Chapter Nine
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Senkaku issue. The PRC always tries to work together with Taiwan in
order to falsely frame the Senkaku issue as a matter close to all Chinese,
but China’s efforts have not borne fruit. The president of the ROC, Ma
Ying-jeou, issued an official statement that the ROC refuses to cooperate
with the PRC on the Senkaku issue because of Chinese military expansion
and disagreement on sovereignty over Taiwan. It is said that the U.S.
pushed Taipei to this statement. Since 1996, Japan has negotiated the
terms of the Japan-ROC fishery agreement nearly 16 times, but the talks
eventually stalled in 2008. In December 2012, Japan offered to restart the
negotiations with Taiwan and both sides agreed. Due to the lack of
diplomatic relations between Japan and the ROC, the Interchange
Association of Japan and the East Asia Relations Commission of the ROC
signed the agreement on April 10, 2013.
According to the agreement, Japan accepts free fishery activities by
Taiwanese fishing boats in the overlapping area of the Exclusive
Economic Zone (EEZ) of Japan and ROC. The area is located northward
from the Sakishima Islands.^20 The agreement excludes the Senkaku Islands
from the shared area. This means de facto putting the sovereignty issue
aside and sharing maritime resources together, a solution that the PRC
advocates.
Will Japan Restore Militarism Again?
Recently, the PRC and South Korea (ROK) strongly criticized Abe’s
defense and foreign policy, maintaining that “Japan aims to restore
militarism again,” or that “Japan speeds up to shift to the right.” In
examining whether the criticism is correct or not, it becomes clear that,
first, Japan, the PRC and the ROK are not militaristic states like North
Korea, with a military-first policy, but the PRC and the ROK have more
militaristic and nationalistic tendencies than Japan. Second, the PRC is
good at shaping national opinion and stirring patriotism in China with anti-
Japanese sentiment. Third, Japan’s goal is not to become a militaristic
country again but to keep the US commitment to the national defense of
Japan.
(^20) Local municipalities and fishermen from Japan have been criticizing the
agreement as a significant concession to the ROC, because the Japanese
government decided to sign the agreement without sufficient explanation and
setting necessary rules to protect the interests of the Japanese fishing industries in
the newly opened area (about 4,530 km2).