CIGS Special Seminar

Sea Power, Sino-Japanese
Security Relations, andthe Geopolitics of Continental
and Maritime Nations
Speaker: Alessio Patalano
Lecturer, Department of War Studies,
Research Associate, King's China InstituteKing's College London

Introduction
Jun Kurihara, Research Director
Canon Institute for Global Studies (CIGS)
Kurihara.Jun@gmail.com

September 10, 2012
Canon Institute for Global Studies
Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo©2012 CIGS
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the author.

China’s nine-dotted line/Nánhǎi Jiǔduànxiàn/南海九段线 orthe “cow’s tongue” line/Zhōng​guó Niú​shéxiàn/中国牛舌线
http://military.people.com.cn/GB/8221/72028/76059/78907/8872217.htm

CIGS Special Seminar: “Sea Power, Sino-Japanese Relations, and the Geopolitics of Continental and Maritime Nations”

Dr. Patalano’s Talk: Today’s Topics

Slide No. 2

The sea is a factor of growing significance in Sino-Japanese security relations.
Structurally, the People's Republic of China (PRC, hereafter China) andJapan are connected to each other through the East China Sea (ECS).
Functionally, over the past two decades, the waters of East Asia have come toplay a primary role in their respective national security agendas. The main
sea routes passing through the ECS offer vital arteries for Chinese andJapanese trade. Fish stocks and natural resources in this basin areinvaluable to food and energy requirements of both nations. The ECS
constitutes also a main staging platform for the deployment of capabilities todefend national territories as well as for the projection of power (soft andhard) and influence in the region and beyond.
How do Chinese and Japanese strategists view the evolving role of the ECS
in security calculations and how is this affecting bilateral security relations?
Is the maritime nature of the theatre going to affect the ways in which China
and Japan engage with each other, and if so, how? This seminar engages
with the above questions investigating how, over the past two decades thestrategic meaning of the sea evolved in both countries and how this in turnaffects and is likely to affect bilateral security relations.

CIGS Special Seminar: “Sea Power, Sino-Japanese Relations, and the Geopolitics of Continental and Maritime Nations”

Slide No. 3

Program
1. Welcome Remarks Michio Suzuki, Secretary-General, CIGS

2. Wanted: Japan’s Adroit Strategy amidst Sino-American Rivalry
Jun Kurihara, Research Director, CIGS“In estimating danger there should be a certain sobriety of imagination,equally removed from undue confidence and from exaggerated fears.”
Alfred Thayer Mahan“Exchange information.” . . . This is of great importance in achieving
a common language. (“互通情报”。… 这对于取得共同的语言是很重要的。)
Mao Zedong/毛泽东

3. Sea Power, Sino-Japanese Relations, and the Geopolitics ofContinental and Maritime Nations
Alessio Patalano, King’s College London

4. Q&A Moderator: Jun Kurihara

CIGS Special Seminar: “Sea Power, Sino-Japanese Relations, and the Geopolitics of Continental and Maritime Nations”

Slide No. 4

Problematic Peace? Chinese Naval Exercises Conducted in the Western Pacific in 2011
Chinese Authorities​
PLA Navy (PLAN)/Zhōng​guó Hǎi​jūn/中国海军​
Fleet HQ: Qīng​dǎo: Běi​hǎi​
Jiàn​duì/the North Sea Fleet​
Fleet HQ: Níng​bō: Dōng​hǎi​Jiàn​duì​/the East Sea Fleet​
Fleet HQ: Zhàn​jiāng: Nán​hǎi​Jiàn​duì​/the South Sea Fleet​
China Coast Guard/Hǎijǐng/海警​ (M. of Public Security)
China Marine Surveillance/Hǎijiàn/海监​ (State Oceanic Adm.)
Maritime Safety Administration/Hǎishì/海事​ (M. of Transport)

NingboQingdaoZhanjiang

Fisheries Law Enforcement Cmd./
Yúzhèng/鱼政 (M. of AG.)​Customs Anti-smuggling Bureau/Hǎi​guān Jísījú/海关辑私局​(General Adm. of Customs)

National Institute for Defense
Studies (NIDS), “China Security
Report,” 2012, p. 11.

CIGS Special Seminar: “Sea Power, Sino-Japanese Relations, and the Geopolitics of Continental and Maritime Nations”

Slide No. 5Unsettled Peace? Claimed Borders in the South China Sea“A stable global
order ultimately
depends on
America’s ability torenew itself and toact wisely as thepromoter andguarantor of arevitalized West andas the balancer andconciliator of a rising
East.” Zbigniew
Brzezinski, Strategic
Vision, New York:
Basic Books, 2012,
p. 192.

National Institute forDefense Studies(NIDS), “ChinaSecurity Report,”
2012, p. 19.

CIGS Special Seminar: “Sea Power, Sino-Japanese Relations, and the Geopolitics of Continental and Maritime Nations”

Slide No. 6

Pervasive Historical Analogies . . . .
“China Territorial Disputes: A Warning in the History of Imperial Japan,”
Christian Science Monitor, Sept. 5, 2012.
by Joseph A. Bosco (previously worked at the office of the secretary of defense (OSD)) andWallace C. “Chip” Gregson (Lt. General (Ret.), former Commander, U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific)“Applying World War II terminology to China’s current behavior may seem overblown, but it is apt.
In fact, China’s actions also resemble those of another bad actor of that tragic period: ImperialJapan.”; cf. “美媒称中国在南海行为太像2战日本 应加以挫败” «环球网» [Global Times], Sept. 6, 2012.
“美国《基督教科学箴言报》9月5日刊登的学者文章甚至将中国比作‘帝国主义时期的日本’，并鼓动
以西方为首的西方国家应团结一致，挫败中国的‘冒险主义。’”“What Roosevelt Would Do in the South China Sea,”
Financial Times, Sept. 4, 2012.
by James Clad (former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs) andRobert Manning (former Senior Strategist, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) National Counterproliferation Center)“Planting flags on islets, declaring cities where there are too few residents to fill a restaurant, andhuffing and puffing over uninhabited rocks are acts more suited to a Gilbert and Sullivan farce than tonations in the 21st century. Absurdities aside, the tensions in the South China Sea could shape thebalance of power in Asia and put at risk . . . . The current surge of interest in the South China Sea isdriven first, by China’s steady rise and second, by the perception (if not the reality) of oil and gas
deposits that may be accessible using new technologies. . . . A creative diplomacy for the South China
Sea needs, for starters, to rein in rivalry.”

CIGS Special Seminar: “Sea Power, Sino-Japanese Relations, and the Geopolitics of Continental and Maritime Nations”

Slide No. 7

Wisdom Needed to Avoid A Vicious Spiral of Pre-WWI Anglo-German Rivalry . . . .
Timeline toward Pre-WWI Belligerent World
1890: End of Bismarckian Germany; Beginning of the Wilhelmine Era
Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783
1896: First Lord of the Admiralty Goschen: the “Splendid Isolation” Speech
1897: Anglophobic Alfred von Tirpitz appointed head of the German Imperial Naval Office
Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future
1898: Das erste Flottengesetz (First German Naval Law)
1900: Das zweite Flottengesetz (Second German Naval Law)
1901: Kaiser Wilhelm II: the “Ein Platz an der Sonne (A Place in the Sun)” Speech
1902: Anglo-Japanese Alliance against Russia
1904: Anglo-Franco Entente Cordiale against Wilhelmine Germany
Anti-German British Admiral John “Jacky” Fisher appointed First Sea Lord
1904~1905: Russo-Japanese War
1905~1906: the First Moroccan Crisis
1907: the Crowe Memorandum, warning against the rise of Germany
Germany accounts for half of world exports of electrical equipment
Anglo-Franco-Russian Triple Entente against the 1882 Triple Alliance
1911: the Agadir Crisis, or the Second Moroccan Crisis
1912: First Lord of Admiralty Churchill: the Speech calling the German Navy a “luxury”
1914: A German general becomes a military commander for the Ottoman Empire
Outbreak of WWICIGS Special Seminar: “Sea Power, Sino-Japanese Relations, and the Geopolitics of Continental and Maritime Nations”

Land or Sea Energy Security?:

Slide No. 8

China’s Import Transit Routes and Proposed Routes for Bypassing SLOCs
Russia-China Gas
Pipelines

Kazakhstan-China CrudeOil Pipelines
Russia-China Crude Oil
PipelinesKazakhstan-China Gas
Pipelines

Turkmenistan-China
Gas Pipelines
Burma-China Crude Oil Pipelines

Burma-China
Gas Pipelines

Source: U.S. Dept of Defense (DoD), “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s
Republic of China 2012,” 2012, p. 41.

CIGS Special Seminar: “Sea Power, Sino-Japanese Relations, and the Geopolitics of Continental and Maritime Nations”

Slide No. 9

Can Economic Interdependence Be Helpful?:
An Illuminating Historical Case: Anglo-German Rivalry . . . .
“日本对华投资逆势增长/Japan’s Growing Investment in China”«新华网» [Xinhua], Sept. 7, 2012.

“Industry itself was divided: between 1904 and 1914 Britain was Germany’s best
overseas customer, and Germany was Britain’s second best; twenty-two out offorty international producer cartels were Anglo-German organizations.”(Hew Strachan, The First World War, Volume I: To Arms, New York: Oxford University
Press, 2001, p. 23; see also, Zara Steiner, Britain and the Origins of the First World War,
London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1977, pp. 60-64.)“Economic interdependence is not always a cause of friendship and can, at times,
becomes a major source of insecurity and friction.”(Aaron L. Friedberg, A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle for
Mastery in Asia, New York: W.W. Norton, 2011, p. 47; see also, Kenneth Waltz, Theory ofInternational Politics, New York: McGraw-Hil, 1979, pp. 129-160.)

CIGS Special Seminar: “Sea Power, Sino-Japanese Relations, and the Geopolitics of Continental and Maritime Nations”

Slide No. 10Toward A More Peaceful Asia: A Small Step, If Not A Giant Leap . . . .
Developing “Confidence Building Measures (CBMs)”
Avoid Misperceptions and Miscalculations by Developing a Common Language“It was people who actually precipitated wars.”
John Stoessinger (in his Why Nations Go to War, quoted in China, the United States, and 21stCentury Sea Power, edited by Andrew S. Erickson et al., Annapolis, MD: Naval InstitutePress, 2010, p. 41).

Maintain and Expand the 35-year-old Council on Political and Economic Affairs ofChina [中国政経懇談会/中政懇]; cf. “Japan-China Military Confidence Building
Measures,” by Toshimichi Nagaiwa and Jun Kurihara, Tokyo-Cambridge Gazette: PoliticoEconomic Commentaries No. 7, CIGS, October 11, 2011.

Prevention of Incident at Sea (and Unbridled Nationalism)
An INCSEA-like agreement: the prototype: the U.S.-Soviet 1972 agreement; cf. “The Limitsof U.S.-China Military Cooperation: Lessons from 1995-1999” by Kurt Campbell andRichard Weitz, Washington Quarterly Vol. 29, No.1, 2005.

Promotion of Military-to-Military Cooperation in Non-traditional Areas
Development of Non-traditional Activities incl. MOOTW (Military Operations OtherThan War); cf. “中国军方成立非战争军事行动研究中心” «中国新闻网» [China News]
Dec. 12, 2011.

CIGS Special Seminar: “Sea Power, Sino-Japanese Relations, and the Geopolitics of Continental and Maritime Nations”
Slide No. 11

Dr. Alessio Patalano’s Latest Book: Maritime Strategy and National Security in Japanand Britain: From the First Alliance to Post 9/11 (published in 2012).

Edited by Alessio Patalano, King's College, London
Sharing a similar geography at the opposite ends of theEurasian Continent and dependent on maritime trade tosupplement the lack of strategic resources, both the UK andJapan relied on the sea for their economic survival andindependence as sovereign states. From the first alliance in 1902,
through the World Wars, to the more recent operations in theIndian Ocean and Iraq, sea power has played a central role inthe strategic calculus of both countries. This thought-provoking
book, comprising contributions from a group of international
scholars, explores the strategic meaning of being an island
nation. It investigates how, across more than a century, sea
power empowered - and continues to empower - both the UK
and Japan with a defensive shield, an instrument of deterrence,
and an enabling tool in expeditionary missions to implement
courses of action to preserve national economic and security
interests worldwide.
Positioned within the comparative literature on Japan and theUK, the volume will have wide-ranging appeal including studies
in Anglo-Japanese Relations, Naval Military History, andStudies in East Asian Defence and Security, including AngloAmerican and US-Japan strategic interests(http://www.brill.com/maritime-strategy-and-national-security-japan-and-britain)