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Japan: Managing crisis with China critical
(AFP)
Updated: 2006-02-14 10:50
Japan says managing its deteriorating ties with China had become critical
amid warnings of a potential military conflict between the neighbours that could
drag in the United States.
"Any mismanagement can lead to unintended results," Japanese Foreign Ministry
spokesman Akira Chiba told reporters after speaking at a forum in Washington on
the troubled Sino-Japanese ties.
Japanese Prime
Minister Junichiro Koizumi, seen here, leaves the controversial Yasukuni
shrine, a visit that has angered China and other Asian nations who see the
memorial as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.
[AFP] | He was responding to a warning by a former
senior US State Department official at the meeting of increasing prospects of a
military conflict between the two Asian giants that would make American
involvement inevitable.
"The management of the situation is extremely important," Chiba said, adding
that he was however "optimistic of the wisdom" of the Chinese and Japanese
governments in preventing the situation from worsening.
Sino-Japanese ties have soured over Japan's wartime legacy, fuelled
by visits by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to the Yasukuni Shrine,
and the publication of Japanese textbooks that whitewash Japanese wartime
atrocities.
Frictions have also occurred over Beijing's opposition to Japan's bid for a
permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
But Chiba said "the juicy issue" amid the sagging relations between Tokyo and
Beijing was the question of a "strategic realignment" in China-Russia ties.
"The question is that the history issue is not
taken care of by the art of diplomacy," he said.
While Sino-Japanese ties have plummetted to one of their worst levels,
China-Russia relations have grown closer recently.
Moscow and Beijing have wiped out old border conflicts, signed new trade
accords and held large-scale joint military maneuvers.
"There is an increasing chance of a military miscalculation, miscommunication
between the Japan and China militaries that could involve the United States,"
warned Randall Schriver, a former top East Asian official at the State
Department during President George W. Bush's first term of office.
"My understanding is the militaries are coming into contacts (with) the
potential for a more dangerous situation," he said.
"I am more worried about a conflagration in the East China Sea than in the Taiwan
Strait," said Dan Blumenthal, a former senior director for Chinese mainland, Taiwan
and Mongolia at the Pentagon.
He said the Asian region was "very worried" about a potential conflict
between Japan and China.
Yang Bojiang, a visiting Chinese scholar at the Brookings Institution in
Washington, told the forum that Chinese leaders were more interested in
resolving rising domestic issues than going to war.
He cited recent surveys on Chinese websites on 2006 challenges, saying the
first nine out of the 10 priorities cited by the Chinese were domestic issues.
"Only the 10th was (related to) diplomacy," Yang said. "I don't think the
attack of a foreign country is the highest concern of the Chinese leaders," he
said.
Schriver said he was not aware of any US plan to contain the rising tensions.
"Some sort of CBMs (confidence building measures) between the militaries of
Japan and China are welcomed," he said.
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