Asia has the world’s most populous countries — China and India. It has the fastest growing economies — again China and India. It has the biggest armies — China, India, Russia and Pakistan. It has three nuclear powers. And now a fight over territory threatens to grow into possibly the biggest conflict of the year on the planet.
On Jan. 22, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe became the first top Japanese leader to give the keynote address at Davos’s World Economic Forum, where he put China down without naming it. He will be the first Japanese premier to be chief guest at India’s Jan. 26 Republic Day parade. This puts Abe at the heart of it. As he spends three days in India, Abe is expected to discuss Japan’s differences with China, with his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh.
China and Japan are fighting over ownership of islands in the East China Sea. China calls them Diaoyu; Japan calls them Senkaku. Territorial disputes are different from terrorism. It is possible to take immediate and strong positions on terrorism. Countries do so. But it is not so simple when it’s about boundaries, which is why land issues seem to last forever. India and Pakistan look set to bicker over Kashmir for another 30 years. And Japan and China have begun to get aggressive.
Look at the tone of the five most important sentences Abe spoke at Davos. “If peace and stability in Asia is shaken, the effect on the rest of the world will be enormous. Trust, not tension, is crucial in Asia and in the rest of the world. This can only be achieved through dialogue and the rule of law, and not through forceful coercion. We must restrain military expansion in Asia, which could otherwise go unchecked. Military budgets should be made completely transparent and there should be public disclosure in a form that can be verified.”
Simply put, Japan and China do not trust each other. India and Pakistan too have trust issues but Kashmir is not an international pathway. It is a landlocked state that principally affects the three parties involved: Kashmir, India and Pakistan. China and Japan could drag India, South Korea and Russia into their dispute. The United States has already taken a position friendly to Japan.
China is the second-biggest economy in the world with a huge footprint of grey market goods in India. Japan is the third-largest economy with a big stake still in India although South Korean electronic products are racing away. India is number 11 right now but is expected to overtake Japan in 2028 and China in 2048 on its way to the top. This barely leaves space for a military crisis.
Which is why Abe spoke of the colossal effect an Asian confrontation would have on the world. It is possible that New Delhi might feel for Japan. India has its own boundary problems with China and it understands exactly what Abe means by forceful coercion. China is able to ratchet up stress levels at will. It did so over Arunachal Pradesh with India and it has done so over its air defense identification zone over the disputed East China Sea islands.
China has the biggest army in the world. It has nuclear weapons. Japan has sworn after World War II never to wage war again. But nations can barely be expected to stay pacific if their boundaries are changed without consent. Abe has a more emphatic stance on military policy and security of Japan. He has spoken of using force to help allies under attack. He also thinks Japan’s post-WWII peacenik constitution needs revision.
Like all crises, the East China Sea dispute too has a backstory. China and Japan can go a long way into the past to justify current hostility. Pakistan and India do the same, as do the Koreas. Foes and friends need to know where they stand. It is possible to understand a vicious foe. It is difficult to get a sense of a bad friend. This is what gnaws at India, Pakistan, China, Japan and the Koreas. They are friends and foes.
The scale of worry would be different if these countries had a pocketful of disputes. We could leave it to them to sort things out. The trouble is that Asia is the engine that is expected to drive global economy for the conceivable future. This is why we need to take notice when Abe says the tension between China and Japan now is similar to the rivalry between Britain and Germany in the years before World War I.
The market does not like mayhem. It is therefore possible that China and Japan might still scale back. But pride sees nothing. All it needs is a sense of wounded dignity for dawn to turn to twilight.
— The writer is an independent journalist based in India. He may be contacted at [email protected].
