RI seeks role in defusingEast China Sea tension

[MarveL]

RI seeks role in defusing East China Sea tension

Claiming to have contributed to the solution-finding process in the South China Sea territorial dispute, Indonesia has offered a helping hand in addressing the growing tension in the East China Sea in a “neutral” way.

While many may view Jakarta as reluctant to be decisive, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Sunday that Indonesia “is not apathetic” about the overlapping claims by China, South Korea and Japan in the East China Sea, which had also triggered protests by the US.

“When there was a deadlock in the South China Sea dispute, we took the initiative even though we are not among the claimants. Our efforts were recognized,” the President said, suggesting that such efforts could also be done for the East China Sea dispute.

“Indonesia cares about finding fair and peaceful solutions in our regions. That is our ideology,” Yudhoyono told a press conference at the Halim Perdanakusuma Airport in East Jakarta on Sunday.

The President, First Lady Ani Yudhoyono and delegates had just returned from Tokyo, Japan, where he joined other Southeast Asian leaders and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to attend a commemorative summit.

Issues about the territorial dispute reportedly overshadowed the summit with leaders raising the issue in their statements.

Japan asked its Southeast Asian partners to help resolve the issue during last week’s ASEAN-Japan Commemorative Summit in Tokyo, which many saw as an attempt to put pressure on Beijing.

But Yudhoyono took a very diplomatic stance and declined to take sides on the issue, by saying, “good relations between Japan and China are critical to the future of our region”.

“When we gathered in Tokyo, the economic issues were actually nothing new other than Japan and ASEAN making commitments to enhance cooperation. But the atmosphere and most of the attention were driven by the tensions in the East China Sea. There were serious discussions on the issue,” the President said.

Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa echoed the opinions of other ASEAN leaders about the importance of promoting international rules on airspace, amid concerns about Chinese military assertiveness that has raised regional tensions.

China’s recent announcement of an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) that covers islands in the East China Sea, which are controlled by Tokyo but also claimed by Beijing, triggered protests from Japan, the US and South Korea. “The strained situation in East Asia remains, and in the South China Sea the situation has yet to calm down. So, it is relevant now for the partnership to enter a political dimension,” said the President.

In Tokyo, Yudhoyono also had a bilateral meeting with Abe, as well as a meeting with Japan’s top CEOs.

“The meeting also included CEOs from 15 top Japanese companies who have businesses in Indonesia. They indicated that they wanted to increase their business and investment in Indonesia,” he said.

RI seeks role in defusing East China Sea tension | The Jakarta Post

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ASEAN Leaders Caught Between Tokyo, Beijing

By Toko Sekiguchi
CONNECT

A nuanced joint statement from leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations following their meeting in Tokyo, illustrated the difficulty Prime Minister Shinzo Abe faces in trying to attract more support for Japan in a region heavily influenced by China.

Leaders of ASEAN countries pose for a photo session for the ASEAN-Japan Commemorative Summit at Akasaka State Guesthouse in Tokyo on Dec. 14.

The gathering over the weekend was supposed to be a three-day photo op commemorating the 40th anniversary of Japan’s relationship with the association that also demonstrated some success for Mr. Abe’s recent efforts to strengthen ties with its members.

But the meeting took on unexpected importance as the first major Asian summit to take place since China’s surprise announcement in late November that it had set up an air-defense identification zone encompassing disputed islands in the East China Sea.

Mr. Abe has been on a charm offensive in Southeast Asia, described as the “ASEAN Year” for Japanese diplomacy. Having visited all the ASEAN member states in the last 12 months, Mr. Abe looked to cap his campaign by pledging ¥2 trillion ($19.4 billion) in aid and loans to member nations over the next five years Saturday. He promised not just infrastructure projects and disaster relief measures, as Japan has long done, but also maritime security training and patrol boats–an acknowledgement of border skirmishes in the South China Sea between China and some of the member states.

But any mutual understanding reached in 2013 didn’t translate into a robust statement condemning Beijing’s move to establish the air-defense zone.

While Japan succeeded in rallying support for a pledge to “strengthen cooperation to ensure the freedom of overflight and civil aviation safety in accordance with the universally recognized principles of international law,” the statement didn’t name China as a regional security concern or its ADIZ.

That’s because ASEAN countries are torn in a tug-of-war of allegiance between Asia’s top two economic powerhouses. China is now the ASEAN’s biggest trading partner, with 13% of total trade, followed by Japan, with 11%, according to 2012 statistics from the association. But those figures vary widely among particular nations.

For the Philippines, Japan is its biggest export market, while it imports about the same from the two economic giants, according to the World Trade Organization. About 27% of Myanmar’s imports are from China, compared with only 5.3% from Japan in 2012.

The Japan Bank for International Cooperation notes that a third of Cambodia’s authorized foreign direct investment between 1994 and 2011 was by China, while Japan’s FDI during the same period comprised only 0.6%.

“If you line up the ASEAN countries in a spectrum of their willingness to strengthen cohesion to send strong messages to China…it would look like this, ranking from most willing to least: Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia,” said Ernie Bower, a senior adviser & Sumitro Chair for Southeast Asia Studies at the Center for Strategic & International Studies.

A rough measure of where the ASEAN leaders stand on relations with China and Japan was apparent in their responses to Mr. Abe’s mention of China’s ADIZ in their bilateral meetings.

At one end of the spectrum, was Benigno Aquino, president of the Philippines. He can sympathize with Mr. Abe over his China woes, as his nation has its own territorial row with Beijing in the South China Sea. The defense ministers of Japan and the Philippines agreed to boost their security ties just days before the meeting. Mr. Aquino was one of the few ASEAN leaders to explicitly call for “freedom of flight in international airspace” after a bilateral meeting with Mr. Abe.

Japanese officials briefing reporters also said Mr. Aquino didn’t need any prompting to discuss the sensitive topic. While Mr. Abe raised the issue of China’s ADIZ with nearly all the other leaders, “Mr. Aquino brought it up himself,” said deputy cabinet spokesman Hiroshige Seko.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, meanwhile, told Japanese lawmakers on Friday that rebuilding trust between China and Japan was vital to the whole Asia-Pacific region.

For his part, Hassanal Bolkiah, the sultan of Brunei and current ASEAN chair, simply told Mr. Abe that “disputes should be resolved by dialogue,” without referring to any particular row.

At the other side of the spectrum were Beijing allies like Cambodia and Myanmar. Japanese officials said Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen told Mr. Abe he was pleased to hear the premier was making efforts to improve the relationship with China.

Myanmar President Thein Sein simply nodded when the Japanese prime minister explained his concerns about the East China Sea, Mr. Seko said.

-Yoshio Takahashi contributed to this article.

ASEAN Leaders Caught Between Tokyo, Beijing - Japan Real Time - WSJ

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