News & Stories

Conflict in East Asia: Shifting Dynamics

Posted Feb 20 2014

Japan and China may develop a friendship in the years ahead, but the process for the two “inherently different” countries will be just as difficult as the one experienced by France and Germany in the decades since World War II, said Andrew Nathan, the Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science at Columbia in recent remarks at SIPA.

Professor Nathan spoke on the topic of “Conflict in East Asia: Shifting Dynamics,” at a February 12 event hosted by Columbia International Relations Council and Association (CIRCA). His talk came against the backdrop of rising tensions over a cluster of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea. The islands, which the Chinese call Diaoyu and the Japanese call Senkaku, are administered by Japan but also claimed by China and Taiwan.

Both sides have legitimate claims, Nathan said. The historical record of competing claims is ambiguous, and existing international law does not provide a definitive answer.

Though small and uninhabited, the islands are a strategic defense point for China because they are part of a chain that enclose Chinese naval territory. For this same reason they are important for the U.S.-Japan military alliance in the region.

Meanwhile, Nathan explained, the United States is in a difficult position because the situation recalls unresolved issues regarding territories under Japan before and after World War II. While the U.S. is currently obliged under treaty to defend Japan, it cannot take a position on the question of sovereignty — especially because taking Japan’s side may be detrimental to relations with “rising China.”

Nathan noted that the sustainability of the United States’ position in Asia may be called into question amid the region’s shifting dynamics. China’s strategic intentions are not exactly clear to the U.S. and Japan as it expands its military, while Japan’s strategies are leaning in a more nationalist, hard-line orientation, alienating the regional powers from one another.

Nathan said China might be interested in driving a wedge between the United States and Japan; as an American ally, Japan is disappointed by the United States’ current, passive stance.

On the other hand, this strategy could help the current Japanese prime minister to consolidate domestic support for increasing the defense budget while lending credibility to his nationalist line. This would therefore be adverse to Chinese security interests, according to Gerald Curtis, the Burgess Professor of Political Science at Columbia. (Curtis was scheduled to participate in the talk but could not be present.)

Nathan, however, said an escalation into a military clash was an unlikely outcome unwanted by any side. Ultimately, he said, it would not make sense for either China or Japan to carry the dispute far beyond the islands.

China may simply be flexing its muscles and sending stress waves as it takes its position as a more central power. Nathan said he did not foresee significant change regarding the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands in the near future, and that Japan would not yield control of the islands. But in the longer term, he said, Japan may acknowledge the dispute and may enter a long period of negotiations.

Doyeun Kim MIA ’14