Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

Subscribers will have received an ‘Intelligence Update’ during the week, highlighting the growing tensions in the East China Sea between China and Japan.  Since then, in what is the most serious incident to date, it has been revealed that last week a Chinese naval vessel locked its radar on to a Japanese naval ship.  Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called this an “unnecessary escalation”.  He noted, as we had done in recent weeks, that there had been “signs of improvement” in China’s attitude towards the dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands and that, therefore, “having this one-sided provocative action taken by the Chinese is extremely regrettable”.  This week, we have further insights on the difficulties China is having formulating a coherent policy.

One of the “signs of improvement” referred to by Abe was, as we reported in our 30 January issue, the speech made by incoming president Xi Jinping at a study session of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Politburo on 28 January.  The emphasis of the speech by the CPC’s new general secretary (who will become China’s president in March) was very much on China’s peaceful rise, with Xi saying that “getting rid of wars and realizing peace is the most pressing and ardent wish of the Chinese people in modern times”.

There was much more of this, including Xi’s concluding remarks that “China's development should absolutely not be at the expense of sacrificing other countries' interests”.  China’s incoming president said: “We will definitely not do things that hurt others while benefiting us, and shift our troubles onto others.”

The trouble is that Xi also warned that while China will “persist in taking the path of peaceful development…we will absolutely not give up our legitimate rights and interests and will definitely not sacrifice the state’s core interests”.  In theory it is possible to view this as rhetoric that had to be inserted for domestic audiences and to conclude that the key element of his speech was the seeming return to the emphasis on “peaceful rise”.  Against that, however, is the evidence of actions on the ground, including the incident with the radar last week.

Nor is it possible, certainly not for a Japan in the firing line, to ignore the hawkish views publicly expressed by a number of Chinese military men.  As we reminded subscribers in our 23 January issue, there is a group of about 20 officers who regularly appear in the media arguing for a hawkish response to Japan, including a military solution.  One, Air Force Colonel Dai Xu, has even argued for a short decisive war.

Dai’s view, expressed in the CPC’s Global Times last August, is that “the US is bluffing in the East China Sea” and that China “should take this opportunity to respond to these empty provocations with something real”.  He went on to refer to Vietnam, the Philippines, and Japan as “the three running dogs” of the US in Asia, and he said: “We only need to kill one and it will immediately bring the others to heel.”  Also last August, Rear Admiral Zhang Zhozhong told a state television programme that the US would “run like a rabbit” if China attacked Japan over the Diaoyu Islands.

On the other hand, only this week reports have emerged of comments made by a top People’s Liberation Army (PLA) general on the importance of avoiding an “accidental war”.

On 4 February, the Global Times quoted Liu Yuan, political commissar of the PLA’s General Logistics Department, as arguing in an essay on the November party congress that going to war would be falling into the trap set by the US and Japan.

Liu’s argument is that China is on the last lap of a nearly two century long quest for national revival and that this quest “should not be interrupted by accidental [warfare] again”.  He said: “What the Americans and Japanese fear is that we will catch up with them, which is why they exhaust every possible means to suppress China’s development.  We should not fall into their trap.”

But Liu’s comments are only marginally comforting.  They may not be hawkish in the sense of Dai Xu and Zhang Zhozhong, but they openly display the deep-seated belief that China is engaged in an elemental struggle for power with the US and its allies.  This is the antithesis of “win-win”.

Liu argued for the adoption, once again, of Deng Xiaoping’s famous instruction to “keep a low profile, never take the lead and bide your time”.  He quoted Gou Jian, King of Yue kingdom, who slept on firewood and “tasted the gall bladder” to remind himself of “the bitter taste of defeat and to reaffirm his desire for revenge” [our emphasis added].

The point is this: there are hawks in China arguing for decisive early action, and there are lesser hawks arguing that China should continue to bide its time.  What there are not – at least not in any great numbers or positions of influence or prepared to stick their necks out – are genuine doves.

NOTE: A key moment in China-Japan relations will be 15 August, and whether or not Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, will visit the Yasukuni Shrine on the anniversary of Japan’s surrender at the end of World War II.  This remains an open question, but on 5 February Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that Abe "thinks that it is a matter of course that a national leader visits Yasukuni for the spirits of those who sacrificed their lives for our country and express respect for them”.

Abe visited the controversial shrine to Japan’s war dead last year before he became prime minister for the second time in December.  He is on record as saying that it was “extremely regrettable” that he felt unable to visit the shrine when he was prime minister for a year from September 2006.