashmir. The principal costs of such an agreement, if they can be considered as such, would accrue to the extremist wing of the BJP and nationalist Indian politicians, who would be deprived of the chance of making political capital out of taking a militant and expansionary stance on the Sino-Indian border. Hence material costs or benefits have not been, and will not likely be, a significant impediment or incentive to a border agreement. It should be pointed out that the presence of heterogeneous preferences between a state government and its societal pressure groups does not automatically imply that it is possible, or even desirable, for one’s negotiators to take advantage of a split in the opponent’s public opinion or division of interest to pursue negotiations. Putnam’s bargaining framework does not seem to have taken sufficient account of this fact, perhaps because he did not have in mind the intricacies of negotiations over sovereignty of disputed territories when he derived his bargaining theory. If mutual suspicion or lingering discontent between the people of the disputant states is deep, as a result of cultural bias, historical memories of past conflicts or perceived slights to national dignity, much like the circumstances surrounding the Diaoyutai/Senkaku affair or to a lesser extent the South China Sea islands dispute, then even if preliminary talks or pre-negotiations are held, it would still be very difficult for official negotiations to begin, let alone achieve any results. This is all the more so if the attitude of domestic constituents is unyielding and sympathetic to the provocative activities and mobilization efforts of domestic nationalist groups in asserting sovereignty
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claims over contested territories. This shows that, especially with regard to very sensitive issues like territorial disputes, if preferences and priorities between state governments and articulate sectors of their society are far apart on whether to take steps to increase neighborly relations or sustain and even exacerbate tensions, it will be exceedingly difficult for any government leader or negotiator to compromise. This is so even in the presence of overlapping win-sets on related issues on joint development or security confidence-building, for all politicians have reasons to fear negative political consequences. II Bargaining theory predicts that it is easier for the government of a nondemocratic country to conclude an international agreement and have it ratified than for a democratic government to do so, because it is easier for the former to distribute benefits derived from the agreement, and also to prevent individuals and groups adversely affected by the agreement from organizing to protect their interests. This observation seems to have been borne out by the confrontational stance taken in the Diaoyutai/Senkaku dispute by the right-wingers in Japan and the student organizations, fishermen’s lobby and major political forces in Taiwan after its political liberalization of the late 1980s and early 1990s. This is obvious when contrasted with the scant activities and small-scale demonstrations permitted by the Taiwanese authorities in the early 1970s, the extent of which is not even allowed in China today. In 1970–1971, Taiwan’s Kuomintang partystate could engage in open discussions with regional countries on joint development of sea-bed minerals off the disputed islands, to the extent of setting up a joint-stock company for mining purposes, until demonstrators in Hong Kong and among Chinese overseas communities, plus objections from the Chinese government, put a stop to those plans. Likewise, China’s Deng Xiaoping could suggest “separating” resource development from sovereignty issues to the Japanese in 1978, and set up several meetings to discuss joint development. In the 1990s, however, as Japan developed the politics of coalition government as the LDP lost its dominance, and as Taiwan democratized and sought its own identity, China’s political scene became more pluralistic and nationalistic, with nationalism filling up the ideological space in the national psyche vacated by socialism. Wary of being accused by their public of not holding firm on their countries’ sovereignty over the islands, leaders of all three governments rarely mentioned the issue of joint development, and even fishery talks have become closely guarded secrets. A similar comparison can also be made between Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. While the Soviet government had expressed a willingness to yield Zhenbao/Damansky and other disputed islands on the Sino-Soviet boundary rivers to the Chinese several times during border negotiations in 1964 and 1969–1970, democratic Russia still has problems completing border demarcation years after the 1991 boundary agreement was signed, owing to local opposition. The Soviet central authorities could compensate residents of the Far Eastern
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and Siberian provinces affected by the closure of the border with China between the early 1960s and the late 1980s by shipping raw material and commodities to them via the Trans-Siberian railway, to make up for their discomfort and deprivations incurred as a result of the ending of cross-border trade. This system of inter-regional subsidies has basically collapsed with the fall of the Soviet Union. The border negotiations had proceeded rather smoothly for the last four years of Soviet rule, and achieved results largely because there was still more or less a functioning central government and unified Communist Party apparatus, whose fiat still ran to the far corners of that vast country, and the regions were not yet accustomed to conducting their own foreign policy. Incidentally, none of the countries that reached border agreements with the Chinese in the 1950s and 1960s – Laos, Burma, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Mongolia – with remarkable speed and minimum fuss, at least compared with China’s other boundary disputes, could be classified as representative democracies where Level I negotiators would likely encounter Level II obstacles. Although we have so far made no reference to China’s border disputes with the post-Soviet Central Asian republics, which have mercifully not resulted in armed conflict, they should serve as good illustrations of our theoretical argument here that democratic governments will find it more difficult than non-democratic ones to surmount domestic opposition in reaching or ratifying agreements with other countries. The demarcation of most of the Sino-Russian border, from the Altai to the Pamir mountains in Central Asia, was agreed to in the Treaty of Chugachuk signed by Russia and China in 1864, a treaty that a century later was to be denounced as “unequal” by the PRC. The process of demarcating and delimiting the border between China and the present-day Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan started anew in 1992. Although Kyrgyzstan and China signed a border treaty in July 1996 and a supplementary agreement on disputed border territories in August 1999, with Kyrgyzstan ceding to China 870 square kilometers of disputed territory, political forces in opposition to President Askar Akaev used ratification of this already long-delayed agreement by the Kyrgyz parliament in May 2002 to raise mass demonstrations and demand its rejection.1 The standoff between the authorities and some 6,500 protesters in the Jalal-Abad region lasted five days, leading to the death of six local residents and eighty wounded. Approximately 3,500 protesters also blocked the only highway between the capital Bishkek and the major southern city of Osh, and demonstrations soon spread to the capital.2 Akaev succeeded in winning over parliamentarians only with difficulty, and the Kyrgyz senate managed to ratify the border agreements with China only on its second attempt and after Prime Minister Kurmanbek Bakiev was forced to resign.3 On the other hand, Kazakhstan, under the authoritarian regime of Nursultan Nazarbayev, concluded a border treaty with China in April 1994, with which it quietly and without incident signed a supplementary agreement completing the demarcation of the common border in September 1997, and ceded 407 square kilometers of the 944 square kilometers under dispute to China.4 In the Tajik-China border agreement of 1999, Tajikistan’s president
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Emomali Rahmonov ceded 200 square kilometers of 28,000 square kilometers of disputed territory to China, and in a supplementary agreement signed in May 2002, Tajikistan agreed to cede a further 1,000 square kilometers to China, all without incident.5 Perhaps in this case the Tajik authorities were only too happy that the Chinese did not asked for more of the disputed territory than they actually did. IIA Aside from whether it is harder to resolve an all-or-nothing territorial sovereignty dispute with a democratic country than with a non-democratic one, perhaps more future work should be devoted to finding out if democratic governments may actually make it much easier than non-democratic governments for latent boundary, territorial or other disputes between states to surface into very real conflicts. This is not an unreasonable suggestion, assuming that political forces in a competitive electoral system have to respond effectively to public opinion, which has the potential to be created, manipulated and galvanized by well organized and well funded groups with their own agenda. It was not difficult for both the Chinese and Soviet governments to orchestrate popular demonstrations by quickly assembling a crowd in front of each other’s embassies in the aftermath of the March 1969 confrontations, and dispersing these crowds just as quickly. The Chinese and Soviet authorities were able to do so because a populist or even elite political discourse over territorial claims had yet to develop at that time. However, it would not be easy for authorities today in the Russian Far East or Taiwan to dampen the enthusiasm of their respective nationalists who choose to sail into disputed stretches of water to plant flags, erect beacons, and place border markings on disputed rocks and islands, all in the name of protecting national sovereignty, let alone incite them to do so. Likewise, while the Vietnamese authorities were able to suppress calls by journalists and writers to revise the land border and Tonkin Gulf boundary agreements between Vietnam and China in 1999 and 2000 respectively, before their clamor could resonate with disgruntled elements of the general populace, the Filipino government has hardly been successful in preventing its politicians from taking occasional sailing trips to some Spratly isle to press their national claim, and has not tried to stop its reporters from covering these events. Democracies have legislatures; non-democracies have political factions. Even in so-called “centralized undemocratic” states like China today, particularly in the absence of a “great leader,” there are opposing agendas within the government that decision-makers must take into account. If Zhao Quansheng is correct in perceiving the Chinese foreign policy making process, although still highly centralized and authoritarian today, as moving toward including the preferences of more power centers at the center and integrating various interests and opinions from the bureaucratic, military, economic, intellectual and other constituencies,6 then it would be even more difficult in future to coordinate the making and execution of foreign policy in China, especially with regard to sensi-
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tive issues like territorial disputes. As I have mentioned in the previous chapter, the provincial authorities of Hainan have encouraged Chinese commercial fishing in the disputed waters of the South China Sea, disregarding several fishing moratoriums declared by its own national government, and in so doing involved the Chinese foreign ministry in diplomatic wrangles with other governments whose fishing interests also extend to these waters. From the time of the release of the first White Paper on Indian-Chinese relations in September 1959, the Indian press, leaders of India’s parliamentary opposition and even members of Nehru’s own Congress Party were vocal and adamant that boundary negotiations with China should be discontinued until the Chinese vacated all of what they regarded as Indian territory. By agitating and arousing the Indian public to new heights of nationalist fervor, Indian politicians and journalists left Nehru’s with no room for negotiation and succeeded in pushing the country toward contemplating war with China and adopting a forward military position along the disputed border to repel the Chinese “incursion.” All the while, the Chinese mass media were toeing the official line in calling for negotiations at the highest level up to two weeks before hostilities started. In Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, in the fall of 1996, the organizers of a petition campaign demanding Japan’s withdrawal from the Diaoyu Islands could be quickly ordered by municipal officials to call it off without incident to prevent “an uncontrollable accident from happening because we do not have the ability to maintain order.”7 A similarly motivated movement in a more liberal or democratized China in the future may be much more difficult to control. The political elites in the Communist or other authoritarian countries of the region managed to keep discussion of foreign policy tightly controlled among themselves, while mobilizing carefully controlled public opinion for the purpose of asserting some form of nationalism. However, there is always the danger today that public opinion will run ahead of elite opinion, and direct nationalist opinion not only against a foreign target, but also against the state itself. Governments need not only be subjected to public attacks for being “soft” on foreign territorial encroachment; indeed, territorial issues themselves can be used as proxies by public-opinion makers or political opponents to humiliate the government for its failure to address other ills, or to force a change in official policy or personnel in authority. III Domestic win-sets for entering into international agreements are theorized to be bigger the more open a country is to trade. Boundary negotiations between China and the Soviet Union were certainly most difficult from 1964 to 1970, when bilateral trade plunged from a high of 1,849 million rubles in 1959 to a low of 42 million rubles in 1970. On the other hand, the largely successful negotiations from 1987 to 1991 were aided in large part by the goodwill generated by the reopening of the border, resumption of cross-border trade, and rapid growth of overall trade volume between the two countries, with bilateral trade
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surpassing the previous high in 1988. Both countries suddenly discovered that trade was too mutually advantageous to be held hostage to pieces of disputed rocks. With both Moscow and Beijing in April 1996 setting a trade target of US$20 billion for the year 2000, which would be an increase of two-and-a-half times the 1996 volume8 (in hindsight a tad too optimistic), it was little wonder that Russian Far Easterners like Nazdratenko felt that their interests would continue to take second place to the strengthening of Sino-Russian economic ties. This positive attitude toward trade also seemed to have prevailed between China and Japan after the Tiaoyutai/Senkaku fracas of 1978, when the value of bilateral trade rose from US$4,073 million in that year, to $18,201 million in 1990, to $62,230 million in 1996, to some $90,000 million in 2002. Indeed, the main reason why the Chinese government did not get involved in the 1990 incident and was reluctant to comment on the 1996 episode until the noise created by overseas Chinese demonstrators made reticence look cowardly, was because of the desire not to harm trade relations in any way. Having lost diplomatic recognition to China by Japan and the United States, Taiwan’s already significant economic relations with Japan took on greater importance than before. Japan competes with both the United States and Hong Kong to be the most important trading partner and investment source for China and Taiwan, having invested a cumulative amount in fixed capital of US$13 billion in China, $6 billion in Taiwan, and $14 billion in Hong Kong by the time of the 1996 fracas. For all the talk about “shelving sovereignty issues for joint development,” what Tokyo, Beijing and Taipei really want are to shelve all contentious matters in order to enjoy the benefits of continuing increases in trade and investment with one another. Hence the desire of all three governments to play down the periodic incidents over the Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands, if and when they are ignited by nationalistic hotheads, without being seen to have compromised on the sensitive question of their country’s sovereignty. Economic benefits accruing to the conclusion of a boundary agreement between China and India have not been significant, however. It is true that between 1990 and 2002, the value of bilateral trade increased from a paltry US$34 million to almost $5 billion. However, the value of bilateral trade in 1990 was less than 0.1 percent of the value of either country’s foreign trade, and still remained below 1.5 percent in 2002. Although the border crossing at Sikkim was re-opened during the visit of Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to China in June 2003, the overland trade between India and China was still below $2.3 million at the end of 2002;9 and Chinese contracted investments in India amounted to only $37 million, with Indian investments in China at $190 million.10 In addition to the low volume of trade and investment between China and India, competition for exports to third markets are intense, as have been mentioned, and both countries have been trying to attract overseas investment from the same countries and multinationals of the industrialized world. Trade has yet be a major motivation in the pursuit of a territorial agreement in this case.
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On the other hand, trade between China and ASEAN as a whole has been increasing at an average rate of 20 percent per year since 1996, to reach US$40 billion in 2002. Indeed, the boundary agreements between China and Vietnam were very much linked to efforts by the authorities on both sides to increasing trade through the opening of shopping centers, markets, bridges, rail links and crossings at the land border between the two countries. Together with the Chinese leadership’s desire to produce “good vibes” in its relations with Southeast Asian states, and ASEAN businessmen’s appetite for penetrating the Chinese marketplace, it is perhaps not surprising that a “Declaration of South China Sea Conduct” was reached between China and ASEAN in 2002 after three years of negotiation. IV Our theoretical framework also predicts that the size of the win-sets correlates inversely with the number of votes needed in a country’s highest legislature to ratify an international agreement. In itself this is no remarkable insight, with the exception of the Japanese propensity to seek the broadest possible domestic political consensus before passing important legislation, which severely constrains their ratification win-set. Japanese nationalist activities over the Tiaoyutai/Senkaku islands always happened to coincide with prolonged and often rancorous Diet debates, for example over the ratification of the Okinawa Reversion Bill between 1969 and 1971, the Sino-Japanese Peace and Friendship Treaty in 1978, the Overseas Peace-Keeping Bill for the Japanese Self Defense Forces in 1990, and the United Nations Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1996. The ratification of UNCLOS would enable Japan to enact a 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone around the Japanese isles, perhaps including the Senkaku Islands. The reason why these nationalist forces took action during these times was exactly their hope that like-minded legislators would press for the inclusion of Japanese sovereignty over the disputed islands in those legislative bills considered. They know that in post-war Japanese political culture, unanimous opinion on important legislation is desired, and in diplomatic issues, party and faction leaders usually work with the prime minister to present a united front, which means that their territorial concerns will have to be heard and hopefully addressed. The financial independence of LDP factions; the biannual elections for party president; possible opposition from the party rank and file members who are vulnerable to grassroots pressure; consensual norms to include opposition parties in the legislative process; and the short deliberative sessions of eighty to a hundred days for the Diet – all these elements serve to constrain and influence the prime minister’s foreign policy agenda.11 In the case of the Sino-Indian boundary negotiations, it became clear very early on that Nehru was not prepared to surmount the institutional constraints provided by the rules and procedures of parliament by cutting off debate or negotiating with the Chinese in secret, instead of airing his negotiating position in the open media. By deferring to the prerogatives of parliament to
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debate all matters of foreign policy, especially one as sensitive as the boundary negotiations, we have seen that, although Nehru always kept his party’s overwhelming majority in parliament, he lost all room for maneuver to politicians out to make political capital who created and worked up nationalistic and antiagreement sentiments. For both Indian and Japanese leaderships, the need to put together a “winning” coalition greater than that of a minimum size necessary to approach the dispute negotiations was not so much the result of the incompleteness or imperfection of information about the subject of the negotiations, as Riker has conjectured.12 Rather it arose from their desire to endow the proposed agreements of national and international importance which resulted from the success of the negotiations with the stamp of popular assent and legitimacy, or at least spread the blame around if they should fail. By taking into account the influence of formal and informal institutional constraints on win-set size, the two-level game framework has shown itself to be culturally sensitive. V We have no record of any instance in which negotiators to the disputes we are looking at actually argued to their negotiating counterparts that pressure from domestic constituents prevented them from making concessions that they would otherwise have made if they were sure their agreement could be ratified at home. However, we may accurately surmise that this was the case from reports that the one-party Soviet state was able to offer significant territorial concessions to the Chinese over the boundary negotiations in 1964, 1969–1970, and 1987–1991, while post-Communist democratic Russia had problems completing the last few demarcation posts for years after 1991. It was also much easier for the Kuomintang party-state of Taiwan to begin open talks with Japan and (South) Korea on development and exploitation of the East China sea-bed around Tiaoyutai in 1969–1970, when the first “Pao-tiao” incident began, than at any time subsequent to that, especially after democratization in the 1990s. Democratization means that divergent institutional forces representing different interests are brought into play on foreign policy and territorial negotiations, and these players in the political arena are likely to ratify a negotiated agreement only if they are satisfied that their interests and the interests of those they represent are protected or augmented. The minority Indian governments under prime ministers Rao and Gujral in the 1990s were able to garner Chinese support for the CBM agreements; while Mrs Gandhi and her son Rajiv could make no progress on the border despite their solid parliamentary majorities, and the latter almost led India to its second war with China. This finding offers indirect support for the proposition that the weaker a government is in terms of its control over votes in the national legislature or Level II constituents required for ratification of agreements, the stronger the position of its Level I negotiators.
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VI “De-linking” issues in order to solve those that are most amenable to solution first is a well established concept in bargaining theory. Similarly, “shelving sovereignty for joint development” is an oft-floated proposal in the East Asian diplomatic lexicon to de-link territorial from economic issues. Such a “deterritorialization” of issues would serve to increase the chances of countries engaging in joint economic development in a disputed area, while leaving the sovereignty of the area undetermined for the time being. The plan is that, hopefully, by working together for joint economic gains, governments and citizens of the disputant countries would accumulate goodwill, which would widen the prospective win-set for discussing the final disposition of the ownership question of the disputed area. Following the first Confidence-Building Measures (CBMs) reached between China and India in September 1993, the boundary dispute between the two neighbors was de-linked from their security postures, for while a body of technical experts was set up to take charge of determining the boundary, another joint working group was established to promote arms control and maintain peace along the demilitarized boundary. This was also the case with the Shanghai Accord, signed in April 1996 after four years of negotiation between teams constituted by China and Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, in which the four post-Soviet states agreed to create a 100 kilometerwide demilitarized zone on each side of the border with China; while at the same time, other negotiation teams pursued border talks between China and the four countries. Another recent example of de-linking is the fisheries agreement concluded between China and Japan in April 1998, in which both countries decided to set aside the issue of establishing a 200-mile EEZ around the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands, but agreed to set fishing quotas and give authority to control illegal fishing to the country in whose waters violations occur.13 Another virtue of disaggregating issues for negotiations, which bears pointing out, is that nationalist groups can usually only engage in the emotional and zerosum issue of sovereignty. They lack the technical expertise and knowledge, let alone the authority, to deal with joint exploration of resources and related cooperative modes of addressing the dispute. As such, if and when the governments concerned seriously get down to negotiating the specific spheres of joint development, then there is a good chance of shutting the patriotic pressure groups out of the issue altogether. However, the problem with de-linking sovereignty and economics in territorial disputes is that whatever the joint gains achieved through the goodwill generated from promoting economic issues over sovereignty may not be able to overcome the political pressure exerted on leaders by nationalist elements in the disputant countries. By portraying themselves as champions of their countries’ territorial sovereignty, and seizing on nationalist issues and positions which they know few of their fellow citizens can openly disagree with without risking censure, they are able to make use of their compatriots’ territorial concerns to create difficulties for negotiators engaging in territorial or other discussions right from the beginning. If the negotiators proceed with the
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discussions, they stand to lose popular support within their domestic constituencies; if they yield to domestic pressure and stop the negotiations, they may be accused by their counterparts in the other claimant countries of being unreliable negotiating partners, which may have the effect of decreasing the size of win-sets for future inter-state negotiations. De-linking the eastern and western sectors of the Sino-Indian boundary for the purpose of negotiations, which was the Indian strategy, obviously did not work, but neither did the Chinese preference for “issue aggregation,” for the purpose of achieving a comprehensive settlement of the border as a package deal, which would have involved trading off NEFA to India in exchange for the recognition of Aksai Chin as Chinese territory. Why then did de-linking the CBM negotiations from the border talks achieve productive results? The most probable answer is that, while the security and welfare of both parties were definitely better off with an arms reduction treaty and respect for the existing line of actual control, the Chinese could gain nothing more from what they had already obtained through military action in the 1962 border war, and the Indians were in no position to change the status quo short of restarting a major war. An agreement will be signed only if it produces a better result than each party could achieve in the absence of the agreement, and this is clearly not the case here. In respect of territorial transfer at least, sovereignty contests over border lands and boundary lines are really a zero-sum game. Fortunately, de-linking issues may not even be necessary to resolving or reducing the saliency of an outstanding dispute, witnessing how the need for peace, economic opening-up and political reform in both China and the USSR actually provided the rationales propelling the border agreement forward. Perhaps more important than whether boundaries should be lines or zones is that they are recognized as legitimate by the parties concerned, and that clear procedures be established to deal with future territorial disagreements. Bear Island, at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri, is practically a “neutral-zone” of self-governing, mostly Russian, families who make their homes on the island in the absence of either Russian or Chinese military. Perhaps one day, even the Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands could be converted into a United Nations or international peace park. In response to the Japanese government taking out a one-year lease, until 31 March 2003, on three of the disputed islands from its putative Japanese owner, Taiwanese legislators from the pro-independence Taiwan Solidarity Party to the Kuomintang urged their government to bring the dispute to the International Court of Justice for a final settlement.14 This may be another way of peacefully resolving this long-running and emotional dispute. Indeed, by two agreements signed in April 1996 and April 1997, China and Russia were joined by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in de-militarizing their common borders and building security. Patterned after the two CBMs signed by China and India in September 1993 and November 1996, the security pacts thus enacted called for the reduction of land forces and the withdrawal of strategic missile, long-range aviation and anti-aircraft units from a 100-kilometer zone on each side of China’s border with the Central Asian republics.15
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VII The success or failure of any negotiating behavior obviously depends heavily on the strategies adopted by the negotiators themselves. In addition, I discovered in my study that the presence or absence of leadership in negotiation affects both the duration and direction of the negotiating process, and is instrumental in determining the ultimate success or failure of the negotiation. VIIA The absence of effective leadership in official negotiations means that the initiative in setting the agenda or blocking an agreement will pass from Level I negotiators to Level II opposition forces, both within the governmental institutions and outside in the societal realm. The Japanese government showed uncommonly decisive leadership in 1997 in denouncing several Japanese nationalists who landed on a disputed island, and ordering its Maritime Security Agency to prevent protest boats from Taiwan and Hong Kong from entering its territorial waters, thus limiting the entire affair to three days. In contrast, Beijing, Taipei, the Hong Kong authorities and Tokyo demonstrated few leadership initiatives throughout the 1996 fracas, except to reiterate their sovereignty claims over Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku and to appeal for calm, until the situation was basically beyond their control, and that incident took three very tense months to exhaust itself. The most proactive measures taken by Beijing and Taipei were for the Chinese leadership to arrest anti-Japanese activists and monitor campus activities, and for Lee Teng-hui to talk Taiwanese fishermen out of organizing a flotilla to the islands. Hence, at least in negotiations over territory, having one’s hands tied wittingly or unwittingly may not always be a wise or effective strategy.16 VIIB While absence of leadership during the negotiation process results in drift and the loss of initiative – witness Nehru’s role in the lead-up to the Sino-Indian War – the presence of leadership does not necessarily equate to a speedy resolution of a dispute. Leadership in a dispute negotiation may either increase or decrease tension, depending on whether the purpose of the leader or leaders involved are really interested in promoting or blocking agreement. While Chiang Kai-shek’s initiative allowed Taipei to participate in the only set of publicized discussions ever to take place on the ownership and resource development of the Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands in 1970–1971, Deng Xiaoping’s permission for the “fishing junks” in 1978 to set off from Chinese ports almost sabotaged negotiations of his country’s Peace and Friendship Treaty with Japan, never mind future talks on territorial compromises. The effect on international bargaining of leadership orientation is most clearly shown in the Sino-Russian dispute over the Amur/Ussuri islands. What
158 Testing the two-level game hypothesis prevented the resolution of the dispute in the 1960s was not so much the intransigence of Soviet negotiators, but Mao’s dogged determination, nay personal quest, to castigate the Soviet leadership as “revisionist” to countries in the socialist bloc, and to expose Soviet leaders as “social-imperialists” and “new tsars” to the rest of the world. Although Zhou Enlai and subsequently Chen Yi, as foreign ministers of the PRC before the Cultural Revolution, were in charge of the conduct of foreign affairs, and Mao had resigned all government positions in 1959, the paramount leader made virtually every strategically important decision regarding foreign policy issues.17 In this case, Mao was clearly the most important domestic Level II constituency in Chinese domestic-foreign interaction, and he was not accommodating. On the other hand, the border dispute was amicably resolved when the Soviet and Chinese leadership, under Gorbachev and Deng respectively, empowered their deputy foreign ministers and later their foreign ministers to push forward negotiations on surveying, mapping and concluding a comprehensive boundary agreement on the basis of equality in state-to-state relations. VIIB.1 If leaders are only interested in blocking international agreements or avoiding them altogether to let a dispute fester, then they should strive as much as possible to tear one another’s credibility down in the eyes of their own people and the world at large. In a conversation with representatives from socialist countries, who were in Beijing to mediate on the Sino-Soviet rift just weeks before the start of the Sino-Indian War, Mao told his audience that Nehru was “half man, half devil,” and that the task of Communists was to “wash off his face so that it would not be frightening, like the devil’s.”18 Mao was also determined to pursue the ideological breach with Moscow to the finish. Mao’s castigation of Brezhnev and the Soviet leadership in the 1960s as “revisionists” was meant to show them up to the Communist bloc and demonstrate that the true followers of Marx and Lenin were by then the Chinese Communist leadership. Similarly, the use of the terms “social-imperialists” and “new tsars” was meant to portray the Soviet Union as nothing more than a modern version of tsarist Russia, out to conquer lands and subjugate people, in this case Chinese boundary islands and the Chinese people. The Soviet leadership had more than once referred to their Chinese counterparts as “dogmatic” or even as “insane,” pointing to the chaos and destruction they unleashed on their own country and Party in the name of the Cultural Revolution. Given such an acerbic state of relations between both countries, and with such recalcitrant leadership on both sides, it is little wonder that China and the Soviet Union could achieve no satisfactory settlement to their common boundary dispute or indeed on anything else. Then there were events like the massive rock-throwing public demonstrations orchestrated by the governments of both countries in front of each other’s embassies, and the threatening displays of armour, troop movements and armed civilians at the common frontier. Such a deliberate display of force and
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government orchestration of popular sentiment could only be calculated to exacerbate an already tense border situation and could not be at all conducive to any form of negotiations, let alone on a subject as sensitive as territorial concessions. VIIB.2 Assuming that leaders are interested in promoting rather than retarding agreement on a disputatious issue, they should also seek to keep the details of sensitive sovereignty negotiations or talks on territorial compromises as secret as possible until some form of agreement is reached, so that forces which might be opposed to the proposed agreement will not be able to join forces. Our Zhenbao/Damansky case clearly shows that an asymmetrical distribution of information domestically, actually increases the chances of a cooperative agreement, while the converse is true for Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku.19 Unfortunately, it may not be possible for bargaining over the final disposition of the South China Sea islands dispute to be kept under wraps, even at Level I, particularly if claims are to be haggled over in a multilateral forum. Yet, fearing betrayal, ASEAN’s member nations are opposed to discussing this issue with China and with one another on a bilateral basis. It is true that it may not be possible to alter the historical memories or geographical circumstances surrounding a contested claim. However, leaders should also suppress or at least play down the activities of nationalistic and other obstructionist organizations and groups, like the actions of the Chinese government in arresting and driving into internal exile members of a vocal anti-Japanese group led by the activist Tong Zhen, for attempting to incite public sentiment and pressure government officials into taking a confrontational stand against Japanese nationalists on Senkaku. The repeated calls by the Taipei and Tokyo governments for a peaceful resolution of this crisis when it recurred, and the ordering of their coastguards to prevent boatloads of protestors from landing on the islands, also fit into this category. The consistent refusal of the Indian leadership to recognize the Tibetan government-in-exile of the Dalai Lama in Dharmsala, and the many occasions when the police were ordered to break up illegal demonstrations by Tibetan exiles outside the Chinese embassy in New Delhi, contributed in no small measure to the eventual reduction of border tension, given the sensitivity of the Chinese government to the issue of Tibetan separatism. However, governments should also be careful not to overreact with undue force against their own people or those from other disputant states, as this may have the effect of greatly exacerbating tension around an already disquieting issue and playing into the hands of domestic and foreign nationalist groups, particularly if activists are killed and martyrs created. Leaders should also, via strategic use of side-payments, reduce the impact or cost which may fall on certain constituencies or regions, as in Yeltsin’s deal with Nazdratenko on financial subsidies for the region in exchange for political support for the boundary agreement with China.
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Another winning strategy for negotiators would be to openly promote the popularity of their negotiating counterpart, to increase their counterpart’s winset and thus increase both the odds of success and their own bargaining power. To mend ties and settle the border dispute with China, Gorbachev set about creating a constituency for negotiation by expanding the win-set of the Chinese Communist leadership. While Gorbachev’s concession on the thalweg principle in July 1986 provided the Chinese with sufficient political space (face) to reopen border talks, his visit to Beijing in May 1989 was a victory for “suasive reverberation,”20 or face-to-face diplomacy. Aside from settling the border disagreement, the purpose of Gorbachev’s goodwill visit to China was both to strengthen his own domestic standing in order to push through difficult political reforms and economic restructuring at home, and also to strengthen moderate forces in China partial to his reform program and sympathetic to his need for stable external relations and open borders. His aim happened to coincide with those of the premier reformist leader of China at that time, Zhao Ziyang, who was also pushing through a similar program in China against great opposition, and trying to concentrate power in his own hands. Gorbachev’s leadership on both counts succeeded in normalizing Sino-Soviet relations by personally breaking the deadlock over the border question, shaking the Chinese assumption that any Soviet leader since Khrushchev was bound to be unrelentingly hostile toward their country, demonstrating the irreversibility of his goodwill by his public pronouncements, and employing his image of personal integrity and political openness to create or mobilize favorable public opinion in China toward his visit to that country. Given the high visibility of the Chinese reform movement, Gorbachev probably hoped that a high-profile visit there would provide him with a boost to the momentum of his economic and administrative reforms back home. From this aspect, the result of his visit to China was uncertain. On the other hand, Gorbachev’s “suasive reverberation” struck such a chord with Chinese students, intellectuals and journalists that Deng, after the Tiananmen Square incident and the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, and although he recognized the need to “normalize” ties with the Soviet Union lest China be left out of the fast improving Soviet-American relations, referred to the corrosive effects of Gorbachev’s reform policies as constituting “a great danger from the north,” against which China’s Communist leadership must be vigilant. Zhou Enlai’s last visit to India in April 1960 to try to resolve the boundary dispute was unsuccessful because by then, the Indian mass media, politicians and citizenry as a whole had perceived his visit as an occasion for the enemy to present an ultimatum to extract an agreement on his terms. The spectacle of Zhou flying around the region to conclude boundary agreements with India’s neighbors only encouraged the Indian view that he was attempting to crudely induce or implicitly threaten India into reopening border negotiations. On the other hand, Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to China in December 1988
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was generally credited by officials and commentators on both sides as changing the course of Sino-Indian relations, from one characterized by a boundary stalemate to the building of trust and cooperation in the military, economic and socio-cultural spheres. Rajiv managed to refocus the elite and masses of both countries from suspicion and prejudice to peace and cooperation through high-profile “reverberation.” Further bilateral visits by Indian and Chinese leaders affirmed their respect for the line of actual control as the de facto boundary on the ground, and promoted the agreements on the CBMs. Indeed, Vajpayee’s visit to China in June 2003 broke new ground in sealing efforts to deal with the border issue at the highest levels of government yet. By naming Chinese vice-foreign minister Dai Bingguo and India’s National Security Adviser, Brajesh Mishra, as special envoys in charge of boundary negotiations, both China and India have signaled that they are keen to find a solution to the border dispute soon.21 There can no gainsaying the positive or negative role played by leadership in diplomacy. For all the factors that determine the outcomes of bargaining, while international negotiations may still succeed in spite of unfavorable societal preferences, dicey political coalitions, and difficult ratification procedures, they will certainly fail if leadership in pushing an agreement at home and abroad is not forthcoming. Hence the indispensable role of leadership in international negotiations is perhaps the most significant finding in the application of two-level game analysis to my cases of territorial disputes. Leaders perceive and interpret constraints and opportunities in their international and domestic environments, make decisions, and manage domestic political pressures on their foreign policy choices. Glaringly, the presence or absence of leadership, and its orientation toward confrontation or cooperation, appears to have been neglected or at least grossly understated by Putnam, who has appeared more concerned with the strategies to be adopted by leaders and negotiators in his original formulation of two-level games. Theoretically speaking, this is his most serious oversight. Putnam also did not place enough emphasis on the roles played by “nationalists” or other organized subnational or regional forces mobilized around a political cause, to obstruct or hasten a negotiation. Putnam anticipated but underestimated the ability and willingness of domestic forces to act as a longterm and recurrent informal constraint on inter-state bargaining. The findings here that public opinion can act as a domestic constraint on the ability of international negotiators to reach agreement are supported by Peter Trumbore, who tested the two-level game framework with evidence from the last two decades of the Anglo-Irish Peace Process over the future status of Northern Ireland.22 He has discovered from public opinion polls taken in both the Irish Republic and the United Kingdom that, when there is a lack of congruence between the public’s preferences and the decision-makers’ preferences, public opinion can act as a constraint when the public has the power to directly ratify an international agreement. However, when the public’s power to ratify an agreement is limited
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to its ability to influence decision-makers’ preferences, the intensity of the issues under negotiation will play a critical role in determining whether public preferences serve as a constraint on decision-makers. This is indeed the case regarding the events examined here. Aside from these observations, the major propositions of the two-level game framework have been largely borne out by the case studies on China’s territorial disputes with her neighbors.
8
Conclusion The “moral” and “realist” bases of the Chinese approach to territorial sovereignty disputes
Material interests and international distribution of power are by no means irrelevant in explaining state behavior, but as we have seen, shared understanding, knowledge, perception and expectations inform the content of state identities and interest definitions, and these “ideational” factors have great importance in explaining interactions within and between states. Although Peter Katzenstein’s argument, that cultural and institutional norms shape states’ identity and affect their national security definition and policies, are not explicitly tested here,1 the analyses in the previous chapters agree with his contention that realist theories are likely to be wrong if they overlook either the significance of comprehensive definitions of national security going beyond narrow military concerns, or the legacy of the Sino-centric world system for the national security policies of China and the Asian states in the 1990s.2 This would be as true for realist theories as for any other methodological constructions purporting to explain China’s approach to territorial disputes. A framework of negotiations like that of twolevel games can only postulate the likelihood of reaching or ratifying an agreement by looking at the bargaining space in the presence or absence of certain domestic, institutional and leadership factors. It cannot explain when or why a disagreement, dispute or conflict arose between countries or people, nor determine the circumstances of where and how it happened, or for that matter, its duration, let alone predict future occurrences of such disputes or conflicts. For that, we have to examine the strategic thinking of state leaders, especially the cultural assumptions behind foreign policy formulation, the sources of domestic power politics, political participation and regime legitimacy, and a people’s perception of the historical and contemporary role of their country in the changing international scene. It is to these substantive issues, which form part of what I refer to as the “moral” and “realist” bases of the Chinese approach to territorial disputes with its neighbors, and on which the two-level game framework rests, that we now turn to in this concluding chapter. Students of Chinese foreign policy have always realized that the lack of transparency in the foreign policy making process and the strategic thinking of Beijing, has created problems of assessment and given rise to widely different, even competing, interpretations of events and occurrences. This problem is compounded by the fact that Chinese writings and opinions in the primary
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sources very often follow closely to summit communiques, government reports, and official correspondence occasionally released by the Chinese government, and so do not reveal much new information or perspectives. Perhaps this is all done in the best tradition of Chinese historiography, in which history is written to maintain a “standard” or official viewpoint to serve current state interests. The relative paucity and typical one-sidedness of information from Chinese sources with regard to foreign policy making or territorial questions involving China means that scholars often have to rely on non-Chinese sources as “reflecting mirrors” to fathom the mode of Chinese interaction with foreigners; hence my reliance on a large number of non-Chinese source materials. Despite these difficulties, students of Chinese foreign policy also know that thorough consideration of the domestic circumstances under which foreign policy decisions are made is the key to understanding and predicting Chinese foreign policy behavior. Indeed, we can surmise from the cases presented that, although security concerns and economic calculations did affect China’s approaches to its island territorial disputes, they were by no means its only consideration, nor indeed its most important ones. Researchers would have to dig deeper into China’s deep structures – domestic politics, cultural proclivities and historical sensitivities – to find the answer to the puzzles and paradoxes of Chinese foreign policy making. The two-level approach to negotiations privileges the domestic content of international politics, and by implication a nation’s culture, by highlighting a people’s self-perception and the roles it plays or believes it should play in the world, which is a major shaper or determinant of the behavior of its leaders. If James Lilley, former US ambassador to China, is correct, and sovereignty is the mantra of the Chinese leadership,3 then the “cultural” or “moral” basis of Chinese foreign policy posture must also be taken into account, especially in discussing the “pattern” of Chinese negotiating behavior and management or mismanagement of territorial sovereignty disputes. In essence, the moral or cultural factor explains why, at certain times, the Chinese government has appeared unwilling to resolve certain territorial disputes, and even to have raised them in the first place, while at other times Beijing seemed to have desired a quick resolution to these disputes, depending on the Chinese elite’s changing selfperception of China’s identity and international role, and how it wanted others to perceive China.
The changing perception and self-perception of China’s role and identity While quarrels within the same socialist ideological paradigm aggravated boundary and other tensions between China and the Soviet Union, having different political systems and the absence of ideological disputes were precisely what allowed China and Japan to draw together against the Soviet Union. With the end of the Cold War, state-to-state diplomacy on the basis of common national interests permitted both China and Russia to settle their outstanding
Conclusion 165 border dispute. Paradoxically, it is the mismatching role expectations that China and Japan have of each other as world ideologies waned that is creating territorial and other problems between the two East Asian nation-states. Thus we may say that, while the Zhenbao/Damansky conflict was a product of ideology, which was solved or largely made irrelevant when international relations become “de-ideologized,” the Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku dispute could no longer be swept under the carpet once the basis of international tension had changed from ideological disagreement to conflicting nation-state interests. The latter is true as much of China’s relations with Japan, as of Taiwan’s relations with Japan and China, as we have seen. Indeed, one risk factor threatening regional stability arises from “the suspected renaissance of historical ambitions for regional dominance between China and Japan,”4 and the apprehension of this has led many smaller states in the region to call for a sustained US presence and commitment to the region. The otherwise straightforward border dispute between China and India, if left unresolved in the next few decades, may provide China with a pretext to enhance its strategic presence in the Indian Ocean, to India’s detriment.
A quest for socialist internationalism The Zhenbao/Damansky Islands dispute was the logical consequence of a decade-long effort by Maoist China to “shame” the Soviet Union by demonstrating its betrayal of the world Communist movement, by defining the Soviet threat, and then by dramatizing China’s moral commitment to the cause of socialism by standing up to that threat with uncompromising rhetoric against the USSR. The Chinese Communist leadership expected to be treated with neighborly comradeship and equality by the Soviet Union; instead, it watched with horror and detestation as it perceived the Soviet leadership to be sliding into the “moral decay of revisionism.” The Chinese leadership became increasingly perturbed by Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin, his enunciation of the theory of peaceful co-existence with the American imperialists, his muted supported for PRC shelling of the Nationalist-held offshore islands of Kinmen and Matsu, and his criticism of Mao’s utopian Great Leap collectivization program. A dozen years after the alliance between the PRC and the USSR was formalized in 1950, these erstwhile ideological brothers hated each other like mortal enemies. By authorizing a general attack on India in 1962, Mao had hoped to secure Soviet support to diminish Nehru’s standing in the Third World and hence displace his vision of a non-Communist and non-aligned future for developing countries. When this was not forthcoming, Mao abandoned the “peaceful coexistence” mode of foreign relations conduct often associated with Zhou Enlai, in favor of a militant model for attaining world socialism and anti-colonialism in the Third World, by providing shrill moral rhetoric and even material support for anti-revisionism against the Soviets, and for anti-imperialism against the Americans. Even though the alternative model had attracted very few adherents, or because this was the case, by 1969, China was actively seeking out the USSR
166 Conclusion as an enemy by provoking tension just short of starting a war. As the Cultural Revolution was nearing its peak of fervor, for both political and psychological reasons, some external target had to be found to re-direct the energy of the permanent revolution. Even as China took steps to normalize relations with the US in the early 1970s, to attract world sympathy it continued to depict itself as a frequent victim of Soviet aggression. By refusing the Soviet offer of the disputed islands on the Amur/Ussuri in order to keep alive the border tension, the Chinese leadership was demonstrating to the world that it had the will and ability to scoff at the Brezhnev Doctrine, which justified the Soviet invasion of socialist countries on the grounds of preventing the collapse of Marxist-Leninist regimes there, even at the risk of war. After the Zhenbao/Damansky crisis of 1969–1970, China drew nearer to the United States and Japan on the basis of mutual concern about Soviet expansionism in the Asia-Pacific region. The shared perception of threat propelled the strategic and diplomatic realignment in 1972 of China with the West against Moscow. “Hegemonism” had definitely replaced “revisionism” as the main threat to the Chinese leadership from the Soviet Union, and this was to be so until well into the 1980s. A tacit anti-Soviet military alliance with America and Japan was considered so valuable that China provoked the 1978 Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku incident, not to torpedo the on-going SinoJapanese Peace and Friendship Treaty, but rather to underline to the Soviets and others China’s determination to resist any encroachment on its territorial sovereignty. By the end of the 1980s, a new relationship was dawning between the USSR and China that was to gradually reduce the ideological content of bilateral diplomacy to zero, to be replaced by statist principles of non-interference in each other’s internal affairs and the separation of economics from politics.5 While Gorbachev’s “new thinking” saw the replacement of class relations with universal humanism, the reduction of force as a viable dimension of national power, and Soviet participation in the growing economic interdependence of Europe, Asia and North America, his attempt to de-ideologize international relations became apparent. With the ascendancy of Yeltsin and the collapse of the Soviet Union, even the content of domestic politics became de-ideologized, and China was left without an ideological sparring partner. Lacking a common diplomatic language save that of state-to-state relations, and fearing that regional instability and fragmentation could affect both countries when they desperately desire a stable regional and domestic environment, both regimes took measures to promote “good-neighbourliness” so as to enhance each other’s economic prospects. The signing of the border agreement in 1991 and its ratification the following year served to demonstrate that, in spite of a change in regime, relations between two countries of different ideological systems will continue on an even keel. The two sides had finally arrested the pendulum that had upset bilateral relations in the past as the two leaderships moved between the extremes of eternal friendship and lasting enmity.6 The history of Sino-Soviet ideological discord has become truly irrelevant.
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A statist conception of an East Asian regional order The years between the aftermath of the 1969 conflicts with the USSR and the 1972 normalization with the United States were not only a period of strategic reorientation for China. They also marked the beginning of China’s return from a quest for socialist internationalism to a statist conception of the East Asian order; a readjustment from a strictly continental imperative to a more maritime focus; and since the late 1970s, reorientation from autarky to economic openingup. From the time of normalization with the US and Japan until the ascendancy of Gorbachev, the Chinese understood that their economic interests were heavily tied to trade with and investment from Japan, and that the PRC’s security posture was quite tied to that of the US role in the Asia-Pacific. However, while the Soviet Union was the target of Chinese frustration as the latter sought to replace the former as leader of the socialist camp, after the Cold War, Japan became a focal point for China’s expression of sovereignty following the selfdiscovery of its identity as an East Asian country with regional interests and concerns. Although relations with the US were more or less on an even keel up till the end of the 1980s because of a common security interest against the USSR, the Chinese were welcoming but also resentful of Japanese efforts to involve itself in China’s economic development. Japan’s help in bringing China out of its selfimposed isolation and back to the East Asian political-economic order was perceived as explicitly or implicitly denying China’s natural role as leader or “big brother” of the region. As for the Japanese, although they were initially very enthusiastic about political stability and business opportunities in China, by the late 1970s their initial optimism had been dampened considerably by the economic retrenchment leading to the collapse of the showcase Sino-Japanese Baoshan Iron and Steel joint venture in 1981; the low educational and productivity level of managers and workers in China; widespread corruption among Chinese officials; and the trade imbalance between Japan and China. When a reported revision of Japanese school textbooks took place in 1982, in which the Japanese invasion of China was referred to as an “advance,” and Japanese cabinet ministers visited the Yasakuni shrine for the war dead in 1985, the Chinese loudly protested against revival of Japanese “militarism.” Militarism is not only incompatible with China’s concept of a just world, based on familial relations involving neighboring nations of the same culture and racial-stock, which would make the more ancient civilization of China the “elder brother” to Japan; it also reminds the Chinese of a time when China was helplessly pillaged by the “top-dog” of the “East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere,” a sentiment kept alive by Japan’s refusal to issue a formal apology for atrocities against the Chinese committed during World War II. Even though the Chinese feel that the problem is rooted in small groups of nationalistic agitators, and most Japanese would agree, actions such as the Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku incidents are seen as attempts by nationalists to create a tendency which could sabotage Sino-Japanese friendship and assert Japanese superiority and dominance. On the Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku issue,
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the Chinese authorities were at pains to show their goodwill by keeping silent for as long as they could bear, for they are also under pressure by home-grown and overseas Chinese nationalist activists to take a stand on sovereignty. As it is, a poll conducted not long before Jiang Zemin’s November 1998 visit to Japan revealed that 82 percent of PRC citizens are opposed to government policy toward Japan, noting that the government has departed from principle in not holding firm on such issues as the Diaoyu Islands’ sovereignty, Japan’s compensation for its aggression against China, and the restriction of the Japan-US Security Treaty to the defense of Japan.7 However, they also want the Japanese side to know that they can continue to demonstrate goodwill only as long as political factions agree not to cash in on this issue, which, given the democratic politics of Japan and lately Taiwan, will not be an easy task. Historical tensions between China and Japan are especially intractable because they exist between peoples, not governments. The PRC’s preferred strategy for dealing with outstanding territorial issues is to keep all options open while emphasizing a stable international environment conducive to economic growth and an open-door policy. However, in this new Chinese age of statist nationalism, China’s government cannot afford the implication that economic relations are more important than diplomatic rectitude if Japanese forces make a bold grab for the disputed islands. China will not be able to convince others and itself that it is truly independent and a power to be reckoned with if it cannot even resist a minor, marginal and nominal violation of sovereignty claim of great psychological value, let alone recover Taiwan. The increasingly active role played by a more powerful, sophisticated and maritimeorientated PLA in influencing Chinese foreign policy, in tandem with the PRC’s search for diplomatic weight and sea-bed resources in China’s littoral seas, will make it all the more difficult for Chinese leaders in the twenty-first century to turn their back on, or even place on the back-burner, touchy territorial issues in the East and South China seas. Exactly because relations between China and Japan cannot be defined according to socialist principles, unlike China’s past relations with the Soviet Union, they tend to take on a statist and even nationalistic norm. Indeed, the development of state patriotism in China was itself a product of conflict with Japan, which may have left a permanent scar on Sino-Japanese relations. Suppose we agree that China does not desire a reversion to its previous hegemonic role in East Asian diplomatic discourse with its associated expectations of ritual obeisance from the surrounding countries, and is instead willing to share leadership in East Asia with Japan. The Chinese must still worry that such equal status and friendly relations between the two countries would be undermined if China were to show signs of being vulnerable to economic pressure from Japan on national policies and priorities. While China’s need to assert an equal leadership role with the USSR of the socialist camp aggravated a minor territorial issue into a near-incident of war between the two countries, China’s abandonment of any aspirations to ideological influence with the end of world socialism helped settle the boundary dispute. Presently, by reclaiming its role as an East
Conclusion 169 Asian regional power, China will be extremely sensitive to real or perceived slights to its national dignity, sovereignty or interests. There is a danger that SinoJapanese relations will fall into a trap of the Chinese trying to exercise power as best as they can while preaching morality, as they are wont to do. Nationalism directed against Japan as a worthy opponent itself or as part of the West may also be increasingly used to shift attention from any domestic economic troubles or the existing ideological vacuum.
“A problem left over by history” China’s territorial dispute with India is neither an outgrowth of ideological quarrel nor a manifestation of aggrieved nationalism, although it was considered by China, like the other cases, as a “problem left over by history.” Nonetheless, to reveal the absurdity of the Soviet peace approach toward the United States, the Chinese blamed the Sino-Indian War of 1962 on American manipulation of India to provoke China. This was of course untrue, but by so doing, the Chinese tried to throw a coat of ideological paint on what was essentially a dispute over tracts of lands around the Sino-Indian frontier. If the border dispute between the two countries did subsequently take on opposing ideological dimensions, then it might have been resolved rather quickly towards the end of the 1980s with the waning of ideology as a discourse of inter-state relations. However, that was not to be the case. In the aftermath of the 1962 Sino-Indian War, when China and Pakistan evolved a strategic partnership in response to India’s growing military alliance with the Soviet Union, what was hitherto a border dispute took on, not the form of an ideological quarrel, but a security stand-off between China and India. In the logic of the enemy of one’s enemy being one’s friend, the strategic understanding adopted by Communist China and non-Communist Pakistan against that of Communist Russia and non-Communist India was the direct outgrowth of the bitter enmity between Pakistan and India on the one hand, and the SinoSoviet schism on the other. Although the Sino-Soviet ideological quarrel is now history, China still maintains excellent civil and military relations with Pakistan, and intends to reserve a role for itself in mediating the Indo-Pakistani dispute over Kashmir, if not a naval presence in the Indian Ocean at some time in the future. China and India have historically not been part of one another’s world or regional order, so India feels that China’s continuing involvement in subcontinental affairs is not compatible with India’s own self-image as the pre-eminent power in South Asia. Furthermore, national security and state sovereignty are still salient issues in inter-state conduct, nowhere more so than if there are outstanding issues of boundary disputes between both countries, which could be exploited by the respective governments as populist or diversionary measures to deal with heightened Hindu nationalism in India, or economic difficulties such as the restructuring of state-owned banks and enterprises or massive unemployment facing China.
170 Conclusion The confidence-building and disarmament measures that are now in place at the borders of China and India went a long way toward resolving the security threat posed against both countries by each other, or at least greatly reducing the perception of such a threat. However, the chances of resolving this border question will remain as they have been for the last thirty-five years, neither increasing nor decreasing, because it is not a symptom or reflection of larger ideological arguments, or a contest for regional supremacy, or even a historical legacy of distrust. The border dispute has always been a disagreement involving national claims over territory, pure and simple, in which both countries are dissatisfied with the position they have found themselves in, but where there is no incentive for either to move on settling the issue. Of course, that is not to say that the disputed borders between China and India may not serve as a casus belli for a future contest between them for hegemony in South Asia or even Southeast Asia.
Barbarians in the backyard? If the Chinese still possess some lingering respect for Russia’s military might, and grudgingly concede some measure of equality to the Japanese due to their economic strength, their deep-seated “middle kingdom” mentality makes them condescending toward their darker-skinned Southeast Asian neighbors, former tributaries who dwell in China’s maritime “South Seas” backyard. Forecasts of cooperation and compromise eventually replacing distrust and suspicion between China and its neighbors in East Asia are not widely shared by observers.8 Unlike the disputes over ideology and realities of power that underlay the threat constructions of the Soviet Union and India with China during the Cold War, China’s present difficulties with Japan, Taiwan and the countries of Southeast Asia have to do with conflicting ideas and competing claims concerning historical perceptions, national identities, and territorial completeness over contested space. China’s self-prescribed notion of “centrality” and traditional desire for diplomatic freedom of maneuver in dealing with countries bilaterally makes it reluctant to subscribe to the norms of any multilateral regional forum or regime. This is especially true when it comes to Chinese distrust of third party mediation in disputes over territorial sovereignty. Unless there is a strengthened Japanese and American commitment to offset Chinese military and economic growth, the pattern of assertive military strategy manifest in past centuries of Chinese hegemony will likely recur. All this is not to say that ASEAN cannot accommodate the idea of China as the East Asian superpower. All that ASEAN asks, as a Filipino commentator opined, is that “China remembers that demographic magnitude, economic weight and military power by themselves do not command respect … [for] respect must be earned, [which] can only be if a superpower’s attributes include moral authority.”9 The problem with this statement is that China may be infinitely more of a place to trade and invest than a paragon to emulate, and that China’s moral paradigm may not include conducting its relationships with Southeast Asian countries with equality. Southeast Asian countries also worry
Conclusion 171 that they may have trouble competing with the PRC for markets and investments, given the generally competitive nature of their foreign trade pattern. Still, ASEAN states will continue to emphasize the goal of drawing Beijing into the outside world. Indeed, as a scholar of China observed, the overriding goal is to reduce Beijing’s sense that it must retain autonomy, manoeuvrability and secrecy in its dealings with other states, and instead allow it to develop a world view that embraces a belief in the value of coordinated strategies based on a commitment to transparency in its international dealings.10
The ritual and symbolism of China’s negotiating behavior on territorial issues Looking at the ways in which China has proceeded to resolve its border problems, with its attendant successes, partial successes and failures over four decades, a pattern of negotiating behavior beyond the specifics of each case begins to take shape. In all cases, it was a neighboring country, desiring to affirm its current boundary with China, that first took up the issue of an unsettled border. China would then deny the legality of “unequal” boundary treaties “foisted” upon it before 1949, and seek to obtain the acknowledgment of the other side that the border problem was the result of an “imperialist” legacy awaiting rectification. If this acknowledgment was forthcoming, and this step was crucial, China would then press for the conclusion of a new bilateral comprehensive boundary treaty to replace the one it had repudiated. Such territorial settlements as were concluded would reveal that China had made very few demands for border changes or concessions, and was usually prepared to agree to the existing boundary alignment. The heart of China’s border resolution strategy called for the public acknowledgment and affirmation by a neighboring state desiring to settle an outstanding border issue that a border problem with China did indeed exist. The injustice of China’s previous interaction with the colonial imperialists and the rightness of China’s diplomatic stance on boundary issues must be recognized before they could be resolved through “mutual understanding and accommodation.” China successfully resolved the boundary dispute with Burma because, while Burma understood that China would not recognize the past accords establishing their current frontier, it also knew that China would not upset the territorial divisions they had brought into being as long as Burma were to affirm their illegitimate nature and ask the Chinese for a new boundary treaty. In contrast, Nehru took the position in 1954 that India’s northern frontier “should be considered a firm and definite one, which is not open to discussion with anybody,” and in 1964, the Soviet Union made known that it considered that “no territorial questions exist between the USSR and the PRC and that the Soviet-Chinese frontier has taken shape historically.” Perhaps, unlike the smaller countries around China’s borders, neither India nor the Soviet Union felt it had to entertain Chinese historical
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sensibilities or play by China’s diplomatic rhetoric. However, not doing so also meant that China was prevented from displaying its generosity or magnanimity, as befitting its own politically constructed self-image as a major power, by offering concessions on the border issues. Playing to China’s “morality” script thus points to one path which countries having territorial disagreement with the PRC can perhaps still take. We have reason to believe that the issue of resolving the land border dispute between Vietnam and China, which was finally settled at the end of 1999, was first brought up by then Vietnam Communist Party secretary-general Do Muoi and Vietnamese premier Vo Van Kiet on a visit to Beijing in November 1991, and while talks on the land border were carrying on, the Vietnamese allowed the Chinese to manage the stretch of railway in the disputed area.11 As anyone acquainted with Chinese history will know, in the Chinese diplomatic universe of yore, princes and emissaries from the surrounding “barbarian” countries were so moved by the martial prowess and virtuous prestige of the universal ruler of China that they felt obliged to come forth and acknowledge his majestic presence. This they did by performing the ceremonial kowtow, paying tribute, and receiving the right to trade with China, or some other imperial largesse, in return. We are of course no longer in the era of the “kowtow tributary” relations between the Middle Kingdom and lesser “barbarian” entities. Still, in the minds of many Chinese today, there should be nothing to prevent neighboring countries from paying proper respect to China as a re-emergent big and powerful state, settling boundary questions on its own terms, and receiving trading rights, minor territorial concessions, confirmation of the existing common boundary, or other special dispensations in return. Those border settlements that came about were made possible by the acceptance of the Chinese self-image of their place in the world and their concept of right conduct in interstate relations by Burma, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Mongolia. Perhaps there is after all not so much of a disjunction in China’s diplomatic discourse with its neighboring countries between now and a century or two ago. On the question of boundary definition, the difficulty of “ignoring” or “freezing” those disputes, a favorite recipe of the Chinese leadership in dealing with unresolved border issues, has grown immeasurably. This is because, aside from the fact that the relevance of treaties underlying the on-going maritime disputes are themselves disputed, for China and elsewhere around the region, territorial claims are part of a developing populist political discourse. The promotion of state-nationalism by the political elite to ward off pressure from countries and groups advocating humanitarian intervention, human rights, democracy, and globalization, has infused territorial issues with greater significance, sensitivity and publicity, and has resulted in those governments concerned being less able to control the terms of the debate. In these times of discovery or rediscovery of national self-definition and self-identification, territories and their associated myths and symbols take on real power in politics and cannot simply be dropped, retrieved or conceded to suit the immediate priorities of the government of the day. Greater political participation and
Conclusion 173 nationalistic activism, led by students, fishermen or opposition politicians, may sharpen policy debates and force political leaders to increase their criticisms of neighbors and take provocative action on disputed claims, thus raising regional tension in the process. The handling or mishandling of territorial issues may also become a proxy for attacking the perceived incompetence or unfairness of government policies. For modern China and the new states of the Southeast Asia especially, territoriality has lain at the very heart of the notion of the integrity of the state and central government control. Regional distribution of power is still expressed through territorial size and control, and the right to rule is still founded in part at least on a government’s ability to protect or extend the territory of a state. Even if issues of territorial sovereignty are the consequences of other concerns, or “historically-contingent socially-constructed realities,” a dispute over a piece of territory – no matter how tiny or insignificant – once it begins, almost always takes on a life of its own. It bears repeating, with regard to territorial claims, that the nature of the claim itself matters very much. Because under certain circumstances, UNCLOS III permits a claim of a 200-mile EEZ around an island, thus a territorial claim to that island will obviously include much more than the territory of that island alone. Therefore, island claims by countries now and in the future will tend to be maximal, unlike land claims in the past in which disagreements have revolved around disputed boundary treaties, and have in a way, been restricted by them in scope. In addition, both the Diaoyu and Nansha island groups could prove to be very troublesome in future to the Chinese and other countries disputing them; the former because of historical memory, the latter because there are simply so many parties to the different overlapping claims. Chinese leaders tend to internalize a sense of historical resentment, and expect outsiders to recognize and sympathize with their unfortunate encounter with past imperialist aggression. This resentment often translates into a claim of entitlement upon others to treat China right and affirm its self-image of a gentle giant having moral virtues in the conduct of foreign policy based not on expediency or selfinterest but rather justice and reciprocity. Relations can be cordial or even friendly if other states properly conduct themselves toward China with respect and circumspection, but if the claims are not recognized, or recognized only partially, then additional layers of Chinese resentment may build up. This hypersensitivity to perceived slights, implied criticisms of China’s internal politics, and alleged contempt for China’s territorial integrity, is manifested by the Chinese with respect to status and symbols, such as upholding China’s claims to contested territories, no less than to substantive issues like trade disputes and military threats. China’s normal response to perceived diplomatic slights or setbacks, to quote Shi Chi-yu, is to dramatize China’s sincerity toward a good relationship by mentioning violations but forgiving them temporarily, until the day arrives when it is politically and psychologically necessary for the relationship to blow apart so that the Chinese may avoid losing face for being inconsistent.12
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The inconsistency mentioned, of course, refers to the bifurcation between the realist basis of Chinese foreign policy as manifested in expediency and national interest, and the moral expressions of a great power seeking justice and equality in a peaceful world order. The Chinese are fully capable of hiding their frustrations, but a time may arrive when they finally decide that they have had enough of a neighbor who is uncooperative, unrepentant, or non-submissive. When the day comes that relations have to be breached, this could be triggered off by little more than a territorial dispute over some very tiny uninhabited island, or some of the remotest mountain peaks in the world. With the rise of China, old and new territorial disputes with its neighbors may lead to the development of a containment strategy against China, or at least an arms race in the region of East Asia. Hence for the sake of peace and prosperity in the Eastern AsiaWestern Pacific region, there is a pressing need for sovereignty negotiations toward achieving comprehensive boundary settlements on outstanding territorial questions between China and the other countries, and among those other countries themselves.
Notes
1 Introduction 1 John Alcock, Guy Arnold, Alan Day, D. S. Lewis, Lorimer Poutney, Roland Lance and D. J. Sagar, Border and Territorial Disputes, revised 3rd edn (London: Longman, 1992). The figure for the number of disputes is calculated from appendix A, a listing and summary of disputes between 1950 and 1990. 2 Paul K. Huth, Standing Your Ground: Territorial Disputes and International Conflict (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), 4. 3 John Vasquez, “Why Do Neighbours Fight?: Proximity, Interaction, Territoriality,” Journal of Peace Research, August 1995, vol. 32, no. 2, 277–294. 4 Alastair Iain Johnston, “China’s Militarized Interstate Dispute Behaviour 1949–1992: A First Cut at the Data,” China Quarterly, March 1998, no. 153, 29. 5 United Nations Third Convention of the Law of the Sea, (UNCLOS III) 1982, Part VIII, Regime of Islands, Article 121, Paragraph 3. 6 Jeanette Greenfield, China’s Practice in the Law of the Sea (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 229. Appendix 1, “Declaration on China’s Territorial Sea, 4 September 1958.” 7 Anonymous, Shi Jing. This saying first appeared in the anthology of poems called the Shi Jing [Book of Poems], under the section on “Xiao Ya” [Minor Odes], in the poem entitled “Bei Shan” [Northern Mountains]. The Shi Jing was compiled some time in the last decades of the Western Zhou dynasty (1046–771 BCE). 8 John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai, China’s Strategic Seapower: The Politics of Force Modernization in the Nuclear Age (Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 1994), 219. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid., 225. 11 Ibid., 229. 12 You Ji, “A Test Case for China’s Defense and Foreign Policies,” Contemporary Southeast Asia, March 1995, vol. 16, no. 4, 377. 13 You, “A Test Case for China’s Defense and Foreign Policies,” 378–379. 14 William W. Bain, “Sino-Indian Military Modernization: The Potential for Destabilization,” Asian Affairs, fall 1994, vol. 21, no. 3, 135. 15 Ibid., 136. 16 You Ji, “A Test Case for China’s Defense and Foreign Policies,” 380. 17 Huth, Standing Your Ground, 7. 18 Robert D. Putnam, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-level Games,” in Peter B. Evans, Harold K. Jacobson and Robert D. Putnam (eds) DoubleEdged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic politics (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), 436.
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19 Glenn H. Snyder and Paul Diesing, Conflict Among Nations: Bargaining, Decision Making, and System Structure in International Crises (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977), 510–525. 20 Rosemary Foot, “From Deterrence To Reassurance?: Cooperative Security in Asia and the Chinese Response,” paper presented at the Center for International Studies, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 16 April 1996. 21 Major works in this genre include Arthur Samuel Lall, Modern International Negotiations: principles and practices (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966); Richard H. Solomon, Chinese Political Negotiating Behavior: A Briefing Analysis (Santa Monica CA: Rand Corporation, 1985); and Lucian Pye, Chinese Negotiating Style: Commercial Approaches and Cultural Principles (New Jersey: Greenwood Publishers, 1992). 22 Robert D. Putnam, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-level Games,” International Organization, summer 1988, vol. 42, no. 3, 423–460. 23 Lyle J. Goldstein, “Return to Zhenbao Island: Who Started Shooting and Why It Matters,” China Quarterly, December 2001, no. 168, 985–997. 24 Y. B. Chavan, India’s Foreign Policy (New Delhi: Frank Cass, 1979), 19. 25 International Boundaries Research Unit (IBRU) Boundary and Security Bulletin, Autumn 1999, 38. 26 “Vietnam’s Government Defends Border Agreement with China,” Associated Press, 3 April 2002. 27 Jane’s Foreign Report, 2627, 8 February 2001. 28 Ibid., 459. 29 Jeffrey W. Knopf, “Beyond Two-level Games: Domestic-international Interaction in the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Negotiations,” International Organization, autumn 1993, vol. 47, no. 4, 605. Knopf went on to explore the implications for state government negotiations by taking into account three (societal, state and regime) levels of analysis. However, since regimes as a common set of norms, rules and expectations which governs inter-state behavior are not at present established among the countries of East Asia, I will not consider the third (regime) level of analysis in applying the traditional “two-level games” concept. 30 Janice Gross Stein, “The Political Economy of Security Agreements: The Link Costs of Failure at Camp David,” in Peter B. Evans, Harold K. Jacobson and Robert D. Putnam (eds) Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), 77–103. 31 Carol Hamlin, “Domestic Component and China’s Evolving Three World Theory,” in Lillian Harris and Robert Worden (eds) China and the Third World: Champion or Challenger (Dover MA: Auburn House, 1986), 50–51. 32 Zhao Quansheng, Interpreting Chinese Foreign Policy: The Micro-Macro Linkage Approach (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1996), 19. 33 Ibid., 23.
2 The two-level game hypothesis 1 Robert D. Putnam, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-level Games,” International Organization, summer 1988, vol. 42, no. 3, 427–460. Article appears in the appendix of Peter B. Evans, Harold K. Jacobson and Robert D. Putnam (eds) Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), 431–468. The basic concepts and terminology employed and explained in this section are derived from the listed article. All page-number references to the Putnam article are from the Double-Edged Diplomacy book. 2 Putnam, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics,” 443. 3 Ibid., 439. 4 Ibid.
Notes 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
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Ibid., 438. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 443. Ibid., 446. Ibid., 444. Ibid., 448. Helen V. Milner, Interests, Institutions, and Information: Domestic Politics and International Relations (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), chapter 3, “A Model of the Two-level Game,” 67–98. Putnam, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics,” 451. Ibid., 452. Ibid., 456. Roger Fisher, International Conflict for Beginners (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 94–95.
3 The Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute 1 For a detailed assessment of the Tiao-yu-tai/Senkaku issue with regard to concepts of sovereignty and international law, see Peter N. Upton, “International Law and the Sino-Japanese Controversy over Territorial Sovereignty of the Senkaku Islands,” Boston University Law Review, 1972, vol. 52, 763–790; Comment, “The East China Sea: The Role of International Law in the Settlement of Disputes,” Duke Law Journal, 1973, 823–865; Victor H. Li, “China and Offshore Oil: The Tiao-yu-Tai Dispute,” Stanford Journal of International Studies, 1975, vol. 10, 143–162; and Tao Cheng, “The Sino-Japanese Dispute over the Tiao-yu-tai (Senkaku) Islands and the Law of Territorial Acquisition,” Virginia Journal of International Law, 1974, vol. 14, no. 2, 221–266. 2 The Chinese view is most strongly articulated by Kiyoshi Inoue, “The Tiaoyu (Senkaku) Islands Are China’s Territory,” Beijing Review, 12 May 1972, vol. 15, part 19. For a Taiwanese perspective (in Chinese), see Hungdah Chiu, “A Study of the Tiaoyutai Islets Problem,” Chengchi Law Review, 1972, vol. 6, 241–270. Historical Arguments supporting the Chinese claim are presented in the most meticulous details (in Chinese) in Tianying Wu, A Study of the Diaoyu Islets Claim Before the Sino-Japanese War: With Arguments Against Professor Toshio Okuhara (Beijing: Social Science Literature Publishing Company, 1994). 3 The Japanese view is most succinctly articulated by Toshio Okuhara, “The Territorial Sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands and Problems on the Surrounding Continental Shelf,” Japanese Annual of International Law, 1971, vol. 15, 97–106. 4 For an authoritative statement on the Japanese claim, see “The Foreign Ministry’s View Concerning the Rights to Ownership over the Senkaku Islands” issued by the Japanese Foreign Minister on 8 March 1972, as reported by Asahi Shimbun, 9 March 1972. The third paragraph of the statement read in part even under the San Francisco Peace treaty, the Senkaku islands are not included in the territory our country relinquished on the basis of Article 2 of the Treaty. They are placed under U.S. administration as part of Nansei Islands, in accordance with Article 3, and are included in the areas the administrative rights over which are to be reverted to our country under the Okinawa Reversion Agreement. (see Cheng, “The Sino-Japanese Dispute over the Tiao-yu-tai [Senkaku] Islands and the Law of Territorial Acquisition,” 244)
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5 A certain Tatsushiro Koga, who had supposedly been engaging in the business of collecting guano and albatross feathers on the islands since 1884. See Okuhara, 99. 6 For the positions of China (including Taiwan) and Japan on the East China Continental Shelf claims, see Wei-chin Lee, “Troubles Under the Water: SinoJapanese Conflict of Sovereignty on the Continental Shelf in the East China Sea,” Ocean Development and International Law Journal, 1987, vol. 18, no. 5, 585–611; and Ying-jeou Ma, Legal Problems of Seabed Boundary Delimitation in the East China Sea (Baltimore: Occasional Papers/Reprint Series in Contemporary Asian Studies, 1984). 7 For a clear and concise exposition on how tiny uninhabited islets, barren atolls and rocks may affect the sovereign claims of nations over the fish and mineral resources within the waters extending 200 miles off their shores, see John M. Van Dyke and Robert A. Brooks, “Uninhabited Islands: Their Impact on the Ownership of the Oceans’ Resources,” Ocean Development and International Law Journal, 1983, vol. 12, nos. 3–4, 265–300. 8 Choon-Ho Park, East Asia and the Law of the Sea (Seoul: Seoul National University Press, 1983), 42–43, n3. 9 Ibid., 4–6. 10 Seventies Monthly Newsmagazine, Diao Yu Tai Shi Jian Zhen Xiang [The True Facts of the Diao Yu Tai Affair] (Hong Kong : Xinhua Publishing Company, 1971), 13. 11 Park, East Asia and the Law of the Sea, 11. 12 Ibid., 34. 13 Japanese Annual of International Law (henceforth JAIL), 1979/1980, vol. 23, 82, n14. 14 Seventies Monthly Newsmagazine, Diao Yu Tai Shi Jian Zhen Xiang, 17–18. 15 Ibid. 16 Selig S. Harrison, China, Oil and Asia: Conflict Ahead (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), 197. 17 Seventies Monthly Newsmagazine, Diao Yu Tai Shi Jian Zhen Xiang, 121–123. 18 Mingpao Monthly (Hong Kong), “The Japanese Government’s Unreasonableness,” October 1970, 84. 19 Seventies Monthly Newsmagazine, Diao Yu Tai Shi Jian Zhen Xiang, 24–26. 20 Ibid., 26–27. 21 Ibid., 27–30. 22 Yao Limin, “Thunderous Roar of the Chinese People: Remembering the Tenth of April Washington March,” Mingpao Monthly, May 1971, 11–16. 23 “From ‘United’ to Face-off,” Mingpao Monthly, October 1971, 66–68. 24 You Haoran, “ ‘May Fourth’ Retrospective and Prospects for the Tiaoyutai Movement,” Mingpao Monthly, May 1971, 2–10. 25 Liu Daren, “Commemorating Hong Kong’s August 13 Protect Tiaoyutai Demonstrations,” Mingpao Monthly, September 1971, 94–96. 26 Seventies Monthly Newsmagazine, Diao Yu Tai Shi Jian Zhen Xiang, 31–34. 27 Ibid., 19. 28 Cheng, “The Sino-Japanese Dispute over the Tiao-yu-tai (Senkaku) Islands and the Law of Territorial Acquisition,” 264, n139. 29 Daniel Tretiak, “The Sino-Japanese Treaty of 1978: The Senkaku Incident Prelude,” Asian Survey, December 1978, vol. 18, 1241, n17. 30 Ibid., 1241. 31 Vladimir Tsvetov, “Newspaper Poll Reveals Diet’s Reticence to PRC Treaty,” FBIS Daily Report, USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M2, 18 April 1978. Moscow in Japanese to Japan, 0830 GMT 14 April 1978. Soviet sources were included in the study for triangulation purposes, as the Soviet Union was most interested in what transpired between China and Japan over the Sino-Japanese Peace and Friendship Treaty.
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32 Editorial, “Concrete Actions Gladden Hearts,” Ming Pao (Hong Kong), 14 April 1978. 33 Editorial, Ming Pao, 16 April 1978. 34 “Government to Act Calmly,” FBIS Daily Report, Asia and Pacific, Japan, C9, 13 April 1978. Tokyo KYODO in English, 1227 GMT 13 April 1978. 35 Editorial, Ming Pao, 17 April 1978. 36 Tretiak, “The Sino-Japanese Treaty of 1978,” 1242. 37 “Japanese Agency Reports PRC Servicemen Aboard Vessels,” FBIS Daily Report, USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M4, 1 May 1978. Moscow PRAVDA in Russian 26 April 1978. 38 “PRC Ignores Two Requests for Talks on Senkaku Issue,” FBIS Daily Report, Asia and Pacific, Japan, 19 April 1978, C1. Tokyo KYODO in English 1246 GMT 13 April 1978. 39 “LDP Group Urges ‘Resolute Action’,” FBIS Daily Report, Asia and Pacific, Japan, C10, 13 April 1978, Tokyo KYODO in English 0555 GMT 19 April 1978. 40 “PRC Fishing Boats Reenter Japanese Waters,” FBIS Daily Report, USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M1, 19 April 1978. Moscow TASS in English 1336 GMT 18 April 1978. 41 “Japan’s Public, Press Reaction to Senkaku Intrusion Noted,” FBIS Daily Report, USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M4, 24 April 1978. Moscow TASS in English 1904 GMT 21 April 1978. 42 “Construction of Refuge Port,” FBIS Daily Report, Asia and Pacific, Japan, 26 April 1978. Tokyo KYODO in English 0545 GMT 26 April 1978. 43 “Sonoda, Party Reactions,” FBIS Daily Report, Asia and Pacific, Japan, C8-C9, 13 April 1978. Tokyo KYODO in English 0614 GMT 13 April 1978. 44 “Japanese Agency Reports PRC Servicemen Aboard Vessels,” FBIS Daily Report, USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M4, 1 May 1978. Moscow PRAVDA in Russian 26 April 1978. 45 “LDP Leaders Ask for Resolution of Issues Before Japan-LDP Talks,” FBIS Daily Report, USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M1, 26 May 1978. Moscow TASS in English 1655 GMT 25 May 1978. 46 Editorial, Ming Pao, 23 April 1978. 47 JAIL, 1986, vol. 29, 111, n34. 48 Editorial, Ming Pao, 16 August 1978. 49 Deng Xiaoping, quoted in Chi-kin Lo China’s Policy Toward Territorial Disputes: The Case of the South China Sea Islands (London: Routledge, 1989), 171–172. 50 Yuriy Afonin, “PRC Maintains ‘Hegemonic’ Policy toward Japan,” FBIS Daily Report, USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M1, 12 April 1978. Moscow in Japanese to Japan 0830 GMT 10 April 1978. 51 “Japanese Concern over Senkaku Incident Growing,” FBIS Daily Report, USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M1, 26 April 1978. Moscow TASS in English 1359 GMT 25 April 1978. 52 Michael J. Green and Benjamin L. Self, “Japan’s Changing China Policy: From Commercial Liberalism to Reluctant Realism,” Survival, summer 1996, vol. 36, no. 2, 39. 53 “Japanese Attitude Toward PRC Reviewed,” FBIS Daily Report, USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M1, 31 May 1978. Moscow SOVETSKAYA ROSSIYA in Russian 26 May 1978. 54 “ ‘Unlikely to Affect’ Economic Ties,” FBIS Daily Report, Asia and Pacific, Japan, C2, 18 April 1978. Tokyo KYODO in English 1240 GMT 17 April 1978. 55 I. Latyashev, “US Pressure for Anti-Soviet Sino-Japanese Treaty Cited,” FBIS Daily Report, USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M1, 23 May 1978. Moscow PRAVDA in Russian 20 May 1978.
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56 Igor Latyashev, “Pravda Cites US Pressure on Japan to Conclude PRC Treaty,” FBIS Daily Report, USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M4, 31 May 1978. Moscow PRAVDA in Russian 26 May 1978. 57 I. Latyashev, “Senkaku Islands Intrusion Raises Doubts about PRC Treaty,” FBIS Daily Report, USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M2, 19 April 1978. Moscow PRAVDA in Russian 17 April 1978. 58 “JCP Chairman Comments,” FBIS Daily Report, Asia and Pacific, Japan, C1, 21 April 1978. Tokyo AKAHATA in Japanese 15 April 1978. 59 “JCP Official Criticizes PRC on Senkaku Islands Intrusion,” FBIS Daily Report, USSR, International Affairs, Northeast Asia, M1, 25 April 1978. Moscow TASS in English 1343 GMT 24 April 1978. 60 JAIL, 1986, vol. 29, 134, n55. 61 Shintaro Ishihara, as quoted in “Senkaku Issue a Litmus Test for the US: Shintaro Ishihara, Writer,” Sankei Shimbun, 5 November 1996. 62 “Possibility of Heliport on Islands,” FBIS Daily Report, Asia and Pacific, Japan, C2, 20 April 1978. Tokyo KYODO in English 0558 GMT 20 April 1978. 63 Inside China Today (News On the Web Today), 14 February 1997. http://www.insidechina.com:80/china/diaoyu/diaoyu.html (accessed 20 January 1999). 64 Susan J. Pharr, “Japan’s Defensive Foreign Policy and the Politics of Burden Sharing,” in Gerald Curtis (ed.) Japan’s Foreign Policy After the Cold War (Armonk NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1993), 252. 65 Feng Yun Ti Nien Tai [Tumultuous Age], 2nd edn, (Taipei: Lian Ching Chu Pan Shi Ye Kong Si, 1991), 315. 66 Ibid., 316. 67 Phil Deans, “The Diaoyutai/Senkaku Dispute: The Unwanted Controversy,” 17 December 1996, 4. http://snipe.ukc.ac.uk/international/papers.dir/deans.html (accessed 20 January 1999). 68 Ibid., 9–10, n40, n41. 69 Ibid., 10, n42. 70 Feng Yun Ti Nien Tai, 317. 71 “The Woes of Wu,” Economist, 3 November 1990, 42. 72 Feng Yun Ti Nien Tai, 318. 73 Deans, “The Diaoyutai/Senkaku Dispute: The Unwanted Controversy,” 10, n49. 74 Editorial, Nineties Monthly Newsmagazine, 10 October 1996, 55. 75 Dennis T. Yasumoto, “The Politicization of Japan’s ‘Post-Cold War’ Multilateral Diplomacy,” in Gerald Curtis (ed.) Japan’s Foreign Policy After the Cold War (Armonk NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1993), 328. 76 Liping Deng and Akiyo Mukai, “Japan’s Official Development Assistance to China: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis,” International Politics (formerly Coexistence), June 1996, no. 33, 165. 77 Press conference by press secretary of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, 23 September 1996. http://www2.nttca.com:8010/infomofa/press/1996> (accessed 20 January 1999). 78 Murakami Mutsuko, “Center of the Storm,” Asiaweek, 20 September 1996, 21. 79 Jun Ping, “Japan’s General Election and Changing Political Climate,” Liaowang Magazine, 1996, no. 45, 44. 80 Ibid., 43. 81 An excellent treatment of the Japanese party system after 1945 can be found in the book by Masaru Kohno, Japan’s Postwar Party System (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997). 82 “Rocks of Contention,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 1 November 1990, 20. 83 “Seirankai: Thunder on the Ultra-Right,” AMPO (Japan), 1974, vol. 6, no. 2, 29. 84 Shintaro Ishihara, as quoted in “Senkaku Issue a Litmus Test for the US: Shintaro Ishihara, Writer,” Sankei Shimbun, 5 November 1996.
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85 Kyodo News Agency, FBIS-EAS-96-202, 17 October 1996. 86 Murakami Mutsuko, “Center of the Storm,” Asiaweek, 20 September 1996, 21. 87 “The Emperor’s Legions: A History of Japan’s Right Wing,” AMPO (Japan), 1989, vol. 23, no. 2, 3. 88 “Opinion: Chinese Press,” Hong Kong Standard, 17 September 1996. 89 Ibid. 90 In one survey of attitudes of PRC youths toward Japan, conducted at the end of 1996, the word “Japan” made 83.9 percent of those surveyed recall the Nanjing Massacre, and 81.3 percent of them recall Japan’s denial of its aggression against the Chinese during the Pacific War. Zhongguo Qingnian Bao, 18 March 1997. 91 Todd Crowell, “United in Rage,” Asiaweek, 20 September 1996, 20. 92 Cai Jinnan, “Fishermen’s Livelihood Seriously Affected,” Central Daily News (Taiwan), 8 September 1996. 93 “Soong Chu-yu Queries ‘Where is Communist China?’,” Central Daily News (Taiwan), 24 July 1996. 94 “Ilan Fishermen Decides to Visit Tiaoyutai to Plant National Flag and Declare Sovereignty,” China Times, 22 July 1996. 95 Lin Zefeng, “National Assembly Concerned: Request Naval Protection for Fishermen,” Central Daily News (Taiwan), 21 July 1996. 96 Ibid. 97 Hong Kong Standard, 2 September 1996. 98 “Japan and Taiwan Reportedly Agreed to Enact an Unofficial Fisheries Agreement,” Central Daily News (Taiwan), 8 August 1996. 99 “Japan’s Move on Island Protested,” Central Daily News (Taiwan), 17 October 1996. 100 “ ‘Uniting to Protect Tiaoyutai’ Chinese Communist Stance Unclear,” Central Daily News (Taiwan), 24 July 1996. 101 “Tiaoyutai Dispute – Lee Teng-hui: To Be Solved Through Peaceful Foreign Foreign Relations,” and “Wu Dun-yi: Must Let Japan Feel International Pressure,” Central Daily News (Taiwan), 13 September 1996. 102 Lin Jinjing, “Harmony Benefits Both: Tiaoyutai Sovereignty Question Should Be Temporarily Shelved,” Central Daily News, 13 August 1996. 103 “Japan Increases Substantive Relations With Taipei,” Central News Agency (Taiwan), FBIS-CHI-96-245, 19 December 1996. 104 Press conference by press secretary of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan on 10 September 1996. http://www2.nttca.com:8010/infomofa/press/1996 (accessed 20 January 1999). 105 Crowell, “United in Rage,” 20. 106 Yojana Sharma, “East Asia: China Turns the Guns on Japanese Militarism,” Inter Press Service News Wire, 4 September 1996. http://sii.standford.edu:80/~ swjar/ips0904.htm (accessed 20 January 1999). 107 “Commentary,” People’s Daily, 21 September 1996. For more historical analysis favoring the Chinese claim to the Diaoyu Islands, see “On the Diaoyu Islands Sovereignty Dispute,” People’s Daily (Overseas Edition), 18 October 1996. 108 Anthony Spaeth, “Nationalism Gone Awry: Death in the Diaoyus,” Time International Magazine, 7 October 1996, vol. 148, no. 15, 25. 109 Maggie Farley and Rone Tempest, “Japan Blocks Flotilla Claiming Islands for China,” Los Angeles Times, 16 September 1996. http://sii.standford.edu:80/~swjar/ lat_0924.htm (accessed 20 January 1999). 110 “Tokyo ‘Cautious’ on Recognizing Beacon,” Hong Kong Standard, 26 September 1996. 111 Press conference by press secretary of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan on 27 September 1996. http://www2.nttca.com:8010/infomofa/press/1996 (accessed 20 January 1999). 112 Ibid.
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113 Charles Hutzler, “China to Japan: Back Off Claim,” Associated Press, 30 September 1996. http://www.arts.cuhk.hk/NanjingMassacre/nmnwe96.html (accessed 20 January 1999). 114 Antoine So, “Chinese Urged the Government to Send Troops to Diaoyutai Isles,” Hong Kong Standard, 2 September 1996. http://www.arts.cuhk.hk/NanjingMassacre/ nmnwe96.html (accessed 20 January 1999). 115 John Leicester, “Activist Shipped from Beijing,” Associated Press, 16 September 1996. http://sii.standford.edu:80/~swjar/ap_0916a.htm (accessed 20 January 1999). 116 Maggie Farley and Rone Tempest, “Japan Blocks Flotilla Claiming Islands for China,” Los Angeles Times, 16 September 1996. 117 Patrick E. Tyler, “Shifting Gears, Beijing Reins in Anti-Japanese Campaign,” New York Times, 19 September 1996. See also a report on posters put up by students at Shanghai’s Fudan University attacking the Beijing authorities for being soft on Japan’s Diaoyu claim, in China Spring, October 1996, vol. 157, 86. 118 China News Digest, citing Washington Post, 23 September 1996. 119 Neihon Keizai Shimbun, 29 October 1996. 120 Russel Skelton, “Japan Wary as China Builds Military Might,” International Herald Tribune, 22 July 1996. 121 Yojana Sharma, “East Asia: China Turns the Guns on Japanese Militarism,” Inter Press Service News Wire, 4 September 1996. http://sii.standford.edu:80/~swjar/ ips0904.htm (accessed 20 January 1999). 122 Song Qiang, Zhang Zangzang and Qiao Bian, China Can Say No (Beijing: Zhonghua Gongshang Lianhe Chubanshe, 1996). For anti-Japanese diatribes, see “Ignorant Japan,” 106–121, and “Japan Is Joining In the Chorus of Containing China,” 177–185. For even more anti-Japanese diatribes, see Song Qiang, Zhang Zangzang, Qiao Bian, Tang Zhengyu and Gu Qingsheng, China Can Still Say No (Beijing: Zhonghua Gongshang Lianhe Chubanshe, 1996), “Heavenly Dynasty and the Pill,” 74–171. The authors essentially argued against a heightened role for Japan in Asia and the United Nations, and attacked the Japanese for permitting a revival of nationalistic “militarism,” because of their reluctance to formally apologize for their invasion of China and other parts of Asia during the Second World War. 123 Bian Jinfeng, “John Chang: Fishing Rights of Tiaoyutai Islands Should Be Settled First,” Central Daily News, 30 September 1996. 124 “Taiwan Won’t Give In on Sovereignty in Diaoyu Talks,” Hongkong Standard, 3 October 1996. 125 “Second Round of Talks with Japan Ends 4 October,” Chung Kuo Shi Pao [China Times] (Taiwan), FBIS-CHI-96-194, 6 October 1996. 126 Robin Ajello, “The Flames of Nationalism: Will Diaoyu Activists Hit the Lighthouse Next?” in Asiaweek, 18 October 1996, 22. 127 Du Shengcong, “Yimian wuxingqi youkaishi rang baodiao yundong zoushang fenlie,” X in Xinwen [The Journalist], 19 October 1996, 22. 128 Han Nai-kuo, “US Will Not Take Sides in Tiaoyutai Dispute,” Central News Agency (Taiwan), 17 October 1996. 129 Shintaro Ishihara, as quoted in “Senkaku Issue a Litmus Test for the US: Shintaro Ishihara, Writer,” Sankei Shimbun, 5 November 1996. 130 Dan Slater, “Leaving No Stone Unclaimed,” Weekly Report on the Asia-Pacific, 5 October 1996.
[email protected] (accessed 20 January 1999). 131 “Interviews With New Ministers: Foreign Minister Yukihiko Ikeda; Relations with China Ranks with the U.S. as an Important Relationship,” Asahi Shimbun, 13 November 1996. 132 Du Shengcong, “Yimian wuxingqi youkaishi rang baodiao yundong zoushang fenlie,” X in Xinwen [The Journalist], 19 October 1996, 23.
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133 Bruce Gilley, “Controlling Interest,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 28 September 1996, 23. 134 Masahi Ishihara, “Japan’s Receptivity to Conditional Engagement,” in James Shinn (ed.) Weaving the Net: Conditional Engagement with China (New York: Council of Foreign Relations Press, 1996), 185. 135 James P. Dorian, David Fridley and Kristin Tressler, “Energy and Mineral Resources,” in Mark J. Valencia (ed.) The Russian Far East in Transition: Opportunities for Regional Economic Cooperation (Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1995), 97. 136 Direction of Trade Quarterly, Japan Import Export Data for December 1973, June 1979, September 1991 and September 1997. 137 Elspeth Thomson, “Japanese EDI, Exports, and Technology Transfer to China,” in Joseph C. H. Chai, Y. Y. Kueh and Clement A. Tisdell (eds) China and the Asia Pacific Economy (Commack NY: Nova Science Publishers, 1997), 186. 138 China Trade Report, published monthly in Hong Kong by Far Eastern Economic Review. 139 Keun-Wook Paik, Gas and Oil in Northeast Asia: Policies, Projects and Prospects (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1995), 171. 140 Roger Fisher and William Ury, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (Boston MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1981). Fisher and Ury give an example concerning the difficult negotiations between Egypt and Israel over where to draw a boundary in the Sinai. After years of fruitless bargaining, it was discovered that, while Egypt cared a great deal about sovereignty over the Sinai, Israel was more concerned with its security. Giving to each what it valued most in this case meant creating a demilitarized zone under the Egyptian flag. This had the effect of giving Egypt “sovereignty” and Israel “security,” to the satisfaction of both. 141 Straits Times (Singapore), “Disputed Islands: Japan Repels Chinese Activists’ Boat,” 24 June 2003. 142 “Politician Joins Activists in Landing on Senkaku Islands,” Japan Times, 6 May 1997. 143 Russell Skelton, “Japanese Patrol Boats Keep Protest Ships at Bay,” Sydney Morning Herald, 27 May 1997. 144 IBRU, Boundary and Security Bulletin, Autumn 1999, 38. 145 Xiao Gongqin, “A New Nationalism to Concentrate Willpower (Ninju xiangxinli de xin minzu zhuyi),” Mingpao Monthly (Hong Kong), March 1996, 18–20. 146 Shijie luntan junshi luntan (World Forum Military Forum), “Beijing gai zhengce: Baodiao bian aiguo xingwei,” [Beijing changes policy: Protecting Diaoyudao becomes patriotic behaviour]. http://www.wforum.com/wmf (accessed 20 January 1999). 147 I am drawing on Allen S. Whiting’s description of nationalism types. Aside from assertive and aggressive nationalism, Whiting also referred to a third type of “affirmative nationalism,” namely patriotism. See Allen S. Whiting, “Chinese Nationalism and Foreign Policy after Deng,” China Quarterly, June 1995, vol. 142, 295–316. 148 Bruce Stronach, Beyond the Rising Sun: Nationalism in Contemporary Japan (Westport CT: Praeger, 1995), xvii–xxi. Stronach characterizes Japanese nationalism in the 1990s as not “state-oriented” or expansionistic, but “socio-cultural,” which involves identifying with a group and its desire to protect itself and raise its international image. I am in agreement with Stronach on the innocuous nature of its current manifestation in Japan, but will not preclude the resurgence of a less benign type of nationalism. A prolonged economic crisis, a reduction in living standards, or a reduction in government largess might lead to decreased support for democratic values and make it easier for nationalistic elements in the elite to convince the public that a return to the authoritarian, patriotic, militaristic and disciplined society of pre-World War II Japan is both desirable and necessary.
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149 Extrapolated from data provided by China Daily, “Bilateral Trade to Hit US$ 100 b,” 30 September 2002; and JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization), “Japan’s International Trade in Goods (2002/9).” http://www.jetro.gp.jp/ec/e/stat/ jpn_trade/200209.html (accessed 20 January 1999). 150 For readers interested in this “Energy Silk Road” project, please read Keun Wook Paik, “Pipeline Politics: Turkmenistan vs. Russian Far East Gas Development,” Geopolitics of Energy, 1 September 1994, 1–8. Total Japanese energy loans to China from 1979 to 1993 reached $9.4 billion, of which $5.9 billion was for oil development, accounting for around 26 percent of China’s total investment in oil development during that same period. Japan has also provided a loan worth 700 billion Yen (approximately $7 billion in 1994 dollars) from 1996 to 1999. See Paik, Gas and Oil in Northeast Asia, 173–174. 151 The Japan Forum on International Relations, “The Policy Recommendations on the Future of China in the Context of Asian Security,” Tokyo, January 1995. 152 For a history of non-governmental and governmental agreements on fishery between China and Japan, see Jeanette Greenfield “Fishery Conservation and the Freedom of Seas,” in China’s Practice in the Law of the Sea (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 93–105.
4 The Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute 1 Thalweg is a German word for “channel course” which has entered the vocabulary of international maritime law. It refers to the deepest part of the river, not necessarily its center. 2 This section on the geography of Zhenbao Island is taken from Qi Xin, Zhen Bao Dao Shi Jian Zhen Xiang [The True Facts of the Zhenbao Island Affair] (Hong Kong: Seventies Monthly Magazine, 1971), 1–2. 3 This section on the historical background of the Zhenbao Island conflict is taken from Qi, Zhen Bao Dao Shi Jian Zhen Xiang, 3, 10–12. For more historical details on the Russian encounter with the Manchu from 1643 to 1860, see John J. Stephan, The Russian Far East: A History (Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 1994), chapter 4, “Amur Setback” and chapter 6, “Return to the Amur.” For a meticulous, blow-by-blow account of the events leading up to the signing of the “Treaty of Aigun” in 1858 and the “Treaty of Peking” in 1860 between czarist Russia and Manchu Qing China, see R. K. I. Quested, The Expansion of Russia in East Asia, 1857–1860 (Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya, 1968), passim. For Russian historiography on the evolution of the Sino-Russian border, see Alexei D. Voskressenski, The Difficult Border: Current Russian and Chinese Concepts of Sino-Russian Relations and Frontier Problems (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 1996), chapter VI, “Russian Approaches: Russian Concepts and the Problem of ‘Balanced’ Interpretation of the Russian-Chinese Relations.” 4 See the passage from “The Origin and Development of the Differences Between the Leadership of the CPSU and Ourselves,” People’s Daily and Red Flag, 6 September 1963, quoted in Dennis J. Doolin, Territorial Claims in the Sino-Soviet Dispute: Documents and Analysis (Stanford CA: Stanford University, Hoover Institution Studies 7, 1965), 27–28. 5 “A Comment on the Statement of the Communist Party of the USA,” People’s Daily, 8 March 1963, quoted in Doolin, Territorial Claims in the Sino-Soviet Dispute, 29–31. 6 Harold C. Hinton, The Bear at the Gate: Chinese Policymaking under Soviet Pressure (Washington DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1971), 17. 7 Ibid. 8 Li Huichun, “The Crux of the Sino-Soviet Boundary Question,” Beijing Review, 27 July 1981, no. 30, 16–17.
Notes 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17
18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
32 33
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Hinton, The Bear at the Gate, 18. Qi, Zhen Bao Dao Shi Jian Zhen Xiang, 72. Ibid. Harold C. Hinton, “Conflict on the Ussuri: A Clash of Nationalisms,” Problems of Communism, January–April 1971, vol. 20, 47. Qi, Zhen Bao Dao Shi Jian Zhen Xiang, plates 1, 2, 4, 5. Alan J. Day (ed.) China and the Soviet Union 1949–84, Facts On File, by Peter Jones and Sian Kevill (New York: Facts On File Publications, 1985), 45. Hinton, The Bear at the Gate, 21. Wishnick, “In the Region and in the Center: Soviet Reactions to the Border Rift,” quoting I. K. Bokan, Head of the Political Department of the Kraznoznamennyi Far Eastern border district, at a meeting of the Khabarovsk region and city party officials on 22 September 1969. Cold War International History Project, Bulletin 6–7 (Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 1995). http://www.gwu.edu/~narchiv/CWIHP/BULLETINS/b6–7a15.htm (accessed 4 July 2003). Suslov wrote a strongly anti-Chinese article in the theoretical journal Kommunist (10 October 1969, no. 15) entitled “Lenin and the Revolutionary Transformation of the World,” in Hinton, The Bear At The Gate, n49, 43. Harold C. Hinton considered Grechko a “hawk-like and anti-Chinese” ally of Brezhnev, but regarded CPSU Politburo member Alexander Shelepin a moderate on China. See Harold C. Hinton, The Sino-Soviet Confrontation: Implications for the Future (New York: Crane, Russak & Company, 1976), 39–40, 43. Serge Petroff, The Red Eminence: A Biography of Mikhail A. Suslov (Clifton NJ: The Kingston Press, 1988), 136. Arthur A. Cohen, “The Sino-Soviet Border Crisis of 1969,” in Alexander L. George (ed.) Avoiding War: Problems of Crisis Management (Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1991), 276–277. Li Ke and Hao Shengzheng, Wenhua da geming de renmin jiefang jun (Beijing: Chinese Communist Party History Materials Press, 1989), 22–25; Barbara Barnouin and Yu Changgen, Chinese Foreign Policy During the Cultural Revolution (London: Kegan Paul, 1998), 87. Shih, Chih-yu, The Spirit of Chinese Foreign Policy (London: Macmillan Press, 1990), 185. Hinton, The Bear at the Gate, 24. Shih, The Spirit of Chinese Foreign Policy, 185. Hinton, “Conflict on the Ussuri: A Clash of Nationalisms,” 49; Day (ed.) China and the Soviet Union 1949–84, 93–94; “Angry Protest and Indignation,” Pravda, 8 March 1969. Hinton, The Bear at the Gate, 25–26. Hinton, The Bear at the Gate, 24. “Soviets Seek Western Support on Border Clash,” FBIS Daily Report, Communist China, International Affairs, A1, 20 March 1969, Peking NCNA International Service in English 2004 GMT 19 March 1969 W. Qi, Zhen Bao Dao Shi Jian Zhen Xiang, 39–41. Hinton, The Bear at the Gate, 24. Hinton, “Conflict on the Ussuri: A Clash of Nationalisms,” 50. Ibid. Kosygin’s moderate position seemed to have been supported by Soviet Chief of Staff M. Zakharov, who was believed to have opposed a war with China (see Christian Duevel, “Marshall Zakharov’s Position on the Sino-Soviet Conflict,” Radio Liberty dispatch, 10 February 1970). Lin Biao, report of 1 April 1969 to the Ninth Party Congress, released by Xinhua News Agency on 27 April 1969, as quoted in Hinton, “Conflict on the Ussuri: A Clash of Nationalisms,” 50. Arkady N. Shevchenko, Breaking with Moscow (New York: Knopf, 1985), 164–165.
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34 “USSR Statement To CPR Suggests Border Talks,” FBIS Daily Report, Soviet Union, International Affairs, A6, 1 April 1969, Moscow TASS International Service in English 0255 GMT 30 March 1969 L. 35 Text of note broadcast by Radio Moscow domestic service, 12 April 1969. 36 Ibid. 37 “Refusal To Settle Border Issue,” FBIS Daily Report, Soviet Union, International Affairs, A13, 17 June 1969, Moscow in Mandarin to China 1230 GMT 12 June 1969 T. 38 Hinton, The Bear at the Gate, 29. 39 Harry Gelman, The Soviet Far East Buildup and Soviet Risk-taking Against China (Santa Monica CA: Rand, 1982), 39. 40 Shevchenko, Breaking with Moscow, 165. 41 Hinton, “Conflict on the Ussuri: A Clash of Nationalisms,” 53. 42 FBIS Daily Report, Communist China, International Affairs, A17, 15 September 1969. Paris AFP in English 1105 GMT 13 September 1969 C. 43 Chinese communique released by NCNA, 11 September 1969, reported in Radio Peace and Progress (Moscow) in German to Germany 1530 GMT 22 September 1969. 44 Harrison E. Salisbury, “Kosygin’s Offer to Chou Detailed,” The New York Times, 25 September 1969. 45 Hinton, “Conflict on the Ussuri: A Clash of Nationalisms,” 54. 46 Ibid. 47 “Text of Government Statement on Border Talks,” FBIS Daily Report, Communist China, International Affairs, A1, 8 October 1969, Peking NCNA International Service in English 1400 GMT 7 October 1969 B. 48 Hinton, “Conflict on the Ussuri: A Clash of Nationalisms,” 54. 49 “Articles Stress Preparedness During Talks,” FBIS Daily Report, Communist China, International Affairs, A2-A3, 20 October 1969. Nanking Kiangsu Provincial Service in Mandarin 2200 GMT 17 October 1969 B. 50 Hinton, “Conflict on the Ussuri: A Clash of Nationalisms,” 50. 51 Hinton, The Bear at the Gate, 45. 52 Hinton, The Bear at the Gate, 35. 53 “Sino-Soviet Border Talks Open in Peking,” FBIS Daily Report, Soviet Union, International Affairs, A1, 20 October 1969, Moscow TASS International Service in English 0837 GMT 19 October 1969 L. 54 “No Sign Yet of Progress in Sino-Soviet Border Talks,” Ta Kung Pao Weekly Supplement, 6–12 November 1969. 55 “USSR Reportedly Offered Border Islands to CPR,” FBIS Daily Report, USSR, International Affairs, A31, 13 January 1970. Bombay PTI in English 0134 GMT 13 January 1970 B. 56 “Kuznetsov Returns to Peking for Border Talks,” FBIS Daily Report, Communist China, International Affairs, A1, 2 January 1970. Peking NCNA International Service in English 1131 GMT 2 January 1970 B. 57 Wishnick, “In the Region and in the Center: Soviet Reactions to the Border Rift.” http://www.gwu.edu/~narchiv/CWIHP/BULLETINS/b6–7a15.htm (accessed 4 July 2003). 58 “Soviet Threat,” FBIS Daily Report, USSR, International Affairs, B6, 10 March 1982. Moscow in Mandarin to China 0700 GMT 23 February 1982. 59 Hinton, The Bear at the Gate, 47, n77, n78. 60 Qi, Zhen Bao Dao Shi Jian Zhen Xiang, 89. 61 Hinton, The Bear at the Gate, 48. 62 Lowell Dittmer, Sino-Soviet Normalization and Its International Implications, 1945–1990 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1992), 193. 63 Ibid. 64 Hinton, The Bear at the Gate, 59.
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65 The Military Balance, 1969–1970 to 1977–1978; and Strategic Survey, 1969–1977, both published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London. 66 Barry Naughton, “The Third Front: Defense Industrialization in the Chinese Interior,” China Quarterly, September 1988, no. 115, 351–386. 67 Day (ed.) China and the Soviet Union 1949–84, 144. 68 Ibid. 69 Elizabeth Wishnick, Mending Fences: The Evolution of Moscow’s China Policy from Brezhnev to Yeltsin (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2001), 68. 70 R. Menon and D. Abele, “Security Dimensions of Soviet Territorial Disputes with China and Japan,” Journal of Northeast Asian Studies, spring 1989, vol. VIII, no. 1, 16–17. 71 “China and the Soviet Union Resume Border Talks,” Xinwanbao (Hong Kong), 9 February 1987, 1. 72 Day (ed.) China and the Soviet Union 1949–84, 149–150. 73 “Chenpao Island Has Always Been Chinese Territory,” Peking Review, 14 March 1969, vol. 12, no. 11, 14–15. 74 George Ginsburgs, The Damansky/Chenpao Island Incidents: A Case Study of Syntactic Patterns in Crisis Diplomacy (Edwardsville IL: University Graphics and Publications, 1973), 37. 75 Ibid., 23–24. 76 Ibid., 24. 77 Christian F. Ostermann, “New Evidence on the Sino-Soviet Border Dispute, 1969–71: East German Documents on the Border Conflict, 1969 – Document no. 3: Soviet Report on 11 September 1969 Kosygin-Zhou Meeting,” in Cold War International History Project, Bulletin 6–7 (Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 1995), 93. 78 Dittmer, Sino-Soviet Normalization and Its International Implications, 186. See also Donald S. Zagoria, The Sino-Soviet Conflict: 1956–1961 (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962); and William E. Griffith, The Sino-Soviet Rift (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1964). 79 Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 5th edn (New York: Knopf, 1978), 27–92. 80 Ginsburgs, The Damansky/Chenpao Island Incidents, 7. 81 Far Eastern Economic Review, 31 March 1993, 23–24. 82 James Clay Moltz, “Regional Tensions in the Russo-Chinese Rapprochement,” Asian Survey, June 1995, vol. XXXV, no. 6, 514. 83 The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, “Vladivostok Speech by Mikhail Gorbachev,” 1986, vol XXXVIII, no. 30, 7. 84 The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, “Soviet-Chinese Border Talks,” 1987, vol. XXXIX, no. 8. 85 Chi Su, “The Strategic Triangle and China’s Soviet Policy,” in Robert S. Ross (ed.) China, the United States, and the Soviet Union: Tripolarity and Policy Making in the Cold War (Armonk NY: M. E. Sharpe), 53. 86 The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, “Soviet-Chinese Border Talks,” 1987, vol. XXXIX, no. 8. 87 “USSR Compromise in PRC Border Talks Expected,” FBIS Daily Report, China, International Affairs, C1, 2 March 1987. Tokyo KYODO in English 1250 GMT 28 February 1987. 88 “Rogachev Comments on Sino-Soviet Border Talks,” FBIS Daily Report, China, International Affairs, B1, 7 August 1987. Hong Kong AFP in English 0451 GMT 7 August 1987. 89 The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, “Soviet-Chinese Border Talks,” 1987, vol. XXXIX, no. 8. 90 Ibid.
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91 “Photography Group Meets in Beijing,” FBIS Daily Report, USSR, International Affairs, 29, 25 September 1987. Moscow TASS in English 0612 GMT 25 September 1987. 92 “Eastern Soviet-Chinese Border Surveyed by Air,” FBIS Daily Report, USSR, International Affairs, 10, 16 August 1988. Moscow International Service in Mandarin 0600 GMT 13 August 1988. 93 The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, “Press Conference in Beijing,” 1989, vol. XLI, no. 5. 94 Wen Wei Po (Hong Kong), “Zhenbao Recognized as Chinese Territory,” 12 March 1989, 1. 95 See paragraph 3 of “USSR-PRC Joint Communique on Summit Issued,” FBIS Daily Report, Soviet Union, International Affairs, 16, 18 May 1989. Moscow TASS in English 1026 GMT 18 May 1989. 96 See paragraphs 7 and 8 of “USSR-PRC Joint Communique on Summit Issued,” FBIS Daily Report, Soviet Union, International Affairs, 17, 18 May 1989. Moscow TASS in English 1026 GMT 18 May 1989. 97 See paragraph 11 of “USSR-PRC Joint Communique on Summit Issued,” FBIS Daily Report, Soviet Union, International Affairs, 17, 18 May 1989. Moscow TASS in English 1026 GMT 18 May 1989. 98 “Soviet Sinologist Considers Border Issue,” FBIS Daily Report, Soviet Union, International Affairs, 18, 5 May 1989. Moscow Radio Peace and Progress in Mandarin to Asia-Pacific Region 1300 GMT. 99 “Commentary on Demilitarization of PRC Border,” FBIS Daily Report, Soviet Union, International Affairs, 11, 28 June 1989. Moscow in Mandarin to Southeast Asia 1300 GMT 18 June 1989. 100 “Ministry Confirms Transfer of Islands,” FBIS Daily Report, Soviet Union, International Affairs, 27 June 1991. Moscow Russian Television Network in Russian 1700 GMT 25 June 1991. 101 “Diplomat on Signing of PRC Border Accord,” FBIS Daily Report, Soviet Union, International Affairs, 9, 29 May 1991. Moscow, Radio Moscow in Mandarin 2200 GMT 23 May 1991. 102 Todd Crowell, “Alliances: Two Giants Make Up: Yeltsin’s Coming Beijing Trip Has Major Implications,” Asiaweek, 19 April 1996. 103 “Churkin on Reports ‘Twisting Facts’,” FBIS Daily Report, Soviet Union, 1 July 1991. Moscow Radio Moscow in Mandarin 1400 GMT 29 June 1991. See also “Army Paper Cites Churkin on PRC Border Issues,” in FBIS Daily Report, Soviet Union, 3 July 1991. Moscow KRASNAYA ZVEZDA in Russian 28 June 1991, 2nd edn, 3. 104 Moltz, “Regional Tensions in the Russo-Chinese Rapprochement,” 517. 105 Ibid., 516–517. 106 “Survey of Leaders on Russian-Chinese Border Demarcation,” in FBIS-UMA95–196-S, 11 October 1995. Moscow MORSKOY SBORNIK in Russian, 19 June no. 6, 1995, 18–26, 4. 107 “RUSSIA, CHINA: Border Dispute Seen Set To Sour PRC Ties,” FBIS Daily Report, Soviet Union, 12 March 1997. 108 The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, “Border Dispute Could Explode our Relations With China,” vol. XLVII, no. 6, 1995. 109 Ibid. 110 Ibid. 111 Moltz, “Regional Tensions in the Russo-Chinese Rapprochement,” 517. 112 Won Bae Kim, “Sino-Russian relations and Chinese Workers in the Russian Far East: A Porous Border,” Asian Survey, December 1994, vol. XXXIV, no. 12, 1066. 113 Eric Hyer, “Dreams and Nightmares: Chinese Trade and Immigration into the Russian Far East,” Journal of East Asian Studies, summer/fall 1996, vol. X, no. 2, 295.
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114 Andrei Admidin, “Utilization of Foreign Labour Force in the Russian Far East: Problems and Prospects,” mimeo, Economic Research Institute, Khabarovsk, 1993, Table 2. 115 Economist, “Beneath the Smiles,” 3 September 1994, 39. 116 Boris Reznik, “Chinese in the Far East: Guests or Masters of the House?,” Izvestia, 7 December, 4; Current Digest of the Soviet Press, 1993, vol. XLV, no. 49. 117 Hyer, “Dreams and Nightmares,” 298. 118 Yang Shouzheng, “Development of Sino-Soviet Economic and Trade Relations and Its Impacts in Northeast Asia and Asia-Pacific Region,” Foreign Affairs Journal, December 1990, no. 18, 27. 119 The figures of $4 billion and $6.16 billion are provided by Charles E. Ziegler, “Russia in the Asia-Pacific,” Asian Survey, June 1994, vol. 34, no. 6, 539. The rest of the data are given by Hyer, “Dreams and Nightmares,” 300. 120 Tsuneo Akaha, “Russia in Asia in 1994,” Asian Survey, January 1995, vol. 35, no. 1, 104. 121 Hyer, “Dreams and Nightmares,” 301. 122 Alexander Isayev, “Russian-Chinese Trade in 1996 Grew By 25 Percent to 6.84 Billion Dollars,” Novosti, 5 February 1996. 123 Ziegler, “Russia in the Asia-Pacific,” 539. 124 Moltz, “Regional Tensions in the Russo-Chinese Rapprochement,” 91. 125 The Straits Times, “Hu Jintao Looks to Russia as Strategic Partner against US,” 29 May 2003. 126 Gilbert Rozman, “Troubled Choices for the Russian Far East: Decentralization, Open Regionalism, and Internationalism,” Journal of East Asian Affairs, summer/fall 1997, vol. XI, no. 2, 559. 127 Rozman, “Troubled Choices for the Russian Far East,” 560. 128 Ibid., 541. 129 Ibid., 548. 130 Scott Atkinson, “The Struggle for the Soviet Far East: Political, Military, and Economic Trends under Gorbachev,” Soviet Union/Union Sovietique, 1990, vol. 17, no. 3, 223. 131 Peter Kirkow, Russia’s Provinces: Authoritarian Transformation versus Local Autonomy? (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1998), 131–132. 132 The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, “Referendum on Demarcation of RussianChinese Border Proposed,” 1995, vol. XLVII, no. 12. 133 “Survey of Leaders on Russian-Chinese Border Demarcation,” in FBIS-UMA95–196-S, 11 October 1995. Moscow MORSKOY SBORNIK in Russian, June 19 no. 6, 1995, 18–26, 10. 134 The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, “Russia and China will Have Friendly Borders,” 1995, vol. XLVII, no. 34. 135 “Russia, China Discuss Border Issues,” Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 17 September 1995. The Deputy Chief of FBS quoted was General Mikhail Shakalevich. 136 From an ITAR-TASS news agency report summarized in the Open Media Research Institute’s Daily Digest of News on Russia, Transcaucasia, Central Asia, and the CIS, 17 October 1995, no. 202. 137 Mainichi Daily News, 23 December 1993, 3. 138 From an ITAR-TASS news agency report summarized in China News Digest, 13 March 1995. 139 The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, “Cossack Mounted Patrols On Russian-Chinese Leader Intend To Thwart Demarcation Efforts,” 1996, vol. XLVIII, no. 15. 140 “RUSSIA, CHINA: Border Dispute Seen Set To Sour PRC Ties,” FBIS Daily Report, Soviet Union, 12 March 1997. 141 Stephanie Ho, “China/Tumen River Area,” Voice of America, Beijing, 23 April 1996, 9.57 a.m. EDT (1357 UTC).
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142 “Survey of Leaders on Russian-Chinese Border Demarcation,” in FBIS-UMA95–196-S, 11 October 1995. Moscow MORSKOY SBORNIK in Russian, June 19 no. 6, 1995, 18–26, 29. 143 Mikhail Khantsankov, Nyaisimaya Gazeta, 25 August 1993, 4, FBIS Daily Report, Central Eurasia, 15 September 1993, 89. 144 Sergey Chechugo, “Russia Gives Up Its Positions In Pacific Rim Under Pressure,” Far East Russian Magazine, July 1995, no. 1. 145 Vladivostok News, “Cossacks to Disrupt Border,” 17 April 1996, issue 117. 146 The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, “Pavel Grachev Creating Security System in Northeast Asia,” 1995, vol. XLVII, no. 20. 147 Vladivostok News, “Border Dispute Tests Governor’s Wits,” 17 April 1996, issue 117. 148 Kommersant-Daily (Moscow), 25 January 1996, translated in FBIS, Arms Control, 8 February 1996, 63. 149 Vladivostok News, “Border Dispute Tests Governor’s Wits,” 17 April 1996, issue 117. 150 Ibid. 151 “Russian-PRC Border Demarcation, Economic Accords Detailed,” FBIS-SOV97–315, 17 November 1997. Moscow Delovoy Mir in Russian 11 November 1997, 1. 152 Pavel A. Minakir, “Economic Reform in Russia,” in Mark J. Valencia (ed.) The Russian Far East in Transition: Opportunities for Regional Economic Cooperation (Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1995), 49–64. 153 All composite trade data for the following paragraph: For 1950–1955 data, G. Grause, History of Economic Relations between Russia and China, trans. M. Roublev (Jerusalem: Israel Program for Scientific Translation, 1966), 284. For 1956–1971 data, The USSR National Economic Yearbook, 1956–1971. For 1972–1973 data, Facts on File Yearbook, 1972–1973. For 1974–1982 data, the yearly Soviet Foreign Trade Yearbook. For 1983–1989 data, China’s Custom Statistics. Data for 1983–1987 are given in Renminbi, 1988–1989 in US dollars. Conversion to ruble done by author according to Peter Havlik, “The Exchange Rate Policy of the CMEA Countries and Problems of Convertibility,” Soviet and Eastern European Foreign Trade, fall 1990, vol. 26, no. 3, 71, table 1 (Official Exchange Rate). 154 Wishnick, Mending Fences, 170. 155 Anders Aslund, Gorbachev’s Struggle for Economic Reform (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1989), chapter 1; and David A. Dyker, Restructuring the Soviet Economy (London: Routledge, 1992), chapters 4–6. 156 Steven M. Goldstein, “Nationalism and Internationalism: Sino-Soviet Relations,” in David Shambaugh (ed.) Chinese Foreign Policy – Theory and Practice (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 253–254. 157 Wishnick, “In the Region and in the Center: Soviet Reactions to the Border Rift,” quoting N. V. Sverdlov, Reactor of the Khabarovsk Pedagogical Institute, at a meeting of the Khabarovsk region and city party officials on 22 September 1969. http://www.gwu.edu/~narchiv/CWIHP/BULLETINS/b6–7a15.htm (accessed 4 July 2003). 158 Wishnick, “In the Region and in the Center: Soviet Reactions to the Border Rift.” http://www.gwu.edu/~narchiv/CWIHP/BULLETINS/b6–7a15.htm (accessed 4 July 2003). 159 Lyle J. Goldstein, “Return to Zhenbao Island: Who Started Shooting and Why it Matters,” China Quarterly, December 2001, nos. 168, 995, 997. 160 Janice Gross Stein, “The Political Economy of Security Agreements: The Linked Costs of Failure at Camp David,” in Peter B. Evans, Harold K. Jacobson and Robert D. Putnam (eds) Double-Edged Diplomacy (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), 77–103. 161 Cheng Ming Monthly (Hong Kong), February 1990, 8.
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5 The McMahon Line/Aksai Chin dispute 1 For analyses of British imperial policy in India toward Tibet and formation of the Sino-Indian border, please read Alastair Lamb, The China-India Border: the Origins of the Disputed Boundaries (London: Oxford University Press, 1964); idem, The McMahon Line, 2 vols (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966); Dorothy Woodman, Himalayan Frontiers (New York: Praeger, 1969); Neville Maxwell, India’s China War (New York: Pantheon Books, 1970); L. C. Green, “Legal Aspects of the Sino-Indian dispute,” China Quarterly, 1960, no. 3; and Jing Hui, “Zhong-Yin dongduan bianjie zhenxiang” [The Truth about the Eastern Sector of the Sino-Indian Border], Guoji Wenti Yanjiu [International Studies], no. 1, 1988. 2 The full text of the letter from Sir Claude McDonald, British Minister in Peking, to the Chinese Foreign Affairs Office on 14 March 1899 can be found in R. A. Huttenback, “A Historical Note on the Sino-Indian Dispute on the Aksai Chin,” China Quarterly, April–June 1964, 202–203. 3 Neville Maxwell, “China and India: The Un-Negotiated Dispute,” China Quarterly, July–September 1970, no. 43, 48. 4 Maxwell, “China and India: The Un-Negotiated Dispute,” 50. 5 See Appendix 1, Agreement between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of India on Trade and Intercourse Between Tibet region of China and India, April 29, 1954, and accompanying note, in Liu Xuecheng, The Sino-Indian Border Dispute and Sino-Indian Relations (Lanham MD: University Press of America, 1994), 185–191. 6 Neville Maxwell, India’s China War (New York: Pantheon Books, 1970), 93. 7 Sreedhar, “Problems and Prospects of Sino-Indian Trade,” India Quarterly, April–June 1976, vol. XXXII, no. 2, 143–144. 8 Maxwell, “China and India: The Un-Negotiated Dispute,” 59. 9 Ibid., 60. 10 Ibid. 11 Liu, The Sino-Indian Border Dispute and Sino-Indian Relations, 24. 12 Peking Review, “Chinese People Will Not Tolerate Foreign Intervention in Tibet: Speeches on Tibet by NPC Delegates,” 29 April 1959, vol. 2, no. 7, 8–14. 13 Steven A. Hoffman, India and the China Crisis (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990), 75–77. 14 Peking Review, “The Revolution in Tibet and Nehru’s Philosophy,” 12 May 1959, vol. 2, no. 19, 6–15. 15 Liu, The Sino-Indian Border Dispute and Sino-Indian Relations, 29. 16 Ibid. 17 For a detailed description of debates in the Lok Sabha, India’s lower house of parliament, from 30 March 1959 to 16 March 1960, read chapter 5, “Tension on the Border, 1959–1960,” in Nancy Jetly, India-China Relations, 1947–1977: A Study of Parliament’s Role in the Making of Foreign Policy (Atlantic Highlands NJ: Humanities Press, 1979), 79–127. 18 For a very detailed and complete historical analysis of the Sino-Burmese settlement, see Dorothy Woodman, The Making of Burma (London: Cresset, 1962). 19 M. Taylor Fravel, “Closing Windows on the Frontier: Explaining China’s Settlement of Territorial Disputes,” paper presented at the Annual Conference of the American Political Science Association, Boston, Massachusetts, 29 August–2 September 2002, 23. 20 K. Raman Pillai, India’s Foreign Policy: Basic Issues and Political Attitudes (Begum Bridge and Meerut: Meenakshi Prakashan, 1969), 134, 139. 21 For a detailed description of debates in the Lok Sabha, India’s lower house of parliament, from 26 April 1959 to 13 August 1960, read chapter 6, “The Widening Chasm, 1960–1962,” in Nancy Jetly, India-China Relations, 1947–1977, 128–171. 22 Neville Maxwell, “China and India: The Un-Negotiated Dispute,” 67. 23 Liu, The Sino-Indian Border Dispute and Sino-Indian Relations, 35.
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24 For a detailed description of debates in the Lok Sabha, India’s lower house of parliament, from 26 April 1959 to 13 August 1960, read chapter 7, “Invasion and Ceasefire,” in Nancy Jetly, India-China Relations, 1947–1977, 172–199. 25 See India Quarterly, January–March 1967, vol. XXIII, no. 1: Balraj Madhok, “India’s Foreign Policy: The Jana Sangh View,” 3–7; Surendra Mohan, “India’s Foreign Policy: The PSP View,” 8–15; Cushrow R. Irani, “India’s Foreign Policy: The Swatantra View,” 16–20. 26 Balraj Madhok, “India’s Foreign Policy: The Jana Sangh View,” India Quarterly, January–March 1967, vol. XXIII, no. 1, 5. 27 Liao Kuang-sheng and Allen S. Whiting, “Chinese Press Perception of Threat: The U.S. and India, 1962,” The China Quarterly, January–March 1973, no. 53, 80–97. 28 Liao and Whiting, “Chinese Press Perception of Threat, 95. 29 Liu, The Sino-Indian Border Dispute and Sino-Indian Relations, 35–36. 30 Sino-Indian Border Conflict, 2hrs, Beijing Film Studios, 1993, videocassette. 31 Strobe Talbott, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, Vol. II (Boston: Little, Brown, 1974), 308–311. To appreciate Khrushchev’s attitude, his words should be quoted at length: I believe it was Mao himself who stirred up trouble with India. I think he did so because of some sick fantasy. … I think Mao created the Sino-Indian conflict … to put us in a position of having no choice but to support him. 32 V. P. Dutt, India’s Foreign Policy (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1984), 215–216. 33 Leo M. Van Der Mey, “How to Exchange Ambassadors?: The Diplomatic Dialogue between India and China after the 1962 War,” Diplomacy and Statecraft, July 1997, vol. 7, no. 2, 160–161. 34 Walter K. Andersen, “The Domestic Roots of Indian Foreign Policy,” Asian Affairs, fall 1983, vol. 10, no. 3, 50. 35 Andersen, “The Domestic Roots of Indian Foreign Policy,” 51. 36 Beijing Review, “To Develop or to Impair Sino-Indian Relations?,” 26 October 1981, no. 43, 9–10. 37 Nancy Jetly, “Sino-Indian Relations: A Quest for Normalization,” India Quarterly, January–March 1986, vol. XLII, no. 1, 58. 38 Manoranjan Mohanty, “India-China Relations: A Positive Frame,” India Quarterly, January–March 1985, vol. XLI, no. 1, 22. 39 John W. Garver, “The Indian Factor in Recent Sino-Soviet Relations,” China Quarterly, March 1991, no. 125, 74–75. 40 Garver, “The Indian Factor in Recent Sino-Soviet Relations,” 80–81. 41 Baranath Bhat, “Sino-Indian Economic Relations: An Overview,” China Report, November–December 1984, 18. 42 Bhat, “Sino-Indian Economic Relations: An Overview,” 23. See also Shri Prakesh, “Economic Dimensions of Sino-Indian Relations” China Report, 1994, vol. 30, no. 2, 226–51. 43 Ramesh Thakur, “Normalizing Sino-Indian Relations,” The Pacific Review, 1991, vol. 4, no. 1. 44 Nancy Jetly, “Sino-Indian Relations: Old Legacies and New Vistas,” China Report, 1994, vol. 30, no. 2, 217. 45 J. K. Baral, Pramod Panda and Nilanchai Muni, “The Press and India-China Relations,” China Report, 1989, vol. 2, no. 4, 359–373. 46 Surjit Mansingh and Steven I. Levine, “China and India: Moving Beyond Confrontation,” Problems of Communism, March–June 1989, 45. 47 Bonnie Glaser, “China’s Security Perceptions: Interests and Ambitions,” Asian Survey, 1993, vol. 33, no. 3, 267.
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48 Bertil Lintner, “Chinese Army Bolsters Burmese Forces,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, 27 November 1993, vol. 20, no. 22, 11. 49 John W. Garver, “Sino-Indian Rapprochement and Sino-Pakistan Entente,” Political Science Quarterly, 1996, vol. 111, no. 2, 326. 50 Economic and Political Weekly (Bombay), “Statistics,” 17 October 1992, vol. XXVII, no. 42, 2276. 51 “China: Jiefangjun Bao Interview with Former Envoy to India Cited,” FBIS-CHI-98147, 27 May 1998. 52 Shibu Itty Kuttickal, “Brothers in Trade,” Today (Singapore), 26 June 2003, 30. 53 The eleven countries of Southeast Asia are Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Singapore, Indonesia, and Timor Leste. 54 Zheng Ruixiang, “Xin xingshi xia de Zhong-Yin guanxi,” Guoji Wenti Yanjiu, 1993, no. 4, 5. 55 Surjit Mansingh, “India-China Relations in the Post Cold War Era,” Asian Survey, March 1994, vol. XXXIV, no. 3, 295. 56 FBIS-CHI-92-036, 24 February 1992. 57 FBIS-CHI-93-124, 30 June 1993. 58 Beijing Review, “China and India Paving Way for Peace,” September 1993, vol. 36, no. 38, 20–26. 59 Beijing Report, “Agreement between the Government of the Republic of India and the Government of the People’s Republic of China on the Maintenance of Peace and Tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control in the India-China Border Areas,” 1994, vol. 30, no. 1, 101–103. 60 Mira Sinha Battacharjea, “Indian Prime Minister’s Visit to China,” China Report, 1994, vol. 3, no. 1, 87. 61 Gupta Shekhar, “India Redefines Its Role,” Adelphi Paper, 1995, no. 293. 62 Swaran Singh, Research Fellow, IDSA, “Sino-Indian CBMs: Problems and Prospects.” http://www.idsa-india.org/an-jul-4.html (accessed 20 January 1999). 63 John W. Garver, Protracted Contest: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Twentieth Century (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2001), 77. 64 “China: AFP: Spokesman: ‘No Progress’ in China-India Border Talks,” FBIS-CHI98-162, 11 June 1998. 65 “China: Jiefangjun Bao Interview with Former Envoy to India Cited,” FBIS-CHI-98147, 27 May 1998. 66 “China: AFP: Spokesman: ‘No Progress’ in China-India Border Talks,” FBIS-CHI98-162, 11 June 1998. 67 Roderick McFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution: The Coming of the Cataclysm 1961–1966 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 269–274. 68 John W. Garver, “Asymmetrical Indian and Chinese Threat Perceptions,” Journal of Strategic Studies, December 2002, vol. 25, no. 4, 121. 69 Kuttickal, “Brothers in Trade,” 30. 70 Garver, Protracted Contest, 106–109.
6 Beyond two-level games? 1 Document of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, China’s Indisputable Sovereignty over the Xisha and Nansha Islands (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 30 January 1980), 2–4. 2 Marwyn S. Samuels, Contest for the South China Sea (New York: Methuen, 1982), 61–63. 3 Samuels, Contest for the South China Sea, 76–77. 4 Ibid., 81–82. 5 Ibid., 84–86.
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6 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, China’s Indisputable Sovereignty over the Xisha and Nansha Islands, 17–19. 7 Lee G. Cordner, “The Spratly Islands Dispute and the Law of the Sea,” Ocean Development and International Law, 1994, vol. 25, 64. 8 “First Deep-Water Oil Field in South China Sea Put into Production,” FBIS Daily Report, China, 12 June 1996, from Beijing Keji Ribao [Science and Technology Daily] in Chinese. 9 OPEC Bulletin, May 1996, 16. 10 Michael Leifer, “Chinese Economic Reform and Security Policy: The South China Sea Connection,” Survival, summer 1995, vol. 37, no. 2, 44. 11 In 1988, United States geologists estimated reserves of 2.1 to 15.8bb of oil, while Russian estimates put the figure at 7.5bb of oil equivalents, 70 percent of which is probably gas resources. See Bruce Blanche and Jean Blanche, “Oil and Regional Stability in the South China Sea,” Jane’s Intelligence Review, 1 November 1995, no. 7, 513. 12 Mamdouh G. Salameh, “China, Oil and the Risk of Regional Conflict,” Survival, winter 1995/1996, vol. 37, no. 4, 134. 13 Liu Haiying, China OGP (Xinhua News Agency). http://www.chinaogp.online.com/ hottopic/ (accessed 4 July 2003). Conversion from the scale of metric tonnes to barrels is mine. 14 Sanqiang Jian, “Multinational Oil Companies and the Spratly Dispute,” Journal of Contemporary China, 1997, vol. 6, no. 16, 598. 15 China Daily, 19 December 1994, 6. 16 “PRC: Oil Firm, Chevron Sign Oil Exploration Contract 16 May,” FBIS China, 16 May 1996, from Beijing XINHUA. 17 Lee Ngok, “Fishing in Troubled Waters?: Chinese Strategic Considerations in South China Sea,” American Asian Review, winter 1994, vol. XII, no. 4, 112. 18 Craig Snyder, “The Implications of Hydrocarbon Development in the South China Sea,” International Journal, winter 1996/1997, vol. LII, 142–158. 19 Henry J. Kenny, “The South China Sea: A Dangerous Ground,” Naval War College Review, summer 1996, vol. XLIX, no. 3, 97–98. 20 Mark J. Valencia, “Asia, the Law of the Sea, and IR,” International Affairs, 1997, vol. 73, no. 2, 270. 21 Alice D. Ba, “China, Oil, and the South China Sea: Prospect for Joint Development,” American Asian Review, winter 1994, vol. XII, no. 4, 135. 22 S. Jayasankaran and John Beth, “Oil and Water,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 3 July 2003, 17. 23 Ibid. 24 Ba, “China, Oil, and the South China Sea,” 132–133. 25 Lee Lai To, “ASEAN and the South China Sea Conflicts,” Pacific Review, 1995, vol. 8, no. 3, 538–539. 26 Lee Lai To, “Defusing Rising Tension in the Spratlys: An Analysis of the Workshops on Managing Potential Conflicts in the South China Sea,” American Asian Review, winter 1994, vol. XII, no. 4, 189–190. 27 Lam Peng Er, “Japan and the Spratlys Dispute,” Asian Survey, October 1996, vol. XXXVI, no. 10, 998. 28 Lee, “Defusing Rising Tension in the Spratlys,” 192. 29 Ibid., 193. 30 “Alatas Opens Workshop on Spratlys 3 Dec” FBIS East Asia, 4 December 1997, 4, Jakarta Media, Indonesia. 31 Jose T. Almonte, “Ensuring Security the ‘ASEAN Way’,” Survival, winter 1997/1998, 81. 32 “New Law Claims Sovereignty over the Spratly Islands,” FBIS China, 27 February 1992, 15, Tokyo KYODO.
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33 The CCP’s Central Committee Foreign Affairs Leading Small Group is headed by the premier and functions as a key policy coordination and supervision mechanism between the Politburo Standing Committee and the Foreign Ministry establishment. See Michael D. Swaine, The Role of the Chinese Military in National Security Policymaking (Santa Monica CA: RAND, 1996), chapter 3, “Foreign Policy Subarena,” 19–36. 34 “Foreign Ministry Opposes Law,” FBIS China, 27 February 1992, 15–16, Tokyo KYODO. 35 Daojiong Zha, “Localizing the South China Sea Problem: The Case of China’s Hainan,” Pacific Review, 2001, vol. 14, no. 4, 580–581. 36 John W. Garver, “China’s Push Through the South China Sea: The Interaction of Bureaucratic and National Interests,” China Quarterly, December 1992, no. 132, 1022. 37 Ibid. 38 Garver, “China’s Push Through the South China Sea,” 1008–1009. 39 You Ji and You Xu, “In Search of Blue Water Power: The PLA Navy’s Maritime Survey in the 1990s,” Pacific Review, 1999, vol. 4, no. 2, 137–149. 40 Frank Ching, “Manila Looks for a Slingshot,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 9 May 1995, 40. 41 Rodney Tasker, “A Line in the Sand,” Far Eastern Economics Review, 6 April 1995, 14. 42 Ross Marlay, “China, the Philippines, and the Spratly Islands,” Asian Affairs – An American Review, winter 1997, vol. 23, no. 4, 207. 43 Asiaweek, “A Breakthrough on the Spratlys,” 25 August 1995, 24. 44 Nayan Chanda, Rigoberto Tiglao and John McBeth, “Territorial Imperative,” Far Eastern Economics Review, 23 February 1995, 14. 45 “Ramos Defends Oil Search in Disputed Waters,” FBIS East Asia, 6 July 1994, Tokyo KYODO. 46 Rodney Tasker, “Ways and Means,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 11 May 1995, 14. 47 “The Claim on the Kalayaan Islands in Spratlys Group,” BusinessWorld Weekender (Philippines), 14 February 1997. http://bworld.net/oe021497/Weekend/ Focus/story3.html (accessed 20 January 2003). 48 Marlay, “China, the Philippines, and the Spratly Islands,” 207. 49 Ibid. 50 Cheng-yi Lin, “Taiwan’s South China Sea Policy,” Asian Survey, April 1997, vol. XXXVLL, no. 4, 328. 51 Marlay, “China, the Philippines, and the Spratly Islands,” 207. 52 Shim Jae Hoon, “Blood Thicker than Politics,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 5 May 1988, 26. 53 Lin, “Taiwan’s South China Sea Policy,” 332. 54 Chen Jie, “China’s Spratly Policy,” Asian Survey, October 1984, vol. XXXIV, no. 10, 900. 55 “Beijing Official on Cooperation to Tap Spratlys,” FBIS China, 30 August 1995, Taipei CNA. 56 “The South China Sea Policy Guidelines,” reprinted in Kuan-ming Sun, “Policy of the Republic of China towards the South China Sea,” Marine Policy, 1995, vol. 19, no. 5, 408. 57 Long-Distance Radio Century Club (DXCC), “BS7H 1997 Bulletin 13 – 0530Z, 07 May 1997.” http://www.iglou.com/n4gn/sr/bltns/bltn13.html (accessed 20 January 1999). 58 Andrew Sherry and Rigoberto Tiglao, “Law of the Seize,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 12 June 1997, vol. 17, 20–21. 59 “Philippines: Government Urged to Arm Residents in Spratly Islands,” FBIS East Asia, 9 May 1997. 60 “Manila To Build Lighthouses in Spratlys,” FBIS East Asia, 19 May 1997.
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61 “Philippines: Manila, PRC Agree on Working Group to Avert War in Spratlys,” FBIS East Asia, 30 May 1997. 62 “Philippines: China Warned on Spratlys Satellite Plans,” FBIS East Asia, 3 March 1998, Quezon City GMA-7 Radio-Television Arts Network. 63 Scott Snyder and Ralph A. Cossa, “Measures to Manage Potential Disputes in the South China Sea,” Pacific Forum CSIS, PacNet 22, 1 June 2001, 1. 64 Zha, “Localizing the South China Sea Problem,” 588. 65 Clive Schofield and Shelagh Furness, “Boundary and Security Bulletin,” International Boundaries Research Unit, spring 2001, vol. 9, no. 1, 60, quoting Jane’s Foreign Report, 2627, 2 August 2001. 66 Brad Glosserman, “Cooling South China Sea Competition,” Pacific Forum CSIS, PacNet 22A, 1 June 2001, 2. 67 Zha, “Localizing the South China Sea Problem,” 577. 68 Ibid., 581. 69 Garver, “China’s Push Through the South China Sea,” 1022. 70 Selig S. Harrison, China, Oil and Asia: Conflict Ahead (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), 206–207. 71 Carlyle A. Thayer, “Vietnam in 2001: The Ninth Party Congress and after,” Asian Survey, January–February 2002, vol. 42, no. 1, 81; and “Vietnam’s Government Defends Border Agreement with China,” Uyghur Information Agency, http://www.uyghurinfo.com/viewNews.asp?newsid=5720 (accessed 4 July 2003). 72 Fred Herschede, “Trade between China and ASEAN: The Impact of the Pacific Rim Era,” Pacific Affairs, summer 1991, vol. 64, no. 2, 179–193. 73 Zhan Shiliang, “Yatai diqu xingshi he Zhongguo mulin youhao zhengce,” Guoji wenti yanjiu, 1993, no. 4, 3. 74 Noor Aini Khalifah and Mohammad Haflah Piei, “ASEAN-China Economic Relations: Complementing or Competing,” in Joseph C. H. Chai, Y. Y. Kueh and Clement A. Tisdell (eds) China and the Asia-Pacific Economy (Commack NY: Nova Science Publishers, 1997), 226–227. 75 Thomas Voon and Xiangdong Wei, “Export Competition Among China and ASEAN in the US Market: Application of Market Share Models,” in Joseph C. H. Chai, Y. Y. Kueh and Clement A. Tisdell (eds) China and the Asia-Pacific Economy (Commack NY: Nova Science Publishers, 1997), 245–253. 76 China Business Review, “China Data,” May–June 1997, 41; and People’s Daily, 10 January 2003; 25 February 2003. 77 That seems to have been the position of the Chinese government as late as 1997, when then Assistant Foreign Minister of China, Chen Jian, stated “on the problems concerning territory, sovereignty, and marine rights, only China and the countries starting the controversies should and can be allowed to solve their disputes through bilateral negotiations.” See Lee Lai To, China and the South China Sea Dialogues (Westport CT: Praeger, 1999), 94. 78 Lianhe Zaobao (Singapore), 5 August 1995. 79 Aileen San Pablo-Baviera, “Transforming the South China Sea Conflict,” The SEACSN Bulletin, October–December 2002, 1; and Ralf Emmers, “ASEAN, China and the South China Sea: An Opportunity Missed,” IDSS Commentaries, 19 November 2002, 2. 80 For the proposed creation and envisaged role of the High Council, see Ramses Amer, “Expanding ASEAN’s Conflict Management Framework in Southeast Asia: The Border Dispute Dimension,” Asian Journal of Political Science, December 1998, vol. 6, no. 2, 36–39. 81 For dispute settlement mechanisms available under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention, see J. R. Merrills, International Dispute Settlement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), chapter 8, “The Law of the Sea Convention,” 170–196.
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82 United States Department of State, United States Policy on the Spratlys and South China Sea, (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 11 May 1995).
7 Testing the propositions of the two-level game hypothesis 1 Irina Komissina and Azhdar Kurtov, “Resolving Border Disputes in the Asia-Pacific Region,” Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, spring 2003, vol. XV, no. 1, 147–148. 2 “Protest in Bishkek Against Kyrgyzstan-China Agreement,” in Pravda On-Line, May 16, 2002. http://english.pravda.ru/cis/2002/05/16/28816.html (accessed 4 July 2003). See also Komissina and Kurtov, “Resolving Border Disputes in the Asia-Pacific Region,” 148–149. 3 Komissina and Kurtov, “Resolving Border Disputes in the Asia-Pacific Region,” 148–149. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid., 150. 6 Zhao Quansheng, Interpreting Chinese Foreign Policy: The Micro-Macro Linkage Approach (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1996), chapter 4, “Institutional Macrostructure and the Policy-making Process,” 40–78. 7 South China Morning Post, 18 October 1996. 8 Vidya Shankar Aiyar, “Sino-Russian Demilitarization Pact,” China Report (Delhi) 1997, vol. 33, no. 3, 458–459. 9 Shibu Itty Kuttickal, “Brothers in Trade,” Today (Singapore), 26 June 2003, 30. 10 David Hsieh, “Border Disputes ‘Will Not Be Resolved Soon’,” Straits Times (Singapore), 26 June 2003, A2. 11 Kenji Hayao, The Japanese Prime Minister and Public Policy (Pittsburgh PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993), chapter 6, “The Prime Minister and Party Politics: The LDP and the Opposition,” 122–140. 12 William H. Riker, The Theory of Political Coalition (Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1984), chapter 4, “Research On and Applications of the Size Principle,” 77–101. 13 “Japan: Upper House Approves New Japan-China Fisheries Pact” in FBIS-EAS98–120, 30 April 1998. Tokyo KYODO in English 1446 GMT 30 April 1998. 14 According to Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun, the Japanese government registered in October 2002 its rental of the Uotsurishima, Minami Kojima, and Kita-Kojima islands for a year up to 31 March 2003, with a private owner, Yukihiro Kurihara, who reportedly lives outside Okinawa Prefecture, for an amount of 22.56 million Yen. The lease is apparently intended to strengthen Japan’s claims over the island chain by preventing resale of the islands to third parties and blocking individuals or groups from landing there. “MPs Urge Taipei To Take Islands Dispute to Court,” Straits Times (Singapore), 4 January 2003; and “China Protest to Japan over ‘Leasing’ of Islands,” Straits Times (Singapore), 5 January 2003. 15 G. Karasin, “Russia and China: A New Partnership,” International Affairs (Moscow), 1997, vol. 43, no. 3, 26; and Aiyar, “Sino-Russian Demilitarization Pact,” 458. 16 This finding is consonant with the results on the strategy of “tying hands” derived from the collaborative project on two-level game analysis directed by Peter Evans, Harold Jacobson and Robert Putnam. It is similar to the findings of the collaborative project, and contradicts Thomas Schelling’s logic that “having one’s hands tied” might be advantageous, risking no agreement but increasing the chances of getting an agreement one desires. See Peter B. Evans, “Building an Integrative Approach to International and Domestic Politics: Reflections and Projects,” in Peter B. Evans, Harold K. Jacobson and Robert D. Putnam (eds) Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 402–403. See also Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), 19–28.
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Notes
17 Zhao, Interpreting Chinese Foreign Policy: The Micro-Macro Linkage Approach (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1996), 80–81. 18 “Record of Conversation of Mao Zedong with Representatives of Socialist Countries,” Center for the Preservation of Contemporary Documentation (TsKhSD), Moscow, f.5, op.30, d. 238, II. 77–78. 19 This conclusion supports Helen Milner’s finding that an asymmetrical distribution of information domestically increases the chances of cooperative agreement. The distribution of information internally is one of three factors posited by Milner as conditioning a state’s ability to cooperate. The other two factors are the structure of domestic preferences and the nature of domestic institutions. See Helen V. Milner, Interests, Institutions and Information: Domestic Politics and International Relations (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 239–240. 20 The term “suasive reverberation” is adopted from Janice Gross Stein, “The Political Economy of Security Agreements: The Linked Costs of Failure at Camp David,” in Evans et al. (eds) Double-Edged Diplomacy, 77–103. 21 Goh Sui Noi, “Landmark Visit by Indian PM Will Boost Mutual Trust,” Straits Times, 28 June 2003, A9. 22 Peter F. Trumbore, “Public Opinion as a Domestic Constraint in International Negotiations: Two-level Games in the Anglo-Irish Peace Process,” International Studies Quarterly, 1998, vol. 42, 545–565.
8 Conclusion 1 Ronald L. Jepperson, Alexander Wendt and Peter J. Katzenstein, “Norms, Identity, and Culture in National Security,” in Peter J. Katzenstein (ed.) The Culture of National Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), chapter 2, 52–65. 2 Ibid., chapter 13, “Conclusion: National Security in a Changing World,” by Peter J. Katzenstein, 521, n59. 3 James Lilley, “China on the Move,” interview by Ed Warner, Voice of America, Washington DC, 19 May 1995. 4 Wolfgang Pape (ed.) East Asia by the Year 2000 and Beyond: Shaping Factors (A Study for the European Commission) (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1998), 223. 5 Ronald C. Keith, “The Post-Cold War Political Symmetry of Russo-Chinese Bilateralism,” International Journal, autumn 1994, vol. XLIX, 772. 6 Ibid. 7 The poll was conducted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Communist Youth League, and reported by the State Council Policy Research Office. Zhengming (Hong Kong), 1 November 1998. 8 Allen S. Whiting, “ASEAN Eyes China: The Security Dimension,” Asian Survey, April 1997, vol. XXXVLL, no. 4, 322. 9 Jose T. Almonte, “Ensuring Security the ‘ASEAN Way’,” Survival, winter 1997/1998, 85. 10 Rosemary Foot, “Chinese-Indian Relations and the Process of Building Confidence: Implications for the Asia-Pacific,” The Pacific Review, 1996, vol. 9, no. 1, 59. 11 Ramses Amer, “The Territorial Disputes between China and Vietnam and Regional Stability,” Contemporary Southeast Asia, June 1997, vol. 19, no. 1, 88–91, 93, 96–98, 100, 105–106. 12 Shih, Chih-yu, The Spirit of Chinese Foreign Policy (London: Macmillan Press, 1990), 163.
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Index
Abe, Shintaro 41 Afghanistan 45; border agreement with China 107, 149, 172; USSR and 75, 80, 88, 89, 93 Agreement on Maintenance of Peace and Tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control (1993) 119 air force 5, 6 Akaev, Askar 149 Aksai Chin dispute see Himalayan border dispute Albania 65 Altai region 82, 84, 149 Amur boundary river, disputed islands see Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute Amur province 84, 85, 86 Andropov, Yuri 75, 93 Anglo-Irish Peace Process 161–2 Angola 93 anti-hegemonism see hegemonism ARF 137, 143 Argun river 82 arms: acquisition 5, 6, 89, 136; Himalayan border dispute 116, 117; see also nuclear weapons/warfare arms race 93, 174 army 5–6 Arunachal Pradesh 111, 113 Asahi Shimbun 36 ASEAN 130, 132–5, 136–8, 141–4, 159, 170–1; trade with China 141–2, 153 ASEAN-China Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (2002) 142–3, 153 ASEAN Declaration on the South China Sea (1992) 132, 136 ASEAN Institute of Strategic and
International Studies (ASEAN ISIS) 132 ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) 137, 143 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) 116 Asia-Pacific region 1, 132 Asia-Pacific Roundtable 132 Asian-African Problems Study Group 39 Asian Collective Security Conference 69 Assam 116 Association of Siberian and Far East Russian Territories 84 Association of South East Asian Nations see ASEAN Bakiev, Kurmanbek 149 Bangladesh 121 Baoshan Iron and Steel joint venture 167 bargaining theory 59, 123, 135, 145, 148, 155; see also two-level games Bear Island see Heixiazi Island Beijing University 49 Belyayev, Sergei 87 Bhandari, Romesh 112 BJP see Jana Sangh, Janata Party Bofors 115 Bohai Gulf 130 Bolshoi Island see Heixiazi Island borders 2, 4; avoidance of delimitation in South China Sea islands dispute 133; disputes about 5, 7, 8, 11, 54, 145; see also Central Asian Republics; Himalayan border dispute; territorial disputes; Vietnam; Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute Borneo 132 Brezhnev, Leonid 66, 67, 69, 72, 75, 93, 158
Index 213 Brezhnev Doctrine 65, 88, 166 Britain 4, 6; Burma’s borders 103; Himalayan borders 96–7, 123; see also imperialism Brooks, Robert A. 178n7 Brunei, South China Sea islands dispute 2, 128, 132, 138, 142 Brzezinski, Zbignew 40 Bucharest congress (1960) 105 bureaucracy 18, 127, 135–6 Burma 107, 117, 120, 121, 172; border agreement with China 103–4, 149, 171 Cairo Declaration (1943) 29 Cambodia 75, 88, 107 Canadian International Development Agency 133 Carter, Jimmy 40 CCP see Chinese Communist Party Central Asian Republics 149–50, 155, 156 Central Daily News (Taipei) 32–3 Central Military Commission (CMC) 6 Ceylon see Sri Lanka Chan, David 49, 51 Chang, John 47 Chavan, Y. B. 110 Chen Jian 196n77 Chen Yi 102, 158 Cheng Ruisheng 120 Chenpao Island see Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute Chernenko, Konstantin 75, 93 Chevron 131 Chi Haotian 119 Chiang Chungling 52 Chiang Kai-shek 71, 108, 157 Chiao Kuan-hua 72, 73 Chilichin Island 76 China-ASEAN Free Trade Area 142 China Can Say No (Song Qiang et al.) 51 China Daily 51 China Geological Newspaper 130 China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) 131, 138 China (Taiwan), Japan, (South) Korea Oceanic Development and Research United Committee 32, 35 Chinese Academy of Sciences 136 Chinese Communist Party 1, 5, 50, 69, 70, 104, 114, 122; Ninth Congress 66, 68,
73; Fourteenth Congress 136; Fifteenth Congress 142 Chinese Patriotic Alliance 47 Churkin, Vitaly 82 Cloma, Tomas 128 CNOOC 131, 138 Cocos Island 117 Cold War 53, 93, 114, 170 Colombo Conference (1963) 107 Committee for Coordination of Joint Prospecting for Mineral Resources in Asian Offshore Areas (CCOP) 31 Communism 106, 135; collapse 15, 52, 55, 56, 93, 94, 160; Russia 87; see also Chinese Communist Party; Communist Party of India; ideology Communist Party of India (CPI) 103, 107, 108, 114 comparative case studies approach 12 confidence-building: Himalayan border dispute 9, 115, 118–21, 124, 125, 126, 154, 155, 156, 161, 170; South China Sea islands dispute 2, 12, 127, 132–5 conflict bargaining 7 CONOCO 131 containment strategy 174 Continental Shelf Convention (CSC) (1958) 29, 31 continental shelves 3; Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute 29, 31, 32–3, 52, 55; South China Sea islands dispute 131, 138 Cossacks 87, 92 Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) 132 Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) 89 Crestone 131 crime 146 Cuban Missile Crisis 64, 108 Cultural Revolution 10, 65, 66, 73, 88, 93, 94, 158, 166 culture 15, 17, 27, 124, 163–74 Czechoslovakia, invasion of 65, 66, 67, 71, 88 Dai Bingguo 161 Dalai Lama 101–2, 120, 126, 159 Damansky Island see Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute de-linking 24, 155–6; Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands
214
Index
dispute 57–8, 148; Himalayan border dispute 119, 123–4; South China Sea islands dispute 140; Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute 79 Declaration Concerning China’s Territorial Sea (1958) 3 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (2002) 142–3, 153 demilitarization see security interests democracy 21, 22, 59, 127, 142, 148–50, 154, 172; Himalayan border dispute 105, 108, 112, 122 Deng Xiaoping 5, 36, 38–41, 50, 57, 86, 93, 94, 111, 115, 148, 157, 158, 160 Dessai, Morarji 110 Dhola Post incident (1962) 106 Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute 2, 3, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15, 18, 26–60, 127, 139, 145, 147, 148, 151–6 passim, 159, 165, 166, 167–8, 173; first incident (1970–1972) 31–5, 54; second incident (1978) 26, 36–41, 54, 86; third incident (1990) 26–7, 42–3, 54; fourth incident (1996) 27, 43–53, 54, 151, 157; 2003 incident 28, 54–5, 56; possible future developments 55–60 dictatorships 22, 103 Diesing, Paul 7 diplomacy 8, 16, 18, 39, 68–9, 92, 94, 145, 161; see also negotiating behavior Diplomatic and Military Expert Group on China-India Border Questions (sixth meeting, 1998) 120 dispute resolution, multilateral/international 143 Do Muoi 172 Dobrynin, Anatoly 67 Dolgolaptev, Anatoly 83 domestic factors 6–7, 9–12, 164; Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute 26, 28, 38–9, 42–3, 53, 54–60; Himalayan border dispute 102–3, 104–5, 106, 112, 115, 116, 117, 122–5, 160–1; South China Sea islands dispute 127, 135–6, 140–2; testing hypothesis of two-level games 145, 146–8, 150–1, 154, 159, 160–2; win-set determinants 17–22; Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute 66, 71, 92–3, 94–5; see also economic interests; institutions; Level II elements; nationalism; public opinion and activism; security interests;
social forces; student activism; subnational actors Dongsha Islands 131, 143 Dupont 131 East Asia 121, 141; regionalism 7, 123, 155, 167–9; state system 4 East China Sea 130, 168; islands dispute 5, 6; map 30; see also Diaoyu/Tiaoyukai/ Senkaku Islands dispute economic interests 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 24, 38–9, 155–6, 164, 167, 168; Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute 26, 28–31, 44, 52, 53, 57–8, 59, 60, 148; Himalayan border dispute 114, 116, 123–4; South China Sea islands dispute 138, 142, 143, 144; see also fisheries; foreign investment; oil resources; trade Egypt 107, 183n140 environmental protection 116, 140, 142 Ethiopia 93 Eto Toyohisa 45 Europe: imperialism 1, 3–4 (see also Britain); South China Sea islands dispute 130 European Union 1, 142 Evans, Peter 13, 197n16 Evening News (London) 70 exclusive economic zones (EEZ) 3, 28, 29, 31, 44, 54, 55, 58, 60, 91, 153, 155, 173; South China Sea islands dispute 128, 132, 136, 138, 139, 141 Fisher, Roger 183n140 fisheries 3, 9; Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute 26, 31, 33, 35, 36–8, 39, 42–3, 46–8, 51, 52, 53, 57, 58, 59, 60, 147, 148, 155, 157; South China Sea islands dispute 10, 128, 137, 139–40, 141, 143–4, 151; Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute 62, 65, 82, 85, 86, 90 Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence 81, 100 Foot, Rosemary 198n10 foreign investment 52, 53, 89, 114, 123, 130–2, 142, 146, 152, 167, 170–1 foreign policy 1; moral and realist bases 14–15, 163–74; see also culture; territorial disputes Fu Hao 39 Fu Quanyou 120
Index 215 Fukuda, Takeo 39, 40, 41 Gandhi, Indira 10, 109, 110, 112, 125, 154 Gandhi, Rajiv 112, 113, 115–16, 117, 125, 126, 154, 160–1 Garver, John 126 Geng Biao 37, 39 Ghana 107 Ginsburgs, George 77, 187n80 globalization 172 Gorbachev, Mikhail 61, 75, 80, 81, 88, 89, 92, 93, 94, 95, 113, 158, 160, 166, 167 governmental actors see leadership; Level I elements; national actors; negotiating behavior Grachev, Pavel 86 Great Leap Forward 122, 165 Grechko, Andrei 66, 67, 69 Guam Doctrine 71 Gujral, I. K. 125, 154 Gulf Oil 32, 33 Gulf War (1991) 6, 42, 82 Hainan Bird Fertilizer Company 139, 151 Hainan province 135, 140, 151 Hamrin, Carol 13 Harrison, Selig 141 Hashimoto, Ryutaro 44, 49 Hau Peitsun 42–3 hegemonism 166; China’s antihegemonism 14–15, 26, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 Heilongjiang boundary river, disputed islands see Zhenbao/Chenpao/ Damansky Islands dispute Heilongjiang province 62, 66, 84, 85, 92, 146 Heixiazi Island (adjacent to Khabarovsk) 61, 73–5, 81, 82, 86, 156 Hianggyi Island 117 Himalayan border dispute 2, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 15, 54, 96–126, 127, 145, 147, 152, 153–4, 156, 169–70, 171; maps 98–9; normalization and Sino-Indian dialogue 1976–1987 10, 110–1; prelude to war 1959–1962 18, 101–6, 125, 151, 157, 158, 160; relations before March 1959 96–101; relations since 1988 114–21, 155, 160–1; Sino-Indian war and after 64, 106–10, 126, 165–6, 1694 Hinton, Harold C. 185n17 historical factors 17, 23–4, 27, 29, 163, 168, 169–70, 173; see also imperialism
Honasan, Gregory 139 Hong Kong 1; Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute 10, 26, 28, 32, 33, 34, 35, 38, 46, 48, 49, 51, 52, 54, 56, 148, 152, 157; Zhenbao/Chenpao/ Damansky Islands dispute 64, 65 Hoshina, Ts. 40 Hpimaw tract 103 Huang Hua 110 Huangyan (Scarborough Shoal) 139, 140 human rights 56, 116, 118, 142, 172 humanitarian intervention 172 Hunchun Border Economic Cooperation Zone 87 Huth, Paul K. 14, 175n17 ideology 106, 114, 164–5, 169; conflict between USSR and China 64–95, 158, 164; end of 55, 56, 166, 168 Ikeda, Yukihiko 49, 52 Ilan and Suao Counties Fisheries Cooperative 47 Ilichev, L. F. 72 illegal immigration 86, 92, 146 imperialism 1, 3–4, 96–7, 173; China’s opposition to 5, 10, 14, 64, 70, 78, 94, 105; Japanese 1, 27, 33 India 22; border dispute with China see Himalayan border dispute; nonalignment policy 100, 108; relations with USSR 67, 69; trade with China 101, 105, 114, 117–18, 152 Indian Ocean 165, 169 indifference curve analysis 19 Indonesia 107; South China Sea islands dispute 133, 138, 142, 143 institutions 7–12 passim, 22, 28, 127; Himalayan border dispute 102–3, 104–5, 106–7, 109, 110–11, 112, 116, 119, 120, 122, 123, 124, 125, 151, 153–4; see also bureaucracy; ratification intellectual property rights 116 interest groups see pressure groups International Court of Justice (ICJ) 47, 143, 156 international factors 2, 6–7, 11, 17, 18, 145; see also leadership; Level I elements international law 55, 96, 142; see also thalweg principle International Organization 8 International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLS) 143 internationalism 21; socialist 14, 165–6
216
Index
Iran 6 Iraq 6; see also Gulf War (1991) irredentism 1, 12, 17, 26, 27, 56, 127 Ishaev, Viktor 82, 85 Ishigaki City Assembly of Okinawa 47 Ishihara, Shintaro 41, 45 isolationism 21 Israel 6, 183n140 Itu Aba Island 128, 138, 139, 141, 143 Izvestia 83 Jacobson, Harold 13, 197n16 Jana Sangh, Janata Party (BJP) 103, 107, 110, 115, 120, 122, 123, 147 Japan 1, 4, 7, 22, 65, 87, 164–5, 166, 167–9, 170, 197n14; Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute 2, 8, 10, 12, 15, 26–60, 139, 147, 148, 151, 152, 154, 155, 156, 157, 159; imperialism 1, 27, 33; ratification procedures 153; South China Sea islands dispute 128, 130, 131, 133, 142; trade with China 40, 118, 152; war with China (1894–1895) 28, 29 Japan-China Association on Economy and Trade 40 Japan-China Memorandum Trade Agency 35 Japanese Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) 35 Japanese Maritime Safety Agency (MSA) 42, 44, 157 Japanese National Defense Agency 40 Japanese Official Development Assistance (ODA) 43 Japanese Social Democratic League 39 Jetly, Nancy 109 Jiang Qing 70 Jiang Zemin 49, 50, 82, 83, 84, 120, 137, 168 Jilin province 84, 146 Johnson Reef 128, 137 Johnston, Alastair Iain 2 joint ventures 85, 130, 167 justice 173, 174 Kaifu, Toshiki 43 Kapitsa, Mikhail 80 Kapotzu Island 76 Karakoram range 96, 97, 101 Kashmir 97, 105, 112, 116, 117, 122, 147, 169 Katzenstein, Peter 163
Kazakhstan 69, 149, 155, 156 Khabarovsk 61, 73–5, 85, 86; Russian Academy of Sciences Economic Research Institute 84 Khabarovsk Krai 65, 82, 84, 85, 86 Khantsankov, Mikhail 190n143 Khrushchev, Nikita 64, 65, 77–8, 105–6, 109, 165 Kinmen Island 165 Kishi Nobusuke 32, 45 Kita-Kojema Island 197n14 Kita-Kojima lighthouse 27, 31, 43–53, 54 Knopf, Jeffrey 10 Kobayashi, Kusuo 45 Kongka Pass 102 Kono, Kenji 39 Korea: North 56, 84, 86, 87; South 32–3, 34, 35, 54, 87, 154 Kosygin, Alexei 66, 67–8, 69–70, 72, 77, 78, 94 Kozlov, Frol 66 Kozyrev, Andrei 83 Kunlun mountains 97 Kurile Islands 54, 65 Kuznetsov, V. V. 72 Kyrgyzstan 149, 155, 156 Lake Khasan 87 Lake Xinkai/Khanka 62 Lall, Arthur Samuel 176n21 Laos 133, 149 law of the sea 3, 29, 31, 133, 142 Law of the Sea Convention see UN Le Kha Phieu 141 leadership 7, 145, 157–62, 163; Himalayan border dispute 114–16, 125–6, 157; Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute 65–6, 67–8, 77–8, 92–4; see also negotiating behavior Lebedinets, I. P. 87 Lee Teng-hui 47, 157 Leninism 66 Level I elements 16, 18–20, 22, 23–5, 149, 154, 157, 159; Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute 33; Himalayan border dispute 125; Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute 78, 95; see also leadership; national actors; negotiating behavior Level II elements 16, 17–22, 24, 149, 154, 157, 158; Daioyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku
Index 217 Islands dispute 33–5; Himalayan borders dispute 124, 125; Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute 66; see also domestic factors; institutions; nationalism; public opinion and activism; social forces; student activism; subnational actors Level III elements 127; see also transnational actors Li Peng 49, 83, 116, 117, 118, 119, 132 Li Xiannian 70 Liao Chengzhi 39 Liao Kuang-sheng 192n27 Liaoning province 84 Liberation Army Daily 48 Lilley, James 164 Lin Biao 66, 68, 73 Liu Huaqing 49, 136 local interests see regional interests Longjiu 102, 105 Louis, Victor 70, 71 lumber industry 85 Ma Ying-jeou 47 Macclesfield Bank 131, 135, 139, 143 McDonald, Sir Claude 191n2 McMahon, Henry 97 McMahon Line 97 see also Himalayan border disputes Madhok, Balaraj 116 Malaysia, South China Sea islands dispute 2, 127, 128, 132, 138, 142 Managing Potential Conflicts in the South China Sea workshops 133–5, 138, 143 Manchuria 65, 73 Mao Zedong 5, 10, 61, 65–79 passim, 93, 94, 109, 110, 122, 124, 158, 165 maritime law see law of the sea Matsu Island 165 Maxwell, Neville 109 Memorandum on the Resumption of Border Trade (1991) 117 Menon, Krishna 100, 104–5, 106, 123 militarism, Japanese 33, 34, 46, 50, 51, 167 military issues see security interests Milner, Helen 22, 198n19 Minami Kojima Island 197n14 Ming dynasty (1368–1644) 3, 28 Ming Pao Daily (Hong Kong) 38, 46 Mischief Reef incident 136–8, 140–1 Mishra, Brajesh 161 Miyamoto, Kenji 40 Mobil 131
Mondale, Walter 51 Mongolia 73, 80, 81, 107, 146, 149, 172 moral basis of China’s foreign policy 14–15, 163–74 Morgenthau, Hans 78 Mozambique 93 multilateralism, China’s suspicion of 7, 135, 170 multinationals see transnational actors Murphy Oil 132 Myanmar see Burma Myasnikov, Vladimir 81 Nakagama 38 Nakagawa Ichiro 36 Nakasone, Yasuhiro, 33, 37, 38, 41 Nakodha 87 Namwan tract 103 Nanjing Massacre 181n90 Nansha Islands see Spratly Islands dispute Naryanan, K. R. 110, 112 national actors 7, 127–44 passim; see also leadership; Level I elements; negotiating behavior national identity 164–5, 170, 172–3 nationalism 9, 11, 18, 21, 155, 159, 161; Chinese 1, 2–3, 4–5, 26–60 passim, 64, 168, 172–3; Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands 26–60, 148, 152, 153, 167–8; Himalayan border dispute 108, 109, 111, 114, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125–6, 147, 151, 169; Japan 26–60 passim, 153, 157; Russian 85, 87, 92, 150; South China Sea islands dispute 138, 140, 141, 142, 147–8; Taiwan 15, 26–60 passim, 138, 150; Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute 64, 85, 87, 92 navigation rights 75, 82, 85, 86, 143 navy 5–6, 136 Nazarbayev, Nursultan 149 Nazdratenko, Evgeniy 82, 83, 85, 86, 87–8, 152, 159 Ne Win 103 negotiating behavior 8, 9, 11, 12, 22, 23–5, 59, 127, 145, 147, 157–62, 164; Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute 27–8, 38–41, 53–4; Himalayan border dispute 110–14, 115, 124–6; ritual and symbolism of Chinese 171–4; secrecy 125, 153, 159–62;
218
Index
Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute 69–72, 77–9, 86, 94–5 negotiation, theory of 16–17, 18–20, 121 Nehru, Jawaharlal 97, 100–9 passim, 115, 116, 122, 124, 125, 126, 151, 153–4, 157, 158, 165, 171 Nepal 104, 121, 149, 172 NGOs 56, 127, 132–5 Nguyen Van Thieu 141 Nihon Seinensha (Japanese Youth Federation) 26–7, 31, 41, 42, 43–4, 45, 48, 49 Nippon Steel Corporation 40 Nixon administration 71 nomads 3 non-governmental organizations 56, 127, 132–5 non-interference 81, 166 Nong Duc Manh 141 North Korea 56, 84, 86, 87 North Vietnam 71, 128 Northern Ireland 161–2 Nu, U. 103 nuclear weapons/warfare 5, 10, 56, 69, 71, 72, 78, 88, 116, 120, 123 oil resources 3, 9, 117, 118; Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute 26, 31–5, 52, 53, 54, 58, 60; South China Sea islands dispute 127, 128, 130–2, 137, 138, 141, 143 Okhotsk Sea 62 Okinawa Islands 28–9, 31, 32, 34, 35 Okinawa Trough 29, 31 Olympic Games (2000) 56 Open Cities 5 Organization of Petroleum Exporting Companies (OPEC) 130 overseas Chinese, Diaoyu/Tianoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute 26, 33–5, 46, 47, 48, 49, 56, 148, 152 overseas development aid to China 43, 52, 57 overseas peace-keeping 60, 153 Pacific War 46, 55, 56 Pakistan 116, 117, 118, 121, 122, 147, 169, 172; border negotiations with China 105, 107, 149 Pan Shiying 137 Panchsheel Agreement (1954) 100 Panghung-Panglao tract 103
Pannikkar, K. M. 100 Panov, Aleksandr 83 Pape, Wolfgang 198n4 Paracel Islands 5, 54, 127, 128, 131, 135, 139, 141, 143 Parthasarathy, Gopalaswamy 112 Partial Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (1963) 78 Peace and Friendship Treaty with Japan (1978) 36–41, 52, 54, 153, 157, 166 peaceful coexistence 81, 100, 165 People’s Daily (Beijing) 33, 48, 108 People’s Liberation Army 6, 10, 66, 70–1, 120, 135, 137, 139, 168 People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) 5, 136, 137 Petronas 132 Pham Van Dong 128 Philippines, South China Sea islands dispute 2, 127, 128, 132, 136–8, 139, 140, 142, 150 political dissidents 56 Poluyanov, Vitali 87 Praja Socialist Party (PJP) 103, 107 Pratas Islands 131, 143 Pravda 68, 69 pressure groups 9–11, 18, 21, 28, 42–3, 53, 59–60, 92, 141, 147 prestige maximization 78 Primorsky Krai 62, 82, 84, 85, 86, 87–8, 92 Protocol on Entry and Exit Procedures for Border Trade (1992) 117 public opinion and activism 10, 18, 21, 149, 150, 151, 160, 161–2, 172–3; Daioyu/Tiaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute 33–4, 49, 50, 51, 54–5, 56, 59, 151, 159; Himalayan border dispute 103, 105, 106, 108, 111, 115, 117, 120, 122, 123, 151; South China Sea islands dispute 140; Zhenbao/Chepao/Damansky Islands dispute 65, 67, 71, 78, 92, 94 Punjab separatism 115 Putnam, Robert D. 7, 8, 10, 13, 16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 39, 145, 147, 161, 197n16 Pye, Lucian 176n21 Qian Qichen 49, 80, 119 Qiao Bian 182n122 Qing dynasty (1644–1911) 28, 62, 97 racism 84
Index 219 Rahmonov, Emomali 150 Ramos, Fidel 136, 137 Rao, Narasimha 111, 119, 125, 154 ratification 16–17, 18, 20, 22, 39, 121, 124, 145, 149, 153–4; Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute 83–8, 146 rational choice theory 17 Reagan, Ronald 93 realist approach 6, 15, 163–74 reciprocity 173 regime integration theory 7–8 regime legitimacy 127, 173 regional interests 161; China as regional power 4, 7, 15, 53, 135, 165, 167–9, 170, 173; South China Sea islands dispute 143; Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute 60, 82, 83–8, 90, 92, 146 regionalism, East Asian 7, 123, 155, 167–9; see also ASEAN religious freedom 118 representative democracy see democracy reverberation 23, 53, 58, 68, 89, 94, 115, 126, 160, 161 rights 4; see also human rights Riker, William H. 154 Rogachev, Igor A. 80 Rogers, William 67 Royal Dutch/Shell 132 Rozov, Voktor 87 Russia 7, 22, 164–5, 170; arms provision to China 6, 89, 136; Central Asian Republics 155, 156; imperialism 1, 62, 64, 78; Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute 2, 8, 11, 61, 146, 148–9, 154, 157–8 Ryukyu Islands 32 Sakhalin province 86 San Francisco Treaty (1951) 29 Scarborough Shoal 139, 140 Schelling, Thomas 79, 197n16 Sea of Japan 64, 82 Sea-Bed Dispute Chamber (SBDC) 143 security interests 5–6, 7, 9, 24, 164, 167; Central Asia 155, 156; Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute 26, 27, 28, 33, 44, 53, 57, 59–60; Himalayan border dispute 101, 102, 107, 109, 113–26 passim, 147, 155, 169–70; South China Sea islands dispute 127, 132–7, 143, 144;
Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute 66–75 passim, 80, 81–2, 86, 88, 89, 92, 93, 94, 95 Seirankai 26, 41, 44–5 Senkaku Islands see Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute Senkaku Islands Defense Association 44, 45 Serbia 6 Setoyama 37 Shanghai Accord (1996) 155 Shelepin, Alexander 185n17 Shevardnadze, Edward 81 Shi Jing 175n7 Shih, Chih-yu 14, 173 Shimonoseki Treaty (1895) 4, 29 Shin Kanemaru 40 Sikkim 112, 117, 121, 152 Simla Conference (1913–1914) 96–7 Singapore 142 Singh, Natwar 112 Sino-Indian Border Conflict (film) 192n30 Sino-Japanese Friendship Society 39 Sino-Japanese Memorandum Office 35 Sino-Japanese Peace and Friendship Treaty (1978) 36–41, 52, 54, 153, 157, 166 smuggling 82, 86, 92, 146 Snow, Edgar 73 Snyder, Glenn 7 social classes 18 social forces 11, 20–2, 145; Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute 33–5, 58, 59–60, 92; Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute 146–7; see also Level II elements; nationalism; public opinion and activism; student activism social imperialism of USSR 10, 64, 70, 78 socialist internationalism 14, 165–6 Solomon, Richard H. 176n21 Song Qiang 182n122 Sonoda, Sunao 36–7 Soong Chu-yu 47 Soshinkai 45 South Asia 1, 15, 126 South China Sea islands dispute 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 54, 117, 127–44, 145, 147, 150–1, 159, 168; Chinese bureaucracy 135–6; fisheries 10, 128, 137, 139–40, 141, 143–4, 151; history of territorial claims 127–8; map 129; possible future developments 140–4; Scarborough Shoal 139, 140; strategic interaction
220
Index
between China and ASEAN and within ASEAN 136–8; Track II 132–5 South Korea 32–3, 34, 35, 54, 87, 154 South Vietnam 5, 71, 128, 141 South Yemen 93 Southeast Asia 1, 54, 127, 153, 173; China’s relations with 7, 69, 117, 120, 121, 126, 130, 132–5, 136–8, 141–4, 159, 170–1 Special Economic Zones 5 Spratly Islands dispute 2, 6, 9, 10, 12, 38, 54, 57, 117, 127–44 passim, 150, 173 Sri Lanka 107, 121 Stalin, Josef 165 state 11, 145; Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute 146–7; see also national actors state-centric theory 7 state-nationalism 4–5, 27, 172; see also nationalism State Oceanic Bureau 136, 139 state sovereignty 4–5 statism 15, 167–9 Stein, Janice Gross 13, 94, 198n20 strategic sensitivities see security interests Stronach, Bruce 183n148 student activism, Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute 49–50, 59, 148, 157 subnational actors 161; South China Sea islands dispute 9, 127, 135–44, 145; see also domestic factors; economic interests; institutions; Level II elements; nationalism; public opinion and activism; security interests; social forces; student activism Sumdorong Chu Valley incident 113 Sumiyoshi-kai 45 Sunada 38 Suslov, Mikhail 66 Swatantra 103, 107 synergy 23, 27, 39, 89, 93, 95, 108, 146 Taiping Island 128, 138, 139, 141, 143 Taiwan 3, 5, 15, 22, 71, 78, 81, 89, 150, 159, 165, 170; Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute 2, 8, 10, 26–60, 147, 148, 152, 154, 156, 157; Himalayan border dispute 107, 108, 111, 126; South China Sea islands dispute 2, 127, 128, 133, 138, 139, 140–1, 143, 144, 170 Taiwan Straits 136
Tajikistan 149–50, 155, 156 Takashi Ueno 37 Takeo Miki 39 Tanaka, Kakuei 39 Tang Jiaxuan 49 Tatsushiro Koga 178n5 Tawang tract 113 Teikoku 33 telecommunications, Sino-Indian 117, 118 territorial disputes 1–15; literature 13–14; moral and realist bases of Chinese approach 163–74; two-level games explanation 6–13 territorial integrity 2, 5, 81, 127, 170 territorial sovereignty 2, 3, 164, 173, 174; Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute 26–60; Himalayan border dispute 54, 119, 121, 125–6; South China Sea islands dispute 54, 127, 128, 132, 133, 134, 136, 138, 140, 141, 142, 144; two-level games explanation of disputes 6–13, 19, 24, 145–62; Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute 61, 79, 81, 89 Thagla Ridge 106 Thailand 142 thalweg principle 61, 65, 73, 76–7, 80, 81, 82, 89, 94, 160 Third World 93, 108, 109, 122, 165 three-level games 138; see also Level I elements; Level II elements; Level III elements Tiananmen Square incident 41, 42, 43, 89, 93, 94, 116, 160 Tiaoyutai Islands see Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute Tibet 56, 96–126 passim, 147, 159 Tokdo/Takeshima/Liancourt Rock 54 Tonkin Gulf 150 Tong Zeng 49 Tong Zhen 59, 159 Total 132 tourism see travel trade 3, 19, 21–2, 127, 151–3, 167; Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute 40, 47, 52, 53, 57, 152; Himalayan border dispute 101, 105, 111, 114, 117–18, 123, 152; SinoASEAN 141–2, 153, 170–1; Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute 71, 73, 80, 84–5, 89–92, 93, 95, 146, 151–2 Trans-Siberian railway 75
Index 221 transnational actors 152; South China Sea islands dispute 9, 12, 127, 128, 130–5, 137–8, 141, 143, 144, 145; see also Level III elements travel: China to Russia 84, 86, 92; SinoASEAN 142; Sino-Indian 101, 117; US to China 71, 73 Treaty of Aigun (1858) 62, 64, 82 Treaty of Alliance with USSR (1950) 73 Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (Bali Treaty) (1976) 143 Treaty of Chugachuk (1864) 149 Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) 62 Treaty of Peking/Beijing (1860) 64, 65, 82 Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895) 4, 29 Treaty of Westphalia (1648) 4 Trumbore, Peter 161 Tumen river 82, 86 Tumen River Economic Development Area 87 two-level games 6–13, 16–25, 27, 28, 39, 95, 121, 124, 135, 163, 164; hypothesis testing 12–13, 145–62; see also Level I elements; Level II elements UN 35, 47, 49, 71–2, 73 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 29, 153 UN Development Program 87 UN Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) 32 UN Third Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III, 1982) 3, 28, 31, 44, 48, 128, 143, 144, 173, 196n81 “unequal” treaties 1, 149, 171; Himalayan border dispute 100, 103; Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute 61, 64–5, 68–9, 70, 72, 75, 76–7, 78, 79, 80, 82 United Oceanic Development Company 32–3 United States 1, 4, 6, 165–6, 170; Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute 28, 29, 32, 34, 35, 39, 40, 50–2, 53, 56, 57, 152; Himalayan border dispute 105, 107, 108, 116, 118, 122, 123, 169; and South China Sea 130, 131, 132, 137, 142, 143; trade with China 118; Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damanasky Islands dispute 67, 71, 73, 82, 88, 93 United States-Japan Security Alliance 50, 51
Uotsuri Island 41, 44, 45 Uotsurishima Island 197n14 Ury, William 183n140 USSR 4, 5, 7, 22, 164, 165–6, 168, 171; collapse 52, 118, 166; Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute 26, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 52, 54; Himalayan border dispute 105–6, 107, 109, 113–14, 116, 118, 122; South China Sea islands dispute 131; Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute 2, 5, 15, 18, 19, 61–95, 148–9, 151–2, 154, 158, 165, 166 Ussuri boundary river, disputed islands see Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute Vaalco 137 Vajpayee, Atal Bihari 110, 116, 120, 123, 125, 152, 161 Van Dyke, John M. 178n7 Vasquez, John 2 Venkateswaran, V. P. 116 Versailles Conference (1919) 34 Vietnam: Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Senkaku Islands dispute 36; Himalayan border dispute 110; land border dispute with China 10, 141, 150, 153, 172; South China Sea islands dispute 2, 5, 10, 127, 128, 131, 133, 135, 138, 140, 141, 142, 143, 150; Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute 75, 88, 93 Vladivostok 75, 85, 87 Vo Van Kiet 172 Wang Jiaxiang 122 War Preparedness Campaign 73 Warsaw Pact 65, 66, 67, 71 Whiting, Allen S. 183n147, 192n27 win-sets 16, 17–25, 145, 148, 151, 153, 155, 160; Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai/Sekaku Islands dispute 46, 51; Himalayan border dispute 123, 124, 126; relation to costs of agreement/non-agreement 20–2, 141, 146–8; South China Sea islands dispute 141; Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute 88, 94 Wood Island 139 World Trade Organization (WTO) 56, 116, 142 Wu Dun-yi 42, 58
222
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Wu Yi 119 Wusuli boundary river, disputed islands see Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute Xie Fuzhi 70 Xinjiang province 69, 101, 116, 121 Xisha Islands see Paracel Islands Yaeyama Fisheries Cooperative 47 Yaeyama Islands 32 Yasui 37 Yellow Sea 130 Yeltsin, Boris 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 92, 146, 159, 166 Yomiuri Shimbun 34 Yongxin/Wood Island 139 Yoshihiro Inayama 40 Yukihiro Kurihara 197n14 Yukio Mishima 45 Zakharov, M. 185n31 zero-sum games 24, 156 Zhang Guohua 109 Zhang Xusan 136
Zhang Zangzang 182n122 Zhang Zhen 49 Zhao Quansheng 14, 150 Zhao Ziyang 93, 95, 115, 160 Zhenbao/Chenpao/Damansky Islands dispute 2, 7, 8–9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 38, 54, 61–95, 127, 145, 148–9, 154, 156, 157–8, 159, 165, 166; boundary agreement (1991) 61–2, 82–3, 146–7, 166; diplomacy following 1969 conflict 68–9; historical background 62, 64; maps 63, 74; 1969 conflict 66–8, 75–6; prelude to conflict 1963–1969 61, 64–6, 68, 150; rapprochement (1986–1991) 61, 79–83, 160; ratification and demarcation issues 83–8; resumption of border talks (1969) 61, 69–72; stalemate in negotiations (1970–1986) 72–3, 75, 93 Zheng He 3 Zheng Zhaoyuan 110 Zhirinovsky, Vladimir 87 Zhongsha Islands 131, 135 Zhou Enlai 68, 69–70, 72, 73, 77, 78, 94, 100–11 passim, 126, 158, 160, 165 Zyuganov, Gennady 87
