Thursday, 28 October 2010 00:00
When Asian leaders gather for three days of talks in Hanoi on Thursday, they may be getting front-row seats to a sparring match between regional economic heavyweights China and Japan.
The two rivals are embroiled in their worst spat in years, sparked by a maritime territorial dispute, in a year when an increasingly assertive China has eclipsed Japan as the world’s second-biggest economy.
Southeast Asian nations that have their own territorial beefs with China have watched the row with interest, as has the United States, which has long been the dominant military power in Asia-Pacific.
In a sign of the bad blood between Japan and China, they still had not confirmed a bilateral meeting at the Hanoi summit between their premiers, Wen Jiabao of China and Japan’s Naoto Kan, by mid-week.
The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) meets from Thursday in the Vietnamese capital and a 16-nation East Asia Summit is being held Saturday, also to be attended by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Asean groups Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
China’s foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu on Tuesday said, “We hope the Japanese side will take concrete actions to create the necessary conditions and atmosphere for meetings between the two sides.”
Wen and Kan met briefly and informally in Brussels during an Asia-Europe meeting on October 4 for their first talks since the maritime incident, but both governments have again traded recriminations since then.
The row started when Japan’s Coast Guard on September 8 arrested a Chinese fishing trawler captain after two collisions near a Japan-administered island chain in a part of the East China Sea with suspected energy resources.
China reacted with fury, issuing protests, scrapping meetings and cultural events in a diplomatic offensive that continued after Japan freed the captain, and nationalist sentiment has sparked street protests in both countries.
It also has levied punitive economic measures, industry sources say, by freezing the export of rare earth minerals, in which it has a near-monopoly. The minerals are crucial for Japan’s high-tech industries.
Looming shortages of the minerals—required for products from iPods and hybrid cars to guided missiles—have also worried the United States, and have led Japan to look to India and Vietnam as future sources.
The United States was quick to voice support for its ally Japan during the row, while some observers have expressed surprise at China’s saber-rattling.
“Japan caved in to China, but Beijing is the real loser,” Robert Dujarric, the director of the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies at Temple University’s Tokyo campus, wrote in a recent commentary.
“Its words and deeds, which sharply contrasted with Japan’s softer approach, helped anti-China ‘hawks,’” Dujarric said. “Japanese, Americans and others who argue that China’s rise is a positive-sum game have lost face.”
East Asia security expert Carl Thayer of the Australian Defense Force Academy said that “most countries in the region were taken aback, if not shocked, by the strong line that China took.”
Many Asian nations already worry about China’s growing assertiveness over disputed territories—especially South China Sea archipelagos also claimed in full or in part by Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines.
The United States has weighed in, saying that such disputes should be resolved through diplomacy not coercion—effectively backing its wartime-foe Vietnam, whose fishing boats have been detained by China near disputed islands.
But few in the region will want to draw the ire of rising China, a major source of aid and investment in emerging Asia, analysts say.
“In reality, many if not most countries in the Asia-Pacific do not want to get involved in opposing China directly,” said Thayer. “They count on the United States and Japan to do that.”
Also ahead of the Asean Summit, the Philippines and Vietnam signed agreements to further enhance their bilateral relations in education, defense, environment and search-and-rescue at sea.
According to a Malacañang statement, President Benigno Aquino 3rd and Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet on Tuesday witnessed the signing of the four agreements during their meeting.
“These agreements will improve the lives of the poor,” President Aquino, who is in Vietnam for a two-day state visit and to attend the 17th Asean Summit, said.
After the signing, the President met with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung at the Prime Minister’s Office.
He congratulated the Vietnamese premier on Hanoi’s 1000th founding anniversary.
In turn, the Vietnamese prime minister congratulated Mr. Aquino for his success in the May 2010 elections.
In the evening, the President attended a state banquet hosted in his honor by Vietnamese President Triet at the Presidential Palace.
He promised Triet a quick review of poaching cases filed by the Philippine government against 32 Vietnamese fishermen caught fishing within the country’s territory.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Secretary Ricky Carandang said that Mr. Aquino vowed to revisit the cases “in accordance with Philippine laws.”
During the two leaders’ meeting, Carandang added that the President and Triet talked about the “shared position on the South China Sea that all claimants should abide by the Code of Conduct.”
He said that the two also agreed that “Myanmar should do more to move toward democracy.”
Mr. Aquino is in Vietnam for a two-day state visit (October 26 to 27) and to attend the Asean Summit (October 28 to 30).
AFP with report from Cris G. Odronia
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