Japan's Growing Angst over the South China Sea

Summary

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1. • As tensions have ratcheted up in the South China Sea over the past several years, Japan has expressed growing concern at negative developments and the lack of progress in implementing effective conflict management mechanisms.

2. • Japan is not a claimant, but as a major maritime trading nation it is a significant stakeholder in the dispute.

3. • Tokyo is alarmed at China's increasingly assertive posture in the maritime domain, and views the disputes in the South and East China Seas as linked.

4. • Japan has two major concerns over the South China Sea. First, that instability has the potential to disrupt the free flow of maritime trade on which the country's economic prosperity depends. Second, that if China is able to persuade or coerce other Asian nations into accepting its claimed “historic rights” in the South China Sea, existing international legal norms would be undermined.

5. • To mitigate its concerns, Japan is pursuing a number of strategies: it raises the problem at regional security forums; it tries to encourage ASEAN unity on issues of maritime security; it discusses the problem bilaterally with Southeast Asian countries and provides capacity building support to selected claimants (principally the Philippines); and it seeks closer ties with other external stakeholders which share its concerns.

INTRODUCTION

In a speech that was due to be delivered in Jakarta on 18 January—but postponed due to the hostage crisis in Algeria—Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stressed the vital importance of Asia's maritime domain to Japan:

Japan's national interest lies eternally in keeping Asia's seas unequivocally open, free, and peaceful—in maintaining them as the commons for all the people in the world, where the rule of law is fully realized…In light of our geographic circumstances, the two objectives are natural and fundamental imperatives for Japan, a nation surrounded by ocean and deriving sustenance from those oceans—a nation that views the safety of the seas as its own safety.

That Abe chose to focus on maritime security during his first overseas trip since assuming office on 26 December 2012 is unsurprising for two reasons.