China’s backlash shows neighbourhood who it is

When someone shows you who they are, believe them.
China’s Asian neighbours are getting a lesson in the advice from the late US author and civil rights activist, Maya Angelou, with Beijing firing missiles over Taiwan and landing five in Japan’s exclusive economic zone — something even North Korea tends to shy away from.
Japan, of course, has little power over where US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi goes. Chinese authorities had no need to provoke Tokyo over her visit to Taipei, and could have kept up the fantasy that a Taiwan conflict doesn’t need to involve Japan. Hawks here don’t believe that, but there are enough doves who want to think China is a friend that the nation is conflicted. Before the military drill began, for example, former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama accused the US of inviting war and said Japan would be “foolish” to go along with the US.
This way of thinking could have carried weight in a nation that last month lost its most prominent and respected hawkish voice with the assassination of Shinzo Abe. But Chinese authorities can’t resist revealing their predilections, refusing even to acknowledge that Japan’s EEZ exists. It exposes Beijing’s “respect the rule of international law, but only when it suits us” stance. With Japan deep into a debate on defense spending, the move is a gift for hawks and likely only to deepen the alliance between Washington and Tokyo — often overlooked in a potential conflict between China and Taipei. Taiwan is located just 100 kilometers off Japan’s westernmost point, and China doves like Hatoyama will find their arguments don’t travel so far when missiles are flying.
Before China sent warships across the Taiwan Strait’s median line on Friday in a continuation of its biggest military show of force in decades, reports indicated that Japan’s Defense Ministry will seek a 5.5 trillion yen ($41 billion) budget next year. That would be a record, but a less than a 1% increase on the amount sought last year. Beijing’s actions will lend credence to voices demanding more radically increased spending. One former Pentagon official called on Japan to triple its defense budget.
Not everyone, of course, reacted this way. Perhaps most surprisingly, South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol opted not to meet with Pelosi at all, citing a scheduling conflict with his holidays. As one of the region’s closet US allies, Seoul’s silence on the missile launches — at time of writing, there hasn’t even been a statement issued — has also been notable. Even more so because if anyone knows what it’s like to deal with a crotchety China, it is South Korea. After all, it has only been a few years since Seoul was on the receiving end of China’s petulance, hit with unofficial economic sanctions over its decision to deploy the THAAD defense system, which it said was aimed purely at the threat of North Korean missiles. Beijing wasn’t so sure.
What will China do next? The administration is skilled at playing the long game. While the world’s attention will likely move on to the next crisis, weeks and months from now China will still be thinking about Taiwan. While its backlash hasn’t been as heavy-handed as some feared (and Beijing promised), don’t assume that it’s finished yet. Tokyo’s dealings in another disputed territory, the islands known in Japan as the Senkakus and in China as Diaoyu, show how. Over a decade ago, when Chinese ships first entered Japanese territorial waters, such a provocation made international headlines. But having sustained such intrusions for a decade now, these days no one pays attention to such moves.
Similarly, little by little, China will likely continue to push at the status quo surrounding Taiwan. The challenge for Japan, the US and their allies is to maintain focus when tensions calm down — and not be distracted when China, inevitably, plays nice again.

—Bloomberg

Gearoid Reidy is a Bloomberg News senior editor covering Japan. He previously led the breaking news team in North Asia and was the Tokyo deputy bureau chief