Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

It really is hard to know what to make of China’s sense of timing.  Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been on a three-nation tour to Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, which Beijing mouthpieces have castigated as being part of Japan’s ‘contain China’ plans.  Yet on 24 July, the eve of Abe’s departure, a Chinese early warning military plane flew over waters between the main Okinawa island and Miyako Island for the first time.  Abe called it “an unprecedented and peculiar act”, and added that he would use his trip to Southeast Asia to “work together [with SE Asian nations] in establishing an order ruled not by power but by law.”

On the day of Abe’s departure, 25 July, the Chinese-owned Hong Kong Daily Wen Wei Po wrote an editorial in which it complained that Abe’s visit to the Philippines was “to meet with US Vice President [Joseph] Biden and [Philippines] President Aquino to co-ordinate with US policy of re-balancing to the Asia-Pacific and containing China”.  It added that in view of the escalation of territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas, “Abe’s move is nothing other than adding fuel to the fire”.

China appears unable to see that it is mostly its own actions that are “adding fuel to the fire”, but it is right about the consequences.  During his visit to the Philippines, Abe agreed to supply Manila with 10 coast guard patrol ships through a yen loan.  He also announced a 10bn yen standby loan for post-disaster reconstruction and a package of further proposals such as developing metropolitan infrastructure, increasing flights between the two countries and accepting Filipino nurses and care givers in Japan.

The other part of Abe’s mission was to explain why Japan is moving to changing its constitution to allow the exercise of collective self-defence.  He provided the same explanation in Malaysia and Singapore.