China's Strategy in the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands Dispute: Issue Linkage and Coercive Diplomacy

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China's Strategy in the Senkaku/DiaoyuIslands Dispute: Issue Linkage andCoercive DiplomacyKrista E. WiegandPublished online: 28 May 2009.

To cite this article: Krista E. Wiegand (2009) China's Strategy in the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands Dispute:Issue Linkage and Coercive Diplomacy, Asian Security, 5:2, 170-193, DOI: 10.1080/14799850902886617

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Asian Security, vol. 5, no. 2, 2009, pp. 170–193Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN 1479-9855 print/1555-2764 onlineDOI:10.1080/14799850902886617

FASI1479-98551555-2764Asian Security, Vol. 5, No. 2, April 2009: pp. 1–20Asian SecurityChina’s Strategy in the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands Dispute: Issue Linkage and Coercive DiplomacyChina’s Strategy in the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands DisputeAsian SecurityKRISTA E. WIEGAND

Abstract: For almost four decades, China has disputed Japan’s sovereignty of several smallrocky islands in the East China Sea. Despite a June 2008 joint gas development agreement, Chinacontinues to claim sovereignty and the dispute is nowhere close to being resolved. This studyproposes that China benefits from the endurance of the dispute because it can use territorialdispute threats to compel Japan to change its behavior or policy on other disputed issues. Theresults show that China gained concessions on other issues by using the territorial dispute asbargaining leverage in most of the 26 threats made between 1978 and 2008.

For almost four decades China has disputed Japan’s sovereignty of several small rockyislands in the East China Sea, called Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese. Sincethe dispute began, China has regularly made diplomatic and militarized threats aboutthe disputed islands. In September 2005, China deployed five naval ships in the vicinityof the disputed waters, including a guided missile destroyer with its guns pointed at aJapanese P3-C surveillance aircraft.1 In the past few years, a number of clashes haveoccurred between government-backed Chinese activists attempting to land on theislands and the Japanese military, creating political tension for China and Japan. Mostrecently, the sinking of a Taiwanese fishing boat involving the Japanese coastguard inthe vicinity of the islands in mid-June 2008 not only led to major tensions betweenTaiwan and Japan, but also serious concern expressed by China. As one China–Japanscholar notes, “since the beginning of the 21st century, the political and security envi-ronment has changed considerably, which makes a solution of the disputes [in the EastChina Sea] simultaneously more difficult and more urgent.”2

It is not surprising that China continues to press its claim for sovereignty of theislands and surrounding waters since the disputed area is suspected to have massive oiland natural gas resources, similar to the disputed Spratly Islands in the South ChinaSea. A 2005 estimate of oil resources in the East China Sea is 100 to 200 billion barrels,enough to provide energy sources to either state for 50–80 years.3 Access to further oilresources is a critical priority for China, the second largest consumer of oil after theUnited States. Despite a June 2008 joint gas development agreement in waters outsidethe disputed zone, China continues to claim sovereignty of the islands and the disputeis nowhere close to being resolved.4 When the natural gas agreement was made public,both states immediately assured their people that neither had abandoned their territo-rial positions and claims on the Senkaku/Dioayu Islands. This study proposes anexplanation for China’s decades-long unwillingness to drop its territorial claim and its

Address correspondence to: Krista E. Wiegand, Department of Political Science, Georgia Southern University,PO Box 8101, Statesboro, GA 30460-8101, USA. E-mail: [email protected]

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China’s Strategy in the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands Dispute 171

strategy of threats regarding the territorial dispute, despite potential gains of gas andoil resources in the waters right around the islands.

There is no indication that Japan will cede the islands to China by choice, nor is itlikely that China will take the islands by force, deliberately provoking war againstJapan. Since it is unlikely that the territorial status quo will change, why then doesChina continue to press its territorial claim and to regularly make threats to Japan?A likely explanation is that China benefits from the territorial dispute by taking advantageof crises that arise from the conflict.

By threatening Japan in the territorial dispute, China has used a dual strategy ofissue linkage and coercive diplomacy. Issue linkage occurs when a state deliberatelylinks two or more distinct foreign policy issues together, claiming that resolution ofone issue cannot occur without resolution of the other. Coercive diplomacy is an attemptby one state to compel another state through some type of coercion, threat, or use offorce to reconsider or shift its foreign policy on a certain issue. The logic of coercivediplomacy is to back up a demand with a threat of punishment that is credible andstrong enough to persuade the adversary to comply with the demand. By combiningthese two foreign policy strategies, when crises arise, either deliberately or accidentally,China uses threats in the territorial dispute as bargaining leverage to compel Japan toshift its policy on another issue such as economic aid, Japan–US security agreements,or potential Japanese troop deployments.

Though the issues initially have little or nothing to do with each other, China oftenmakes a diplomatic or militarized threat in the territorial dispute and implicitly linksthe threat to Japan’s compliance with China’s demand about another disputed issue. Inthis way, China has been able to take advantage of the endurance of its territorial disputewith Japan and use it as bargaining leverage to achieve shifts in Japanese foreign poli-cies regarding other disputed issues that it otherwise would not be able to influence.

I argue that it is the combination of coercive diplomacy and issue linkage thatmakes the territorial dispute so difficult to settle. The endurance, or lack of resolution,of the territorial dispute allows the continuation of China’s use of the dispute as bar-gaining leverage in other issues. Maritime security expert Mark Valencia argues thatthe primary reason that this territorial dispute is not resolved is not because of oil, butinstead because of other issues, namely “unresolved historical grievances and the politicsof national identity.”5 These other issues are all part of a grander competition for theposition of the dominant Asian power in the twenty-first century. Both China andJapan have used the territorial dispute as a pawn in this competition, but as the onewho could threaten Japan’s status quo ownership of the islands, China has been able touse the territorial dispute more effectively to gain concessions from Japan.

There are a number of reasons why the endurance of this dispute is problematicand thus is worth analyzing. From a security standpoint, any dispute that providesChina with an opportunity to threaten force against Japan militarily is not good forthe stability of the region. Though the apparent intention of the Chinese is not toactually use armed force to take the islands, there is no guarantee that future militarizedclashes with Japan will not escalate, leading inadvertently to armed conflict betweenChina and Japan, likely drawing the United States into the conflict. Economically,Sino-Japanese trade and financial relations have been strained in past years due to the

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dispute, and even with the recent natural gas agreement, it is likely there will continueto be accusations of breaching sovereignty rights, which could negatively affect traderelations. This dispute is also relevant because studying China’s strategy in this disputecan help hint at China’s strategy in the South China Sea dispute.

The remainder of the article is divided into the following sections. The first sectionprovides some background to the territorial dispute. I then explain the dual strategy ofissue linkage and coercive diplomacy and how China uses the strategy with Japan. Afterexplaining the logic of the theory, I examine China’s diplomatic and military confron-tations of Japan from 1978 to 2008 and demonstrate that 77 percent of territorial disputethreats were linked to other disputed issues, mainly Japan–US security agreements,retribution for wartime atrocities, and economic aid and sanctions. The findings alsoshow that China successfully gained concessions in other issues by using the territorialdispute as bargaining leverage in most of the 26 threats made by China between 1978and 2008. The implication is that there is little incentive for China to drop its claim orattempt settlement with Japan on sovereignty since the endurance of the dispute allowsChina to use it as bargaining leverage to gain concessions in other disputed issues. Thearticle concludes with some comments about the implications of the findings for bothscholars and policymakers.

The Islands DisputeThe Diaoyu/Senkaku Island chain, comprised of eight small, uninhabited, barrenislands, is located in the East China Sea approximately 120 nautical miles west of FukienProvince in China and 90 nautical miles northwest of islands in the Japanese Ryukyuisland chain. Japan first legally acquired the disputed islands from China as surroundingislands of Formosa (Taiwan) as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki after the Sino-JapaneseWar of 1895. As a result of the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, which stripped Japanof several territories, the US military took over administration of the islands in 1953 aspart of the Ryukyu Islands. The US turned over administrative rights of the islands toJapan on May 15, 1972, as accorded by the Okinawa Reversion Treaty signed in June1971 by the US and Japan. Since 1972, Japan has had effective control over the islands,monitored by the Japanese Maritime Safety Agency (MSA).

China made its formal claim for the islands and surrounding waters on December30, 1971, six months after the US and Japan had signed the reversion treaty. In the offi-cial claim, the Foreign Ministry office claimed usurped ownership and encroachmentof China’s sovereign territory, which had been part of China’s territory since the fifteenthcentury. The Japanese reacted to China’s claim by stating that “the Senkaku islandshave been consistently a part of Japan’s territory of Nansei Shoto.”6 Despite the recentnatural gas agreement, there have never been any attempts to settle the territorial disputeand ownership of the surrounding waters. The status quo remains just as it was in 1971 –Japan maintains occupation of the islands, claiming there is no territorial dispute, whileChina claims the islands as part of its national sovereignty.

China’s Strategy of Issue Linkage and Coercive DiplomacyThe Senkaku/Diaoyu Island dispute is a classic illustration of a pawn used by China asbargaining leverage in the broader competition for whether China or Japan will be the

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dominant Asian power in the twenty-first century. I argue that by making diplomaticor militarized threats about the disputed territory, China has pursued a dual strategyof issue linkage and coercive diplomacy in hopes that the threats will persuade Japan toseriously reconsider its position on certain policies or actions. China threatens Japanon the territorial dispute not only to signal resolve about the territorial dispute, butalso to link the threat to other disputed issues. By linking the territorial dispute threatwith other disputed issues, China compels Japan to reconsider its position on theseother issues in a way that is favorable to China, therefore providing China with greaterbargaining leverage in the competition for power.

A state using the strategy of coercive diplomacy (coercer) threatens an adversary inorder to get the adversary to halt an action it initiated. In other words, the adversaryhas made the first move and the coercer is responding to that action by issuing a threatto stop some action. Coercive diplomacy is not a traditional military strategy, but apolitical strategy that uses just enough of a threat to credibly demonstrate resolve andachieve one’s objectives.7 The primary objective of coercive diplomacy is to “create inthe opponent the expectation of costs of sufficient magnitude to erode his motivationto continue doing what he is doing.”8 In territorial disputes, coercive diplomacy issometimes used to persuade the adversary to halt some action it is doing with regard tothe actual disputed territory. When used this way, China uses the strategy of coercivediplomacy in response to some decision or action that Japan has made about the dis-puted islands, such as recognizing a lighthouse erected by a Japanese nationalist activistgroup or inclusion of the islands in official maps and textbooks. By deploying ships tothe disputed waters or sending a submarine to Japanese waters, China is able to issue athreat in order to persuade Japan to halt any actions regarding the territorial dispute.This objective is one of the reasons why China uses coercive diplomacy – to signalresolve about China’s intent to acquire the territory and prevent Japan from being ableto claim ownership without debate. When China makes a threat about the territorialdispute with Japan, this is the objective that some analysts assume to be the primaryimpetus for the threats.

However, China’s primary use of the strategy is not to compel Japan to make achange specifically regarding the territorial dispute, but instead to compel Japan tochange action regarding some other disputed issue that has little or nothing to do withthe territorial dispute. In these cases, China is using a dual strategy of coercive diplo-macy and issue linkage. Issue linkage occurs when a state making territorial claimsstrategically links territorial threats to other, initially unrelated, foreign policy issues,making the explicit or implicit claim that resolving one issue will affect or be affectedby the resolution of another disputed issue. With strategic issue linkage, states can useone issue where they have bargaining leverage in order to persuade adversaries tomake a change in an issue area where they have relatively weaker bargaining leverage.In some cases, strong states will use issue linkage to extend their relative power fromone issue area to another, while in other cases weak states can use issue linkage in anattempt to prevent another state from exercising its power.9 China knows that it hasless economic leverage when it comes to influencing Japanese decisions about aid andinvestment in particular. China also knows it has more bargaining leverage by usingthreats of military force. By shifting the military leverage into an economic issue area,

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China links the two issues together so it can influence an economic issue using militaryleverage.

When issue linkage is applied, it can be pursued with either a positive inducementof a reward or a negative threat of punishment. Most often, issue linkage is applied tothe peaceful resolution of international crises.10 A state using an issue as positive leverage,also known as the “carrot” approach in diplomacy, offers rewards in one issue area ifthe adversary changes its approach in another issue area. By linking issues, states canoffer side payments or concessions in one issue area to achieve change in another dis-tinct issue area, which provides a better opportunity for dispute resolution.11 Positiveissue linkage makes agreements between states possible when they cannot agree onlyon the one issue under contention. The strategy is basically tit for tat involving two ormore issues – you give me something in one issue area that you have and I will giveyou something in another issue area that I have. An example of positive leverage andissue linkage is the 1972 Soviet attempt to use the disputed Kurile Islands (NorthernTerritories) and fishing rights as concessions in exchange for Japan’s cooperation onnormalization of Soviet–Japanese relations and Japanese investment in developing oiland natural gas fields in Siberia. The October 2008 US decision to drop North Koreafrom its list of state sponsors of terrorism in exchange for North Korea’s agreement toall nuclear inspection demands is another more recent example.

Though issue linkage is frequently used to successfully resolve crises or disputes byallowing the exchange of concessions on different issues, the strategy to achieve nega-tive leverage through a threat, also known as the “stick” approach in diplomacy, isused just as frequently. Negative issue linkage occurs when one state makes a threat tocompel a state to stop a certain action already initiated. In stick diplomacy, the coercerdemands of the adversary some concession on a new issue before resolution of the dis-pute occurs. Economic sanctions are the most typical use of negative issue linkage,used to compel adversaries to change a policy on an unrelated but linked issue.

The choice of coercive diplomacy in territorial disputes means that a state likeChina has chosen to use a threat rather than a reward in order to compel an adversarylike Japan to make a change on another issue. States can make diplomatic or milita-rized threats in the same way that threats of economic sanctions are used, as negativeleverage using issue linkage. The purpose of using coercive diplomacy and issue linkageis to give the adversary an opportunity to halt or undo its actions before the challengerstate resorts to the use of force. In territorial disputes, states can make a threat aboutthe territorial dispute and use the threat as bargaining leverage to compel adversariesto make a change on a certain other issue. Threats can range from official restatementof claims for the disputed territory to deployment of ships.

Issue linkage does not have to be a long-term calculated strategy. The strategy canbe deliberate or occur as an ad hoc response to an action by the adversary.12 Though thethreat must be overt, the issue linkage is often implicit and not directly communicatedto the adversary since this approach would reveal the claimant state’s behind-the-scenesintentions of using the threat as bargaining leverage. As Schelling writes, “compellentthreats tend to communicate only the general direction of compliance, and are lesslikely to be self-limiting, less likely to communicate in the very design of the threatjust what, or how much, is demanded.”13 It could also be the case that policymakers

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“deliberately choose to be unclear and to keep the enemy guessing either to keep hisdefenses less prepared or to enhance his anxiety.”14 Sometimes, avoiding explicit com-munication of demands and issuing demands privately is a better strategy, since thisprovides the adversary with the ability to not be embarrassed about compliance.15

What this means is that threats made by China do not explicitly cite the linked issue inan obvious way, but instead in an implicit way.

China’s strategy of issue linkage and coercive diplomacy is most evident in its terri-torial dispute with Japan, but it also has been used in several other disputes. China’sattack across the Vietnamese border in 1979 is a clear example of implicit demandslinked to the militarized confrontation. On the day of the invasion, February 17, theofficial Chinese justification for the invasion made no mention of China’s objective tocompel Vietnam to withdraw from Cambodia and failed to set any conditions for Chinesewithdrawal from Vietnam if Vietnam complied with the demand. Yet Chinese leaderslater admitted this was their objective and they believed the Vietnamese would under-stand the signal. Because of the implicit nature of the issue linkage, “Hanoi was left todecipher Chinese ravings about border sovereignty and the meaning of terms like‘self-defense counter attack.’”16 The explanation for China’s vague message to Vietnamwas that it allowed Vietnam to withdraw from Cambodia without losing face.17

The mobilization of up to 300,000 troops along the Sino-Vietnamese border in1979 and their continued presence along the border all through the 1980s was used as aform of coercive diplomacy and issue linkage in an attempt to compel Vietnam towithdraw from Cambodia.18 Though there are a number of theories to explain China’sinvasion across the Vietnamese border, “the real cause of the March 1979 border warwas Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia in Christmas 1978, an act that greatly provokedthe Chinese and drove them to employ a much more aggressive diplomatic strategy.”19

A week after the Chinese attack across the border, Deng Xiaoping himself announcedthe objective of the attack: “to teach them they could not run about as much as theydesire” implying running about Cambodia.20

China maintained the troops along the border in order to “impose high costs onVietnam’s military venture in Cambodia. The continued presence of Chinese troopsalong the border compelled Vietnam for a second lesson. Thus, China offered Vietnamreduced border tension and lower defense costs in return for Vietnamese withdrawalfrom Cambodia.”21 At the end of the war, when Vietnam withdrew from Cambodia,China relaxed its anti-Vietnamese rhetoric, withdrew most of its troops from the Sino-Vietnamese border, and opened negotiations with Vietnam.22 China used the borderdispute with Vietnam as bargaining leverage for the issue of Cambodia, not becausethe border itself was so important to China.

China also used the strategy with the USSR in the late 1980s when China threat-ened the USSR, insisting that normalization would not be fulfilled unless a linked con-cession was made by the Soviets. China “repeatedly insisted that before it would agreeto regularized diplomatic exchanges and to a Sino-Soviet summit, Moscow would haveto cease supporting Vietnam’s Cambodia policy. Deng Xiaoping personally insistedthat Moscow would have to resolve this issue before China would agree to a summit.”23 Inorder for China to be able to influence Soviet support in Southeast Asia, an issue withwhich China had little leverage itself, China used the leverage it had by threatening not

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to normalize relations with the USSR. Realizing that Sino-Soviet relations were critical,the Soviet Union complied with Chinese demands by making a number of significantconcessions on Vietnam and Cambodia beginning in 1988, including phasing out aidprograms to Vietnam and encouraging Vietnamese flexibility on Cambodia.24 Thesecases suggest that China’s use of issue linkage and coercive diplomacy is not unique toits territorial dispute with Japan, but is perhaps a broader foreign policy strategy.However, the overwhelming use of this strategy with Japan in particular is likely dueto the significant bilateral relationship that China and Japan have and because China isable to use leverage in the territorial dispute to repeatedly extract concessions from Japan.

In response to Chinese threats in the territorial dispute, Japan can risk use of force andpotential occupation of the disputed islands by China, or accede to some or all of China’sdemands about another disputed issue. Because Japan will presumably defend its sovereignterritory at any cost, a threat by China must be taken seriously and must be considered ahigh priority. Therefore, when China links the territorial dispute to another disputed issue,Japan must seriously consider China’s demand for a policy change on the other issue, orrisk China following through on the threat. China knows that Japan values the dis-puted territory, so China expects that Japan will give in to China’s strategy and change itspolicies, especially since China holds a strategic advantage over Japan.25

Why would Japan comply with Chinese demands when it knows it is being coerced?Since the defense of territory is considered to be a vital national interest for states, thecost of losing territory would be particularly high. While territory is the most salientissue in international relations and the issue most likely to cause armed conflict, it isnot surprising that China would choose to use the islands dispute with Japan as bar-gaining leverage in another disputed issue.26 To prevent risking the loss of territory,Japan will comply with Chinese demands on issues that are less salient to Japan, butmore salient to China. Therefore, Japan concedes on issues that are not nearly as costlyas losing sovereign territory to China. Since the threat is about something as salient assovereign territory, Japan is much more likely to change a policy on another less salientissue as a concession, in order to prevent China from taking the threatening action in amuch more important territorial dispute.

Since territorial control is ultimately more salient to Japan than providing Chinawith economic aid or not deploying SDF troops, China’s strategy of issue linkage andcoercive diplomacy is generally successful. In this way, both sides benefit; China getsJapan to halt some action on another issue that China is concerned with and Japan getsto protect its sovereignty by providing China with concessions that are minor toJapan, but major for China. As long as the territorial claim exists and the dispute per-sists, challenger states have the opportunity to link threats in a territorial dispute toother disputed issues that also have salience. Because China can achieve bargainingleverage in other disputed issues with Japan by using coercive diplomacy with Japan,there is little incentive for China to drop its territorial claim of the islands.

Chinese NationalismThe strongest alternative explanation for China’s continued threats regarding the dis-puted islands is because of the role of territorial nationalism in China. When the People’sRepublic of China was established in 1949, the new government worked hard to maintain

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control over territories inherited from the Qing dynasty by successfully defeatingindependence movements and, more recently, reclaiming sovereignty over Hong Kongand Macau.27 The Chinese government has used the call for reunification with Taiwanas a means to promote unity and domestic mobilization of the people. With the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, the Chinese government has used the islands dispute to mobilizedomestic support only to some degree. According to one China specialist, “it is thesymbolic significance of these islands, rather than any rights to natural resourceswhich may be conferred by establishing control and ownership, that lies at the heart ofthe dispute.”28 Other specialists argue that even if oil resources did not exist, Chinawould not give up one inch of what is considered its territory, pointing out that thesymbolic value “far outweighs the commercial value the islands may hold.”29 Chineseofficials have consistently stated that the islands have “always been part of the Chineseterritory and China has indisputable sovereignty over the islands” and that “a greatnumber of historical facts have proven the Diaoyu Islands belong to China.”30

Rhetorically, the Chinese government has always cited the significance of territoryand territorial nationalism. Yet, even with so much rhetoric, nationalism has not playeda major role in influencing China’s stance on its territorial dispute with Japan. Despitethe claim that the islands hold nationalist significance, Chinese government officialshave rarely used the East China Sea dispute to mobilize domestic support. There isalso evidence of government officials downplaying crises involving the territorial dis-pute in order to prevent too much anti-Japanese sentiment. These findings are not sur-prising based on the context of Chinese domestic politics: “anti-Japanese sentimentand its mobilization in the PRC are complex and multifaceted, and need to be viewedin the light of elite struggle amongst the Chinese leadership.”31 Due to divisions withinthe Chinese leadership, some decision-makers have focused more on relations withJapan and mobilization of nationalism, while others have not.

The first reason for the government’s lack of effort to use the disputed islands formobilization is the concern by Chinese officials that too much nationalist sentimentmight turn into anti-government sentiment, leading to protests and possible revolt.The general strategy of the CCP has been to allow anti-Japanese protests, which divertpolitical frustrations to Japan rather than the government, but then call them off soonafterwards in order to prevent them from spiraling into anti-government protests. AsGries notes, since “popular nationalism can threaten the Party’s legitimacy, it is anincreasingly significant constraint on China’s Japan policy.”32 Even though Chineseofficials “may also wish to inculcate and galvanize nationalistic feelings or exploitxenophobic tensions as diversion from economic management, ethnic conflicts, orother problems,” they must take into consideration the possibility that they “may losecontrol of nationalist sentiments,” a situation that the CCP does not want to face.33 Inseveral diplomatic and military conflicts with Japan, the CCP was willing to incur“significant damage to its nationalist credentials” in order to prevent the territorial dis-pute from harming bilateral relations with Japan and threatening the elite’s hold onpower.34 Thus, government officials mobilize domestic support only to the point wherethe government appears to be defending homeland territory, but not enough to pro-voke the masses into nationalist demonstrations that might threaten the tight controlthe ruling elite have over the masses.

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A second reason that nationalism cannot justifiably explain China’s continuing ter-ritorial threats is that economic performance often supersedes territorial nationalism,meaning that despite rhetoric to the contrary, Chinese officials are ultimately moreconcerned about economic success rather than territorial nationalism. Though there isan immense appeal to territorial nationalism in China, there is also a competing agenda,that of economic performance. With the gradual decline of legitimacy of Marxist, Leninist,and Maoist ideology in the 1980s and 1990s, the CCP implemented major economicreforms, causing widespread employment, corruption, and periodic spells of highinflation. As a result, the CCP turned to gaining legitimacy via both economic perfor-mance and territorial nationalism. The outcome has been balancing on a fine line,appealing to nationalism with territorial disputes, but then reassuring other states thatthe CCP wants to cooperate economically with them. The key factor is that, forced tochoose one over the other, Chinese officials have often opted to protect bilateral rela-tions, especially with its economic partner Japan, rather than attempting to mobilizedomestic gains or satisfy domestic demands.35 The frequent suspensions of anti-Japanese protests by the Chinese government illustrates China’s concern not to allownationalism to affect bilateral relations with Japan. Although nationalism has been asignificant aspect of Chinese government rule in the past few decades, the “intentionwas to fill the gap in the national psyche that had previously been occupied by socialism,not to encourage provocative gestures of public demonstrations which might scareaway China’s biggest creditor nation.”36

Chinese Diplomatic and Military ThreatsOverall, China made threats against Japan on 26 occasions from 1978 to 2008, 13 ofwhich were militarized threats and 13 diplomatic threats, as listed in Table 1. The mostdifficult years for Sino-Japanese relations, based on the frequency of diplomatic andmilitary confrontations shown in Figure 1, were 1996, 2004, and 2005. The vast majorityof the threats, 77 percent, occurred around the same time period when China and Japanwere disputing other issues. Of the remaining 23 percent of threats (six), when Chinaused coercive diplomacy but not issue linkage, the threats were pursued to gain leveragedirectly in the territorial dispute half the time. These preliminary findings provide ini-tial support for the argument that China’s threats to Japan in the territorial dispute arelinked to other ongoing disputed issues.

Though it is difficult to predict precisely the foreign policy actions of the Chinesegovernment, my analysis of Chinese threats made from 1978 to 2008 provides solidinsight into which issues were most likely to cause China to use the strategy of issuelinkage and coercive diplomacy, listed in Table 2. By far the most significant issue thatwas linked to the territorial dispute was renewals, talks, or realignments of the Japan–USsecurity agreement, followed by Japan’s treatment of wartime atrocities, and Japanesedecisions to cut aid or place economic sanctions on China. SDF troop deployment wasthe next biggest issue, followed by general Japanese military plans, upcoming bilateraltalks (on other issues), and Japan’s bid for a permanent seat in the United NationsSecurity Council. What this information reveals is that China is most likely to use thestrategy of coercive diplomacy and issue linkage to compel Japan to reconsider elements ofthe Japan–US security arrangements, but also to attempt concessions regarding Japan’s

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TABLE 1CHINA’S DIPLOMATIC AND MILITARIZED CONFRONTATIONS, 1978–2008

Date Type Chinese Action Linked Issue

April 1978 Militarized Armed fishing vessels surrounded islands with support of government

Peace and Friendship Treaty negotiations with Japan

October 1990 Diplomatic Foreign Ministry threatens Japan to withdraw claim of islands

Potential SDF deployment to Gulf War

December 1991 Militarized Armed ship fired warning shots at Japanese fishing ships near islands

No issue linkage

February 1992 Diplomatic Territorial waters law passed Potential SDF deployment to UN peacekeeping operations

August 1995 Militarized Two fighter planes flew in airspace near islands

Japanese economic sanctions

July 1996 Militarized Two submarines deployed to islands Ratification of UN Convention on the Law of the Sea; Japan–US security alliance renewal; economic sanctions

September 1996 Militarized Warships dispatched to waters around islands; joint air force, navy, army maneuvers done; mock blockade of island chain

Japan–US security alliance renewal; economic sanctions

October 1996 Militarized Navy conducted military surveillance around islands

Japan–US security alliance renewal; economic sanctions

November 1996 Diplomatic Official claim of sovereignty made to UN Japan–US security alliance renewal; economic sanctions

May 1999 Militarized Navy dispatched warships to waters surrounding islands

Japanese bill reaffirming Japan–US security alliance

July 1999 Militarized Naval drills conducted near islands Japanese bill reaffirming US-Japan security alliance

June 2002 Diplomatic Government-backed activists attempt to land on islands

Japan announced 10% reduction in aid to China; China suspicious of Japan’s eager support of US war on terrorism

June 2003 Diplomatic Government-backed activists attempt to land on islands

SDF troops dispatched to Iraq to help US-led coalition in Iraq War

October 2003 Diplomatic Government-backed activists attempt to land on islands

No issue linkage

January 2004 Diplomatic Government-backed activists attempt to land on islands

Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi visited Yasukuni Shrine

March 2004 Diplomatic Government backed activists land on islands

Important bilateral talks in early April

July 2004 Military Naval ship conducts research in disputed waters; training, intelligence gathering in Japanese waters

No issue linkage; Japan announced it would begin its own oil exploration

October 2004 Military Naval ships in disputed waters Japan–US talks held on security alliance; Japan hosts multilateral maritime exercises; Japan reveals missile defense plan

November 2004 Military Nuclear Han class submarine deployed to disputed waters

Japanese SDF reveal military scenarios against China

February 2005 Military Two destroyers deployed to disputed waters

US and Japan declare Taiwan is mutual security concern; renewed US–Japanese security agreement

April 2005 Diplomatic Nationwide protests against Japanese involvement in Diaoyu Islands approved by government

New “whitewashed” history textbooks issued in Japan; Japan actively bid for seat on UN Security Council

September 2005 Military Five naval ships deployed to disputed waters; spy planes collected data on Japanese military vessels; military established special naval reserve fleet for East China Sea

To influence upcoming talks on territorial dispute; Koizumi’s insistence of right to visit Yasukuni Shrine

October 2005 Diplomatic China canceled talks on territorial dispute and visit by Japanese Foreign Minister

Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi visited Yasukuni Shrine for 5th time

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wartime atrocities in China. The latter issue is not so surprising, considering thatthrough a gentleman’s agreement, Japan has offered China billions in official develop-ment assistance in lieu of monetary retribution for the war. The following analysis ofChinese threats provide strong support for the argument that China has pursued a

TABLE 1(CONTINUED)

Date Type Chinese Action Linked Issue

October 2006 Diplomatic Government-backed activists travel to islands

No issue linkage

February 2007 Military Research ships found surveying in Japanese waters

No issue linkage; to influence talks on joint natural gas development

August 2007 Diplomatic Government-backed activists travel to islands

To commemorate Japan’s invasion of China 70 years ago

October 2007 Diplomatic Government-backed activists travel to islands

No issue linkage; to influence talks on joint natural gas development

FIGURE 1FREQUENCY OF CHINA’S DIPLOMATIC AND MILITARY CONFRONTATIONS, 1978–2008.

0

1

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1978 1990 1991 1995 1996 1999 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008Year

Freq

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Diplomatic

Military

TABLE 2JAPANESE ISSUES LINKED TO TERRITORIAL DISPUTE BY CHINA

Disputed Issue Number of Linkages

Japan–US security agreement 8Wartime atrocities and visits to Yasukuni Shrine 5Economic sanctions, foreign aid cut 5SDF troop deployment 4General Japanese military plans (missile defense shield) 3Bilateral talks upcoming (other issues) 2UN Security Council bid 1

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strategy of issue linkage and coercive diplomacy to gain leverage on other issues, andtherefore China has little incentive to settle the territorial dispute.

Lighthouse IncidentIn October 1990 China issued a threat to Japan when it officially restated its territorialclaim on the islands in protest against a September 29 decision in Japan to officiallyrecognize a lighthouse on the islands built by a Japanese nationalist group in 1978. TheChinese threat was directly linked with two other issues: 1) Japan considering whetherto send SDF troops to the Middle East to participate in the Gulf War, and 2) Japan’sdecision to resume loans to China after sanctions had been imposed in 1989 due to theTiananmen Square incident. In fall 1990, the Japanese Diet began heated debates aboutthe possible deployment of SDF troops to the Persian Gulf.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry immediately announced its grave dissatisfactionabout Japanese proposals to send SDF troops to the Middle East and demanded thatJapan halt all unilateral actions on the disputed islands.37 China’s reaction to the newsof potential Japanese deployment to Iraq, which would break a 45-year ban on send-ing Japanese troops abroad, was not surprising: “naturally they [Chinese] are very sen-sitive to Japan’s sending troops overseas.”38 Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Qi Huaiyanheld an emergency meeting with the Japanese ambassador, making “stern representa-tions on the Diaoyudao [Senkaku Islands] issue. He also made clear China’s stand onthe question of the Japanese government dispatching troops abroad.”39 Diplomatsimmediately recognized the issue linkage by agreeing that China’s threat “would havereceived little attention if it were not for the fact that Japan’s proposal to send troopsto the Persian Gulf has brought an outpouring of concern among its Asian neighbors,especially China and South Korea.”40 By linking the disputed islands with the protestof troop deployment, China was able to compel Japan to reconsider its decision:“China, mindful of history, is unhappy at the idea that Japanese troops, albeit in smallnumbers and as noncombatants, may soon be going to the Gulf. The Diaoyutai islandsprovide an easy way to express that unhappiness and embarrass Mr. Toshiki Kaifu andhis government in Japan.”41

The Chinese strategy of issue linkage was to threaten Japan about the islands to pro-voke Japan to deploy SDF troops to patrol the islands, then China and other Asian statescould claim that Japan’s actions in the islands dispute further demonstrated Japan’salleged growing militarism shown by planned deployment of SDF troops to the MiddleEast. An editorial in The Straits Times, an English newspaper in Singapore, noted how

the dispute [over the islands] might make Asians skeptical of Prime MinisterToshiki Kaifu’s proposal to send Japan’s Self-Defense-Forces to the Persian Gulf.A bellicose Japanese attitude in the matter would, in fact, be counterproductive forTokyo. In such a situation, military assertiveness over the islands might complicateJapan’s efforts to assure its Asian neighbors that its intentions [to deploy troops tothe Middle East] are good.42

The Chinese decision to threaten Japan diplomatically and not militarily was anintentional decision by practical decision-makers who were also concerned about the

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resumption of Japanese loans and the end of economic sanctions placed on China byJapan, among other states, as a result of the Tiananmen Square incident the yearbefore. A week after hostilities had escalated due to the war of words between Chinaand Japan over the islands, the Chinese attempted to de-escalate the tensions by calling fornegotiations over the islands. On October 27, the Chinese Vice Foreign Minister suggestedthat the two governments hold talks as soon as possible regarding joint exploitation ofmarine resources (including oil) in the area, and opening of fishing resources in waters nearthe islands. Though Japan rejected the proposal, both governments agreed to “quietlydrop the dispute and avoid further provocative actions.”43 If China had sought a moreaggressive strategy with the territorial dispute, it “would [have] threaten[ed] economicties with Japan and Japanese diplomatic support, which was critical in persuading theGroup of Seven to support the resumption of multilateral lending to China.”44

The two-stage issue linkage plan worked for China. By making a hostile restate-ment of its territorial claim, China was able to warn Japan not only of its dissatisfac-tion with the Japanese government’s recognition of the lighthouse, but to compelJapan to reconsider the deployment of SDF troops to the Middle East. By backing downa week later and proposing negotiations, China then signaled to Japan that it was notmilitarily hostile and would be accommodating in order to receive much-needed eco-nomic loans again. After the de-escalation of tensions, Japanese officials responded byannouncing that they would not be sending SDF troops to the Middle East and theywould resume loans to China.45 Within three weeks, Japanese Prime Minister Kaifuannounced that the government would not recognize the lighthouse as an official beacon,promising that there were no plans to dispatch Japanese military ships to the islands.46

According to China scholars Downs and Saunders, “Kaifu’s statement demonstratedJapan’s desire to prevent the issue from escalating and sought to reassure China thatthe pending Diet bill authorizing deployment of Japanese forces for United Nationspeacekeeping missions did not represent a resurgence of Japanese militarism.”47 The state-ment was a direct response to China’s issue linkage of the lighthouse issue on the dis-puted islands and the SDF troop deployment. Though implicit, Japan recognized theintended issue linkage and responded accordingly.

There is little doubt that the resumption of economic aid to China was directly linkedto China’s willingness to back down from its threat about the disputed islands and reignin anti-Japanese protests in China. According to Downs and Saunders, “the perceivedlinkage between the CCP’s accommodating posture toward the Diaoyu dispute andresumption of Japanese loans highlighted the contradictions between the Chinese lead-ership’s nationalist claims and its passive actions during the dispute.”48 The Chinesemedia criticized Prime Minister Li Peng for “begging for Japanese loans” while the CCPbanned anti-Japanese protests and backed off the Diaoyu islands claim.49 In the end,China’s issue linkage and coercive diplomacy strategy was successful: Japan not onlybacked down on the lighthouse issue, but it also halted its decision to deploy troops tothe Gulf and resumed economic aid to China the following month, in November 1990.

Military ClashesFrom July to September 1996, tensions between China and Japan were higher thanthey had been during any other time of the dispute. On July 20, 1996, Japan ratified

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the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which meant that Japan would enforce itscontrol of Japan’s EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone), including the disputed islands. Insupport of the Japanese ratification, a Japanese nationalist group rebuilt a lighthouseon one of the disputed islands and on July 25 requested approval from the governmentfor the lighthouse to be an official beacon.

Days after the Japanese ratification and the government’s consideration of therequest by the nationalist group, China accused the Japanese government of revivingmilitarism, restated its claim, and deployed two submarines to the islands. ChineseForeign Ministry spokesman Shen Guofang made a statement in August that linkedthe lighthouse dispute with other disputed issues. According to Shen, a visit by JapanesePrime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and five cabinet members to the Yasukuni Shrine,and the claim of some Japanese politicians that the 1937 capture of Nanking was a hoax,were the events that provoked China to respond in the islands dispute. At an Augustpress conference, Shen noted that

All these [events] added up to giving a green light to these actions and remarks ofthe Japanese right wing groups . . . Japan has failed to arrive at what is a rightunderstanding of history. The Japanese government therefore should have asober-minded perspective and clear understanding as regards this issue. OtherwiseSino-Japanese relations would be seriously affected.50

Admitting issue linkage, Shen also noted that “the recent words and actions ofsome Japanese right-wing groups and other people are not accidental and directlyrelated to the attitude of the Japanese government,” specifically citing the governmentvisits to the shrine.51 The Chinese reaction to Japan’s move regarding the lighthousewas therefore not really about the recognition of the lighthouse, but China’s greaterconcern over actions by the Japanese that signaled a lack of regret with regard to his-toric Japanese aggression towards China. By simultaneously threatening Japan onChina’s claim over the islands and dispatching the submarines, China was able to usethe territorial dispute as leverage in an attempt to compel the Japanese to reconsider itsattitude toward Japan’s historic role in China.

The tension continued through September when, on September 9, members of aJapanese nationalist group returned to one of the disputed islands to conduct repairs tothe lighthouse and reapplied for recognition as an official beacon on September 10.The same day, the Chinese government demanded that Japan remove the lighthouse,with Shen “warning that bilateral ties will be seriously harmed if Japan does not takeappropriate action.”52 Shen threatened that if the Japanese government did not takeeffective measures to reign in the nationalist group, which infringed on China’s sover-eignty, “it would be bound to cause serious damage to Sino-Japanese relations.”53 Thenext day the PLA issued a report, stating that the use of armed force against Japanwould become inevitable if the problem were not solved diplomatically.54 Two dayslater, on September 13–14, China conducted large-scale military maneuvers involvingjoint army, air force, and navy exercises, off China’s northeastern coast. The exercisesinvolved mock blockades and landings on a group of unidentified islands off thenortheastern coast of Liaoning province, done “in an apparent warning to Japan over a

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disputed island chain in the East China Sea.”55 The Chinese government’s strategy ofimplicit warnings to Japan was made evident by the publication by China Daily of thereport on the naval exercises “on the same page as a Foreign Ministry warning to Tokyoover the islands.”56 An unnamed western diplomat in Beijing said that “the side-by-sidereports were no coincidence, even if the Chinese general did not mention the islands.There is no threat as such, but a clear signal that says ‘you know what we think.’”57

Despite the lack of explicit issue linkage in the Chinese rhetoric, there was strongsuspicion within Japanese diplomatic circles that China’s threats were done to try topersuade Japan to reconsider the economic sanctions placed on China for nuclearweapons testing, compel Hashimoto to halt visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, and recon-sider its recently updated security agreement with the US. China had recently con-ducted nuclear testing, as it had in 1995, prompting Japan to participate in economicsanctions against China and to link re-establishment of the grant program with shiftsin Chinese security policies. China was dissatisfied with such conditionality and con-fronted Japan diplomatically and militarily in a succession of actions taken regardingthe territorial dispute. Diplomatic talks to discuss the economic sanctions and generalbilateral relations had been scheduled for September 24 in New York between ChineseForeign Minister Qian Qichen and Japanese Foreign Minister Yukihiko Ikeda and theintention of both the Japanese nationalist group and the Chinese government was touse the territorial dispute to influence the talks and the other issues at hand. On theday of the talks, at a press conference in Beijing, Shen made the linkage of the islandsdispute and the talks more explicit by stating that “When Vice Premier Qian meetswith Foreign Minister Yukihiko Ikeda in New York, Japan should be clear that theDiaoyu Islands are an inseparable part of Chinese territory.”58

Since China clearly lacked economic leverage, it instead used its military leverageby threatening force near the disputed islands in an attempt to influence Japanese eco-nomic policies on other issues. As a Japanese analyst wrote, “[b]y applying pressurethis way, Beijing hopes Japan will reconsider its plans to cut economic aid to China,and ease its criticism of China’s military buildup and nuclear testing program.”59

Other issues were suspected to be linked by the Chinese; the Japanese government“fears that Beijing is accusing Japan of considering the ownership [of the islands] issuein connection with Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto’s visit to Yasukuni Shrine andthe reaffirmation of the Japan–US security treaty.”60 At the Beijing press conferenceheld the same day as the New York talks, Shen also made the linkage of the islands dis-pute and the Japan–US security treaty more explicit. Shen announced that “We hopethe Japanese government can adopt a sensible attitude concerning this question [on theislands dispute]. From a historical perspective, what constitutes a threat of war in ourregion, I’m afraid, is no other country than Japan.”61 According to Japanese analysts,“Shen was referring to an agreement between Japan and the United States last week onexpanding defense ties to cover joint operations in regional crises.”62

The issue linkage and coercive diplomacy used by China was successful overall. At thebilateral talks, Chinese Foreign Minister Qian maintained China’s territorial claim over theislands, reiterated a request for the Japanese government to reign in the nationalist group,renewed China’s dissatisfaction with Hashimoto’s shrine visit, and warned that if theJapan–US security agreement were expanded, it would cause anxiety for China. Japan’s

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response was that Hashimoto would drop his plan to visit the shrine the following monthand that the US joint declaration did not assume any third country as a threat.63 Ikeda alsopromised that the Japanese government would not approve the application of thenationalist group to make the disputed lighthouse an official navigational beacon.64

Though the foreign ministers discussed the islands dispute at length during the meeting,they avoided any discussion of sovereignty. After the talks, a Japanese editorial in the con-servative Sankei and Yomiuri newspapers concluded that the Chinese strategy againstJapan regarding the islands had been “outstandingly effective” which resulted in what“would appear to be what the Chinese side has been seeking [concessions]. The Japanesegovernment should draw lessons from such cunningness.”65 On November 25, Hashimotoand Chinese President Jiang Zemin agreed to repair bilateral relations and resume Japaneseeconomic aid to China, with Jiang suggesting that they shelve the territorial dispute.

In May 1999, China once more used the dispute in a military confrontation in anattempt to compel Japan to reconsider aspects of the Japan–US security agreement.The incident involved the deployment of 12 warships, including a 1,700 ton frigatewithin 70 miles of the disputed islands, inside of Japan’s EEZ, but outside its territorialwaters. The Chinese ships were dispatched to the islands immediately before the pas-sage of a bill in Japan to implement the revised Japan–US Guidelines for DefenseCooperation. According to political analysts in Japan, “this incident is regarded to bean act of deterrence in connection with the bills.”66 Though the coercive diplomacy didnot lead to a reconsideration of the defense guidelines, the Chinese were still successfulin using the islands dispute deployment to signal to Japan its discontent with theguidelines and to remind Japan of its military capabilities if need be.

Chinese Activists’ Landing on the IslandsIn 2004 the islands dispute was again used by China on a number of occasions as bar-gaining leverage to influence other disputed issues. The first major threat occurred inlate March 2004, when the Chinese government allowed a group of Chinese activiststo travel to the islands. On March 24, several Chinese ships entered the waters near theislands. The Japanese Coast guard turned away the majority of activists, but sevenskirted around the coastguard, landing on one of the islands, for the first time ever.Within hours, the Japanese arrested them and took them to Okinawa Prefecture forprosecution. China reacted strongly to the arrests, demanding immediate and uncon-ditional release of the seven Chinese arrested on what they claimed was Chinese territory.The Chinese government showed explicit support for the activists when the Vice ForeignMinistry expressed to the Japanese embassy in Beijng that “China strongly protestsagainst Japan’s prevention of the Chinese citizens from landing on the Diaoyu Islands,” aright of Chinese citizens, since “the Diaoyu Islands have been Chinese territory fromancient times over which China has indisputable sovereignty.”67 The Foreign Ministryalso emphasized that China would never accept Japanese attempts to deal with a domesticissue since “Japan illegally detained seven Chinese citizens who landed on China’sown Diaoyu Island. Such an act seriously infringed on the territorial sovereignty of Chinaand human rights of the Chinese citizens.”68

China also canceled bilateral talks scheduled a few days later about the UN Con-vention on the Sea and maritime research in the East China Sea. The Japanese press

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interpreted the cancellation of the talks due to “growing concern that China’s anger atJapan’s detention of the seven activists could affect the bilateral diplomatic schedule,including those not directly linked to the territorial dispute.”69 The diplomatic provoca-tion came at an ideal time to put pressure on Japan. Not only were talks scheduled onthe East China Sea on March 30 and 31, but Japanese Foreign Minister YorikoKawaguchi was scheduled to visit Beijing on April 3–4 for high-level bilateral talks.Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi admitted in a statement to the press thathe was concerned that the arrest of the activists would have a negative effect on bilateralrelations. The Chinese practically admitted the protest about the arrests was being usedto put pressure on Japan. Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo lodged an official protestto the Japanese ambassador the day after the arrests, demanding that Japan recognizehow serious the issue over the arrested Chinese citizens was and warned that “thisissue could be complicated and intensified to jeopardize Sino-Japanese relations. Theserious outcomes from this would have to be borne by Japan.”70 This was followed byan official statement by Chinese Ambassador Wu Dawei to the Japanese Ministry ofForeign Affairs in Tokyo, in which Wu stated, “Should Japan cling obstinately to itsown course and continue its moves to deteriorate China–Japan relations, Japan will beresponsible for all consequences arising thereupon.”71

At the April 3 meeting in Beijing between Kawaguchi and Chinese Premier WenJiabao, Wen linked a number of bilateral issues together, including the territorial dis-pute, by reiterating the Chinese claim to the islands, urging Koizumi and other politi-cians to halt visits to the Yasukuni shrine, and indicating that continued visits not onlyhurt the feelings of the Chinese people, but that the visits could damage future bilateralrelations overall. The Chinese government had not invited Koizuimi to visit Chinasince October 2001 because of his repeated visits to the shrine, despite Chinese objec-tions. A Japanese editorial reacted by recognizing China’s attempted issue linkage:“Beijing should stop trying to exploit the Yasukuni issue,” and “making the Yasukunivisit a diplomatic issue, China is trying to use it as a bargaining chip in its dealings withJapan.”72

According to The Washington Post, other troublesome issues, all related to China’sfear of rising nationalism in Japan, were linked to the territorial dispute issue. Otherissues cited at the meeting included Japan’s support of Taiwanese independence, thedispatching of SDF troops in a non-combat mission to Iraq, and Koizumi’s attempt tochange Article 9 in the Japanese constitution.73 All of these issues were of great con-cern to China, particularly Japan’s stance on Taiwan, which China considers as inter-ference in a domestic issue. The Chinese government-approved landing of activists onthe islands served not just as a signal to Japan about China’s resolve in claiming theislands, but also to compel Japan to seriously reconsider a number of issues. Japanreceived the warnings on these other issues at the bilateral talks with Wen.

A new crisis arose regarding the islands in October 2004, this time due to thedeployment of four armed Chinese navy ships to the waters near the disputed islands.The deployment took place just weeks before bilateral talks were held in Beijing todiscuss China’s ongoing natural gas exploration in the East China Sea. There is littledoubt the Chinese were signaling their resolve to Japan partially to influence the talks.The talks, which lasted much longer than anticipated, ended in stalemate. Besides

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signaling resolve on the islands dispute, there were several reasons for the militaryconfrontation by China. The first issue was ongoing talks on US military realignmentin Japan and the two states’ security alliance. On the day after the East China Sea talkswere being held in Beijing, a senior-ranking Chinese military official, General XiongGuangkai, met with Japanese Vice Minister Takemasa Moriya at the Japanese DefenseAgency (JDA) in Tokyo, warning Japan to be cautious and judicious in its decisionsabout the role of the US military in the region. Moriya acknowledged China’s implicitissue linkage, and responded by protesting that Chinese navy ships had repeatedlyentered Japan’s EEZ area around the disputed islands without prior notice. Xiong alsoprotested Japan’s hosting of multilateral maritime exercises, which started the sameday, involving Japan, the United States, Australia, and France and 18 other observerstates. Finally, Xiong also stated that China was opposed to Japan’s development of amissile defense plan, which could destabilize the strategic balance in the region.74

Two weeks later, on November 10, the deployment of a Chinese nuclear Han classsubmarine in Japanese waters continued to cause friction in bilateral tensions. The Japanesemaritime SDF tracked the submarine with P-3C patrol planes, two destroyers, and anumber of helicopters until the submarine left Japanese waters, only the second timein post-war Japan’s history that the SDF has triggered a naval security alert. Just twodays before, on November 8, the JDA had announced three military scenarios to dealwith China, indicating a strong warning to China that it was considered a seriousthreat to Japan. The first scenario dealt directly with the disputed islands and a poten-tial Chinese attack on the islands by military force. The second scenario dealt withChinese military occupation of marine gas fields in the East China Sea. The third sce-nario was a response to a Chinese attack on parts of Japan in a potential conflict overTaiwan, in order to prevent US forces in Japan from aiding Taiwan.

The JDA report noted that while China was “cautious about using military force tosolve international issues . . . it is likely that the Chinese Communist Party will go itsown way to secure its sovereignty and territory as well as expand its interests in thesea.”75 The Chinese Foreign Ministry responded to the report on November 9 byrejecting Japan’s claims of China as a military threat. The next day, the Chinese sub-marine was found in Japanese waters. The same day, China’s state-run media rebuffedthe JDA report, calling it “full of imagination” and “clearly provocative,” claimingthat the report “is an attempt by Japan to intervene in the settlement of the Taiwanquestion and domestically legalize their claim of sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islandsand territory in the East China Sea.”76 According to Japanese military analysts, theforay of the Chinese submarine was perceived as a signal by China to project its grow-ing naval power relative to Japan.77 For example, Hisahiko Okazaki, a Japanese securityanalyst, stated after the crisis that “China had artificially rekindled public hostilitytowards Tokyo,” using the territorial dispute threat, in order to influence Japan’snationalist agenda.78

Protests and WarshipsIn April 2005, the largest anti-Japanese protests in communist China’s history occurred allacross China against Japanese control of the disputed islands and other disputed issues.The Chinese government tacitly approved the large-scale protests, involving tens of

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thousands of people nationwide in Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shenzhen and othercities. The protesters were protected by hundreds of police, another sign of approvalfrom the Chinese government. Despite Japanese requests to halt the protests and van-dalism against Japanese-owned businesses, the government allowed the protests tocontinue. Though the government had not directly initiated the protests, they wereonly too happy to take advantage of the protests to further their strategic objectiveswith regard to Japan.

The protests, which started at the beginning of April lasted for several weeks andled to violent attacks on the Japanese embassy and Japanese-owned businesses, promptingJapan to condemn the attacks and call for the Chinese government to reign in the pro-testers. The primary organizers of the protests were the same activist groups that hadsponsored several of the government-backed attempted landings on the disputedislands (for example, China Federation to Protect the Diaoyu Islands). The protestersfocused primarily on the territorial dispute by holding banners calling for Japan’swithdrawal from the disputed islands and a return of East China Sea resources toChina, along with complaints about other issues.

The protests began in reaction to two other disputed issues and a decision by Tokyo toallow Japanese companies to explore for natural gas in disputed waters, which Chinacalled a serious provocation. The first of the other issues was the issuance of new Japanesehistory textbooks by the education ministry that were said to whitewash Japan’s war-time atrocities in China. The second reason for the protests was Japan’s active bid for apermanent seat in the UN Security Council, prompting Chinese protesters to call foropposition to such a move and 27 million people to sign an online petition in Chinaopposing the move. In the midst of the protests, Chinese Premier Wen called on Japanto admit its wartime atrocities in China and reconsider its bid for a permanent seat onthe UN Security Council. In his speech, Wen warned that the protests in China shouldmake Japan reconsider its decision. This all occurred just before the Japanese ForeignMinister was scheduled to visit Beijing. Meanwhile, amidst all of these other issues,both states were skeptical of each other’s military ambitions.

The massive protests, which primarily focused on the disputed islands, led to a shiftin Japan’s attitude toward its historical record. On April 23, at a meeting of Asian andAfrican leaders in Jakarta, Koizumi made an official apology for Japan wartime atrocities,one of only a handful since the war ended: “Japan squarely faces these facts of historyin a spirit of humility . . . and with feelings of deep remorse and heartfelt apologyengraved in mind.”79 The Chinese government reacted to the apology by reigning inthe protesters, shutting down anti-Japanese websites, and organizing public lectures incities where protests were held to emphasize the need for good relations with Japan.The Chinese had won this round, though Koizumi would visit the Yasukuni Shrineagain in October 2005.

To officially protest Koizumi’s October 2005 visit to the shrine, China cancelled avisit by Japan’s Foreign Minister and talks that were set to discuss potential jointexploration of natural gas reserves in disputed waters. In the weeks before, while mar-itime border consultations were ongoing, China deployed five naval ships to the dis-puted waters, including missile-equipped destroyers and frigates, dispatched spy planes togather intelligence on Japanese maritime vessels, and announced the establishment of a

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special naval reserve fleet specifically for use in the East China Sea. The Chinese ForeignMinistry justified the establishment of the special naval reserve fleet as a right to pro-tect China’s territorial sovereignty.80 China–Japan relations scholar Reinhard Drifteargues that the military threats were primarily aimed at influencing the upcoming talkson the territorial dispute and potential joint exploration of natural gas resources in thedisputed waters, but it was also used to signal strong discontent at Koizumi’s continuedinsistence that he had the right to visit the Yasukuni Shrine.81

Japanese officials and politicians responded by protesting China’s strategy of issuelinkage and coercive diplomacy – what they called China’s gunboat diplomacy tactic.The head of the Liberal Democratic Party parliamentary group on marine resourcescriticized the Chinese strategy of coercive diplomacy and issue linkage:

The Chinese side has used military power to leverage their political situation. Thesquadron was an attack squadron [five naval ships deployed in September] and itspurpose was quite clear – to strengthen against the Japanese position. This is reallyan unfortunate development, for it could lead to the kind of vicious cycle thatdescends into military conflict.82

Retired US Navy Rear Admiral Eric McVadon, a former military attaché in Beijing,agreed that the Chinese were using the ship deployment as a means to gain leverage:“They were saying to the Japanese, ‘We used to be inferior to you. Now we have to betaken seriously.’”83 Then, just a week later, Koizumi visited the Yasukuni shrine,enflaming China further, leading to the cancellation of talks on the territorial dispute.The tit-for-tat actions of each state demonstrated the attempts by both states to pro-voke the other in their larger relationship by using the territorial dispute in attempts togain leverage. As the claimant state that could take control of the islands away fromJapan, China was able to use territorial dispute threats as bargaining leverage to influ-ence other issues disputed with Japan.

ConclusionsChina has not made any attempts at issue linkage and coercive diplomacy using theislands dispute since 2005 and bilateral relations have improved, yet China still main-tains the ability to use the strategy in the future if need be. In the dozen or so talksheld to negotiate the 2008 joint gas development agreement, China was careful to insistit would not work towards settling the actual territorial dispute. Though the recentthawing of Sino-Japanese relations has made observers more optimistic, the existenceof the territorial dispute will continue to act as an irritation for China and Japan.Despite the natural gas agreement, China continues to press its territorial claim overthe Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, and there is no immediate likelihood of settlement of thedispute. China’s relatively frequent threats to Japan cannot only be explained as ameans of promoting Chinese nationalism. Rather, the best explanation is that Chinacan use threats in the islands dispute as a dual strategy of issue linkage and coercivediplomacy. China has been able to use diplomatic or militarized threats in the territo-rial dispute as bargaining leverage in order to force changes in Japan’s policies oractions regarding other disputed issues. The findings of this study have demonstrated

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that on many occasions in the last three decades, China has successfully applied thestrategy of issue linkage and coercive diplomacy, benefiting from the endurance of theterritorial dispute.

China’s current strategy of negotiating with Japan over joint development of naturalgas and oil resources outside the disputed zone seems to be the most rational strategyin the dispute. Rather than dropping its territorial claim, China maintains its claim forsovereignty, while at the same time benefiting from joint development of some naturalgas resources. By maintaining the territorial claim, China maintains its ability to con-front Japan through diplomatic and militarized threats when other disputed issuesarise. In this way, China can benefit from both development of some natural gas resourcesand simultaneously benefit from using a strategy of issue linkage and coercive diplo-macy to compel Japan to change some action or policy in other disputed issue areas.

Since the maintenance of the territorial claim has low costs for China, there seemsto be little incentive for China to drop its territorial claim. Based on the findings of thisresearch, the only likelihood of China dropping its territorial claim and ending its dip-lomatic and militarized threats to Japan will be when the costs of maintaining the terri-torial claim and threats become higher than the benefits of using the islands dispute asbargaining leverage. If the current status quo situation is agreeable to both sides and thelikelihood of escalation to war is minimal, it is likely that the dispute will continue forsome time and China will have the opportunity to use the dispute when deemed necessary.

The continued endurance of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute has a number ofimportant policy ramifications that are not only significant for China and Japan, butalso Taiwan and the United States in particular. For the US, Japan, and Taiwan,China’s claim over the disputed islands is directly related to a much larger militarystrategy to spread its naval capabilities eastward. This has been particularly importantfor China since the US and Japan announced that Taiwan was a mutual security con-cern in February 2005, a move that China strongly rejected. The disputed islands sitright in the middle of the likely sea route between US forces that would be deployedto Taiwan from Okinawa, a factor of which China is aware. Any action taken on thedisputed islands therefore indirectly affects US military capabilities and Taiwan. SinceTaiwan also claims the disputed islands and China’s claim over the islands is mostlybased on its claim to Taiwan (since the islands are closest to Taiwan), these two dis-putes are closely linked. Taiwan’s claim to the islands could also further complicateTaiwan’s relations with China and Japan.

Another policy problem is that until the dispute is fully resolved, the full potentialof oil and gas resources cannot be realized for energy-hungry China and Japan. Thecurrent ongoing development of natural gas resources in the East China Sea is only asmall part of the anticipated oil and gas resources, which cannot be exploited until thedispute is fully settled. China will inevitably continue to claim that its EEZ extends tothe continental shelf, while Japan will continue to claim the median line between thetwo states to determine each state’s EEZ zones. The islands dispute is critical in deter-mining rights to EEZ zones and therefore oil and gas resources, as well as fishing andother maritime resources.

By far the most important policy consequence is the potential for the disputedislands to continue to trigger tense and difficult relations between China and Japan.

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Though the joint gas project has recently promoted friendlier relations, this does notmean that bilateral relations could not sour in the future due to landings of Chineseactivists on the islands or other opportunities that China has to use the islands to gainleverage in another disputed issue. Until the dispute is finally settled, there will alwaysbe some degree of risk of harming critical economic and diplomatic relations in aregion where these two states are the major movers and shakers.

NOTES

1. Mark J. Valencia, “Pouring Oil on the East China Sea,” International Herald Tribune, February 24, 2005.2. Reinhard Drifte, “Japanese–Chinese Territorial Disputes in the East China Sea – Between Military Confron-

tation and Economic Cooperation,” London School of Economics Asia Research Center Working Paper 242008a, p. 4.

3. J. Curtin, “Stakes Rise in Japan, China Gas Dispute,” Asia Times, October 19, 2005. Estimates for 2010predict that China will import up to three million barrels per day. See Lee Jae-Hyung, “China’s ExpandingMaritime Ambitions in the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean,” Contemporary Southeast Asia Vol. 24,No. 3 (2002), pp. 549–568.

4. The current agreement only allows Japan to invest in and claim proportional profits from the Chinese gas fieldsalready set up. See Reinhard Drifte, “From ‘Sea of Confrontation’ to ‘Sea of Peace, Cooperation and Friendship’?Japan Facing China in the East China Sea,” Japan Aktuell No. 3 (2008) for support of this argument.

5. Mark J. Valencia, “The East China Sea Dispute: Context, Claims, Issues, and Possible Solutions,” AsianPerspective Vol. 31, No. 1 (2007), p. 157.

6. Hungdah Chiu, An Analysis of the Sino-Japanese Dispute over the Tiaoyutai Islets. Occasional Papers, Seriesin Contemporary Asian Studies, No. 1 (Baltimore: School of Law, University of Maryland, 1999), p. 11.

7. Alexander L. George and William E. Simons, eds., The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy (Boulder: WestviewPress, 1994), p. 10.

8. Alexander George, Forceful Persuasion: Coercive Diplomacy as an Alternative to War (Washington, DC:United States Institute of Peace Press, 1991), p. 11.

9. David W. Leeborn, “Linkages,” The American Journal of International Law Vol. 96, No. 1 (2002), pp. 5–27;Robert O. Keohane and Joseph Nye, Power and Interdependence (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977).

10. William Wallace, “Issue Linkage Among Atlantic Governments,” International Affairs Vol. 52 (1976),pp. 163–179; Keohane and Nye, Power and Interdependence.

11. Bernard Hoekman, “Determining the Need for Issue Linkages in Multilateral Trade Negotiations,” InternationalOrganization Vol. 43, No. 4 (1989), p. 695.

12. William J. Dixon, “Reciprocity in United States–Soviet Relations: Multiple Symmetry or Issue Linkage?,”American Journal of Political Science Vol. 30, No. 2 (1986), p. 430.

13. Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966), p. 73.14. Schelling, Arms and Influence, p. 75.15. Schelling, Arms and Influence, p. 84.16. James Mulvenon, “The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy: The 1979 Sino-Vietnamese Border War,” Journal of

Northeast Asian Studies Vol. 14, No. 3 (Fall 1995), pp. 68–89.17. Herbert Yee, “The Sino-Vietnamese Border War: China’s Motives, Calculations, and Strategies,” China

Report (January/February 1980), pp. 15–32.18. Robert S. Ross, “China and the Cambodian Peace Process: The Value of Coercive Diplomacy,” Asian Survey

Vol. 31, No. 12 (December 1991), p. 1175; Robert S. Ross, The Indochina Tangle: China’s Vietnam Policy,1975–1979 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988); Japan Defense Agency, Defense of Japan, 1988(Tokyo: Japan Times, 1989), p. 5. There is general agreement among scholars that the Chinese attack acrossthe border in February 1979 was not intended to be a full-scale invasion, despite media reports to the con-trary. Mulvenon notes that if the Chinese had planned the attack to be a full-scale invasion, “the Chinesecould have thrown a much larger force at the Vietnamese, completely overwhelming their border defense”and that the attack was more like a signal and not like conquering.”

19. Mulvenon, “The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy.” See Ilya Gaiduk, “The Failed Détente in the Asia-PacificRegion,” International Affairs Vol. 54, No. 1 (2008), pp. 113–128 for further support of this argument. TheVietnamese invasion of Cambodia provoked China because China regarded Southeast Asia as its own sphereof influence and Vietnam had attempted to assert hegemony there, and because Cambodia was one of China’sfew ideological allies.

20. Mulvenon, “The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy.” The link between the threat of occupying Vietnam alongthe border and the Chinese demand for Vietnamese withdrawal from Cambodia was not clearly made, espe-cially since the demand was issued along with other threats about border incursions and refugees.

21. Ross, “China and the Cambodian Peace Process,” p. 1175.22. Ross, “China and the Cambodian Peace Process,” p. 1176.

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192 Asian Security

23. Ross, “China and the Cambodian Peace Process,” p. 1174.24. Ross, “China and the Cambodian Peace Process,” p. 1174.25. Peter Dutton, “Carving Up the East China Sea,” Naval War College Review Vol. 60, No. 2 (Spring 2007),

p. 46.26. See Gary Goetz and Paul Diehl, Territorial Changes and International Conflict (New York: Routledge,

1992); John Vasquez, The War Puzzle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Paul Huth, StandingYour Ground: Territorial Disputes and International Conflict (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press,1996) for findings on the salience of territory.

27. He Baogang, “China’s National Identity: A Source of Conflict Between Democracy and State Nationalism”in Leong H. Liew and Shaoguang Wang, eds., Nationalism, Democracy and National Integration in China(New York: Routledge Curzon, 2004), p. 173.

28. Phil Deans, “Contending Nationalisms and the Diaoyutai/Senkaku Dispute,” Security Dialogue Vol. 31, No. 1(2000), p. 120.

29. Han-yi Shaw, “The Diaoyutai/Senkaku Islands Dispute: Its History and an Analysis of the OwnershipClaims of the PRC, ROC, and Japan,” Occasional Papers, Series in Contemporary Asian Studies, No 3.(Baltimore: School of Law, University of Maryland, 1999), p. 5; Unryu Suganuma, Sovereign Rights andTerritorial Space in Sino-Japanese Relations (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000).

30. “Spokesman Favors Leaving Senkaku Issue to Posterity,” Kyodo News Service, October 23, 1990) also seeSuganuma, Sovereign Rights and Territorial Space, p. 143.

31. Deans, “Contending Nationalisms and the Diaoyutai/Senkaku Dispute,” p. 122.32. Peter Hays Gries, China’s New Nationalism (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004), p. 125.33. Chien-peng Chung, “The Diaoyutai/Senkaku Islands Dispute: Domestic Politics and the Limits of Diplomacy,”

American Asian Review Vol. 16, No. 3 (1998), p. 159.34. Erica Strecker Downs and Phillip Saunders, “Legitimacy and the Limits of Nationalism: China and the

Diaoyu Islands,” International Security Vol. 23, No. 3 (1998), p. 117.35. Downs and Saunders, “Legitimacy and the Limits of Nationalism,” p. 122.36. Chien-Peng Chung, Domestic Politics, International Bargaining, and China’s Territorial Disputes (New York:

Routledge, 2004), p. 50.37. Nicholas D. Kristof, “China, Reassessing Its Foes, Views Japan Warily,” The New York Times, October 23,

1990, p. A12. China also criticized the treatment of Taiwanese activists who had attempted to land on theislands on October 21.

38. “China’s ‘Stern Representations’ to Japan Over Islands and SDF,” China Central Television, October 27, 1990.39. “China’s ‘Stern Representations’ to Japan Over Islands and SDF.”40. Steven R. Weisman, “Tempers Cool in Japan–China Island Dispute,” The New York Times, October 31,

1990, p. A7.41. “Senkaku Islands; A Sporting Effort,” The Economist, October 27, 1990, p. 37.42. “Islands of Contention,” The Straits Times, October 27, 1990.43. Downs and Saunders, “Legitimacy and the Limits of Nationalism,” p. 130.44. Downs and Saunders, “Legitimacy and the Limits of Nationalism,” p. 132.45. Japan instead sent minesweepers for cleanup of the Gulf in April 1991.46. Shaw, “The Diaoyutai/Senkaku Islands Dispute,” p. 18; Downs and Saunders, “Legitimacy and the Limits of

Nationalism,” p. 129.47. Downs and Saunders, “Legitimacy and the Limits of Nationalism,” p. 129, italics added.48. Downs and Saunders, “Legitimacy and the Limits of Nationalism,” p. 131.49. Lo Ping, “Bowing to Japanese Yen Has Angered the Masses,” Cheng Ming, November 1, 1990, pp. 6–7.50. “China Accuses Japan of Promoting Right-Wing Revival,” Associated Press, August 29, 1996.51. “China Blasts Ikeda’s Remarks on Senkaku Islands,” Kyodo News Service, August 29, 1996, italics added.52. “China Demands Removal of Senkaku Lighthouse,” Jiji Press, September 10, 1996.53. “China Makes Protest to Japan Over Disputed Isles,” Kyodo News Service, September 10, 1996.54. Alexander Kopnov, “China May Send Troops to Diaoyudao Islands” Russian Information Agency (ITAR/TASS),

September 12, 1996.55. “Chinese War Games Warning to Japan, Protest Boat Leaves Hong Kong,” Agence France Presse, September 22,

1996.56. “China Reiterates Claim to Islands, Plays Up Naval Exercise,” Deutsche-Presse Agentur, September 25, 1996.57. “China Reiterates Claim to Islands, Plays Up Naval Exercise.”58. “China Calls on Japan to Be ‘Sensible’ Over Senkaku,” Kyodo News Service, September 24, 1996.59. Masahiko Sasajima, “Storm Over Senkakus: How to Deal with Hot Nonissue,” The Daily Yomiuri, October 2,

1996, p. 7.60. “Japan, China to Discuss Senkaku Islands Row,” The Daily Yomiuri, September 20, 1996, italics added.61. “China Calls on Japan to Be ‘Sensible’ Over Senkaku.”62. Ibid.63. “Japan, China Agree to Handle Isle Row Calmly,” Jiji Press, September 25, 1996; “Japan Tells China Hashimoto

Won’t Visit Controversial Shrine: Report,” Agence France Presse, September 27, 1996.64. Chung, “The Diaoyutai/Senkaku Islands Dispute,” pp. 154–155.65. “Japan Urged to Draw Lessons From Cunning Chinese,” Agence France Presse, September 26, 1996.

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66. “China Intensifies Activities Near Islands Disputed with Japan,” British Broadcasting Corporation, May 24,1999, italics added.

67. “China Again Summons Japan’s Charge D’Affaires in Islands Dispute,” Xinhua News Agency, March 25, 2004.68. “China Demands Japan ‘Unconditionally’ Release Island Activists,” Xinhua News Agency, March 25, 2004.69. “Japan, China Cancel Sea Treaty Talks After Island Row,” Kyodo News Service, March 31, 2004, italics

added.70. “China Again Summons Japan’s Charge D’Affaires in Islands Dispute.”71. “China Demands Japan ‘Unconditionally’ Release Island Activists.”72. “Beijing Should Stop Trying to Exploit “Yasukuni Issue,” Daily Yomiuri, April 4, 2004, p. 4.73. Anthony Faiola, “Isles Become Focus for Old Antagonism; Japan’s Neighbors, Resentful Since War, View a

Rise in Nationalism With Worry,” The Washington Post, March 27, 2004, p. A13.74. “Chinese Officer Cautions Japan Over US Military Realignment,” British Broadcasting Corporation,

October 26, 2004.75. Kwan Weng Kin, “Japan Sketches Scenarios for a Chinese Attack; Report Reflects Concerns Over Dealing

With a Rising China,” The Straits Times, November 9, 2004.76. “Japanese Agency Cites Chinese Media on ‘Provocative’ Defence Plans,” Kyodo News Service, November 10,

2004.77. Tim Johnson, “Japan–China Tensions Rising, Threatening Region’s Stability,” The Philadelphia Inquirer,

February 20, 2005, p. A03.78. Justin McCurry and Jonathan Watts, “China’s Angry Young Focus Their Hatred on Old Enemy: Anti-Japanese

Fury Is Rising Among Internet Users – A Trend the Sate is Keen to Encourage,” The Guardian (London),December 30, 2004, p. 14.

79. Richard Lloyd, “War Crimes Apology is Welcomed by China,” The Times (London), April 23, 2005, p. 48.80. “China Forms ‘Special’ East China Naval Fleet – Japanese Agency,” British Broadcasting Corporation,

September 17, 2005; Drifte, “From ‘Sea of Confrontation’ to ‘Sea of Peace, Cooperation and Friendship’?,” p. 38.81. Drifte, “From ‘Sea of Confrontation’ to ‘Sea of Peace, Cooperation and Friendship’?,” p. 38.82. “Oil and Gas in Troubled Waters; Japan and China,” The Economist, October 8, 2005.83. Christian Carly and Akiko Kashiwagi, “A Risky Game of Chicken; Japan and China’s Growing Assertiveness in

the East China Sea Could Start a Military Skirmish – Or Worse,” Newsweek, September 18, 2006.

Krista E. Wiegand (PhD, Duke University, 2004) is Assistant Professor in the Department of PoliticalScience at Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Georgia, USA. She has published several journalarticles on territorial disputes, terrorism, and conflict management.

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China's Strategy in the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands Dispute: Issue Linkage and Coercive Diplomacy

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