Conditions were ripe for a dispute with China

Conditions were ripe for an escalating dispute with China

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

2010/09/29

Prime Minister Naoto Kan answers questions after his speech at the U.N. General Assembly on Friday, but he failed in his efforts to speak with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in New York. (THE ASAHI SHIMBUN)

Prime Minister Naoto Kan was already past his limit of patience. Painted into a corner by an increasingly ugly diplomatic row, Kan was informed that a decision had been made to release a Chinese trawler captain arrested after an incident near the disputed Senkaku Islands before his detention deadline of Sept. 29.

The close aides told Kan, who was preparing to depart for New York for the United Nations General Assembly session, that an announcement of the skipper's release should not only defuse the conflict but would be made soon after Kan returned to Japan on Sept. 25.

The prime minister was not appeased. Raising his voice, Kan growled to the aides, "Can't it be decided sooner?"

Kan wanted the announcement pushed up, apparently to open the possibility of meeting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in New York, according to sources.

By then, it was too late.

Japan-China relations had already plunged to new depths, exacerbated by confusion and mixed priorities in the Japanese government, as well as misread signals on both the Japanese and Chinese sides due to a lack of communication.

"It was a complete lack of prior sounding out of views," a source working at a Chinese think tank said.

Kan returned to Japan without meeting Wen. He now faces criticism over what critics call the government's bungling of the incident and suspicions that Kan is trying to put the decision to release the skipper solely on the shoulders of the prosecutors.

The arrest of the skipper, Zhan Qixiong, was ultimately the decision of Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara, who was minister of land, infrastructure, transport and tourism at the time and in charge of the coast guard.

Kan initially accepted Maehara's advice to arrest Zhan and handle the incident in an orderly fashion under domestic law. But as the situation unraveled, Kan shifted course. Yet, nothing changed on the Japanese side.

Immediately after the trawler collided with Japan Coast Guard vessels on Sept. 7, Maehara called Coast Guard Commandant Hisayasu Suzuki and told him, "The captain of the Chinese fishing boat must be arrested."

Maehara also called Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku and told him, "It is better to persist with a resolute attitude against China."

Then Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada was changing trains in Germany when he hastily accepted Maehara's argument to arrest Zhan.

On the evening of Sept. 7, Sengoku heard reports from coast guard and Foreign Ministry officials about the collisions. Sengoku was handling the matter on behalf of Kan, who was in the midst of the DPJ presidential election.

Coast guard officials explained that the trawler ignored repeated instructions to stop and rammed into the coast guard vessels after making a sudden turn.

Participants at the meeting reached the consensus that an arrest was unavoidable due to the egregious nature of the incident.

Sources said Sengoku muttered, "This could postpone a meeting between the leaders of Japan and China."

Given China's staunch stand on any territory it considers its own, Sengoku instructed high-ranking Foreign Ministry officials at the meeting to "think about what type of friction might arise."

At first, China responded calmly.

In a statement released Sept. 7, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said, "China is paying attention to the development of the situation and reserves the right to take further action."

The following day's People's Daily carried no report about the incident nor the request made by China's Foreign Ministry.

But the Chinese government later strengthened its opposition by, for example, calling Ambassador Uichiro Niwa for meetings on five separate occasions.

During one of those meetings on Sept. 12, Dai Bingguo, China's state councillor in charge of foreign affairs, told Niwa, "We ask for a wise political decision without a mistaken judgment of the circumstances."

Dai made no mention of a protest of Zhan's arrest.

Reflecting back on that time, a Chinese government source said, "By sticking to a calm response, China was trying to encourage Japan to release the captain on its own accord."

The general view in Beijing was that Japan would sufficiently understand China's will through the unusual number of meetings asked of Niwa and release the captain out of consideration for bilateral relations, sources said.

But Maehara refused to back down.

He told close aides: "The prime minister's office was hesitant so I had to make the decision to arrest the captain. There was no mistake in the handling of the matter."

Domestic political matters in Japan complicated the situation, and the pending issue with China took a back seat.

On Sept. 17, Kan reshuffled his Cabinet after winning a full term as DPJ president.

Okada accepted the post of DPJ secretary-general on condition that Maehara take over as foreign minister. Kan accepted the condition, and the move became one of the most prominent personnel shifts.

"At that time, we were in the midst of a Cabinet reshuffle, and Okada did not handle any matters after being appointed secretary-general, saying, 'That is something for the next foreign minister,'" a high-ranking Foreign Ministry official said. "Maehara was also busy preparing for the U.N. General Assembly that was upcoming in a few days."

Even after the Cabinet reshuffle, Kan and his aides seemed most concerned about appointments of senior vice ministers and parliamentary secretaries as a way of accommodating Ichiro Ozawa, the political heavyweight Kan defeated in the DPJ presidential election.

When those appointments were concluded on Sept. 21, officials of the Kan government were confronted with the reality that Japan-China relations had taken a drastic turn for the worse.

While the political attention was focused on appointments in Tokyo, a court in Okinawa Prefecture agreed to the extension of Zhan's detention past the first deadline of Sept. 19.

Beijing suddenly hardened its stance. Chinese officials, who had been expecting Zhan's release, were now convinced the captain's case would be processed under Japanese law, strengthening Japan's claims to the islands called Diaoyutai in Chinese, and indicted on Sept. 29, sources said.

Wen, who arrived in New York before Kan, said Sept. 21, "We will be forced to take the necessary retaliatory measures."

Chinese sources said the highest leadership levels of the Communist Party had decided to take a hard stance against Japan, and such decisions must be followed without question.

The leadership corps of the Communist Party also issued instructions to various government departments and officials, as well as government-affiliated think tanks, to prepare economic sanctions against Japan.

One of the first measures came on the evening of Sept. 19, when China canceled bilateral negotiations over airline flights. That was followed by a request to Chinese travel agencies to refrain from accepting applications for tours to Japan. A Beijing company decided to cancel group trips involving about 10,000 tourists to Japan.

All of those projects had been promoted by Maehara when he was tourism minister.

Kan understood the gravity of the situation, and told an acquaintance just before he left for the United States, "There appears to have been a problem in the initial stages."

Government sources said the old "irritable Kan" even shouted at his aides before his departure.

With both Kan and Maehara attending the U.N. session, it was up to Sengoku to defuse the situation.

He informed the prosecutors that the Foreign Ministry was concerned about the escalating tensions with China. Sengoku likely wanted to clear the atmosphere before mid-November, when the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum is scheduled to be held in Yokohama. Chinese President Hu Jintao is expected to attend the meeting.

At the same time, Sengoku also revealed to an acquaintance the bind that Japan was facing, "There is no one in the DPJ with close ties to China."

That may have been one reason Kan was unable to meet with Wen in New York even after the captain was released.

The source at the Chinese think tank said, "It would have been impossible (for Wen) to shake hands with the Japanese prime minister immediately after the leadership made such a strong criticism."

In the end, the Naha District Public Prosecutors Office announced Friday that Zhan would be released, a day after reports surfaced that China had effectively banned exports of rare earth metals to Japan in an attempt to cripple Japan's high-tech industries.

Kan was awakened and told about the decision Friday morning in New York. He did not seem very surprised, sources said.

At a combined meeting of the foreign and judicial affairs divisions of the opposition Liberal Democratic Party on Monday, high-ranking Foreign Ministry officials said: "After discussing the matter with the prime minister's office, we dispatched a Foreign Ministry official to the Naha District Public Prosecutors Office. On Sept. 23, the Foreign Ministry section chief in charge of the matter went to the Naha District Public Prosecutors Office."

On Friday, when Toru Suzuki, deputy public prosecutor at the Naha District Public Prosecutors Office, announced the release of Zhan, he explained that the decision had been made after "considering the effects on the people of Japan and the future of Japan-China relations."

But the relationship has shown no signs of improvement, with the Chinese government continuing its tough stand.

After Zhan's release, China demanded an apology and compensation from Japan.

Japan rejected those demands.

"The ball is in China's court," Sengoku said Monday, adding that Japan would ask China to pay for the repairs to the damaged coast guard vessels.

Sengoku met with DPJ lawmakers Monday at the Prime Minister's Official Residence and reflected on the incident. He called Wen's remark in New York about taking retaliatory measures "an unexpected development."

Chinese government sources also expressed surprise, saying they never expected the captain to be suddenly released.

Kan, meanwhile, has waffled over the past few days.

He initially said he would not attend the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) set for early October, saying he places priority on the extraordinary Diet session that begins Friday.

However, on Monday, Kan turned around and said he would attend the ASEM meeting.

Wen is also expected to attend.

A high-ranking government official explained Kan's about-face: "He might have considered not wanting only China to talk about the incident. He probably wants to personally explain Japan's thinking."