Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

We have reported extensively on Japan-China relations over recent months, in particular the dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, which China has been pursuing with increased vigour since the Japanese government bought three of the five of the islands from their private owner in September 2012.  The purchase had no effect on the sovereignty over the islands, which was already vested in Japan.  It just prevented the property rights falling into the hands of Shintaro Ishihara, a hard line nationalist and outspoken governor of Tokyo.  Beijing, however, chose to see the move as aggressive and an excuse for multiple and ongoing violations of Japan’s territorial waters.  Japan is responding by rearming and seeking to change its strictly pacifist constitution.  It is also, it seems, pursuing a much wider diplomatic struggle.

According to a Japanese government source quoted by the Kyodo news agency on 23 August, the ministry of foreign affairs intends to open embassies in six more countries during fiscal 2014, and the reason given is the need “to reinforce Japan’s presence in the diplomatic sphere in the face of the growing influence of China”.  At the moment, China has diplomatic representation in 164 countries while Japan was represented in only 134 at the beginning of 2013.  The ministry of foreign affairs believes it is necessary to close this gap.  Two embassies will be added by the end of 2013 (South Sudan and Iceland), taking the total to 136.  The six countries targeted for new Japanese embassies in 2014 are: Bhutan, the Marshall Islands, Namibia, Turkmenistan, Armenia, and Barbados. 

The move into Namibia is likely to prove only the start to the reinforcement of Japan’s representation in Africa, where Japan’s diplomatic corps is missing from nearly 20 countries at a time of increasing Chinese influence.  Barbados is to be a base for the Caribbean where, interestingly, many of the pro-Taiwan holdouts are to be found.

In parallel, government sources say that Japan’s defence ministry intends to station defence attaches in seven more African countries and Brazil from 2014.  It is said that this is part of an attempt to be better informed on security issues, particularly threats to expatriate Japanese workers, but it could also be seen as part of the push to counter growing Chinese influence.

The seven African countries targeted for 2014 are: Algeria, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, and South Africa.  Defence attaches are already stationed in Egypt and Sudan.

On 27 August, China’s Vice Foreign Minister Li Baodong said that it is unlikely that Chinese and Japanese leaders will meet on the sidelines of the 5-6 September G20 summit in St Petersburg because, in the words of the official Xinhua news agency, “Japan keeps making provocative moves”.  Li blamed Japan’s refusal to face up fully to its past aggressions and “the Diaoyu Islands issue”.  Li said: “Japan repeatedly shows only empty words asking for dialogues and refuses to talk over solutions to problems, thus their posturing aims to mislead the public.”

NOTE: Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has revived a plan to move Australia’s navy further north, from Sydney to Brisbane.  Rudd, who faces a tough election battle on 7 September, says that the reason for basing new missile destroyers and amphibious assault carriers in Brisbane is to enable them to deploy faster to potential hotspots or humanitarian disasters in the South Pacific. 

The Mandarin-speaking prime minister did not mention China, but this suggestion follows on from the decision to allow US troops to be stationed in Darwin as part of the US pivot to Asia, and the true motivation is clear even if unstated. 

The opposition to the move is based on its costs not on its strategic value.  James Brown, a military analyst from the Lowy Institute, says: “Rudd’s plan to fundamentally transform our naval posture would imperil other efforts underway to rebuild the navy.  More importantly, we are already struggling to fund our defence budget to the level both Rudd and his Defence Minister Stephen Smith would like, and we’re also struggling to fund even modest infrastructure upgrades called for to enhance US force posture arrangements.”