Collision Course: Japanese pride demands nothing less than a “victory” over its Sea Shepherd foes. If one is not given to her, then she will simply take it and be damned. New Zealand and Australian diplomacy should, therefore, concentrate on what Japan is willing to give in return for the victory she demands.
ON 11 JULY 2012, the Japanese Prime Minister ordered an
undisclosed number of naval vessels belonging to Japan’s Self-Defence Force to
the Senkaku Islands. They were responding to the “violation” of Japan’s
Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) by three naval vessels flying the flag of the
People’s Republic of China. In short order, the Chinese vessels were met,
followed and escorted out of Japan’s EEZ by SDF warships.
The sovereignty of the Senkaku Islands is hotly disputed by
at least three jurisdictions: Japan, Taiwan and China. A glance at both the map
and the history books, however, makes it clear that the nation with the best
claim to the islands (situated in the midst of vast proven oil reserves) is the
People’s Republic of China.
References to these tiny specks of land (which the Chinese
call the Diaoyu
Islands) appear in Imperial Chinese documents dating back to the
Sixteenth Century. It was only in the late Nineteenth Century that, like so
many other chunks of East Asian real estate, they became the spoils of the
Japanese war machine. All that now prevents the islands’ long-delayed
repatriation to their rightful owner, is the United States determination to
retain the strategic co-operation of its Japanese ally.
That the presence of three Chinese naval vessels in its EEZ
was sufficient to activate such an aggressive naval response from the Japanese
Government is something Kiwis should keep in the back of the minds as they
attempt to make sense of Japan’s own wilful violation of New Zealand’s EEZ.
That violation came in spite of Wellington informing Tokyo
that all vessels belonging to the Japanese “scientific whaling” fleet should
remain outside the New Zealand EEZ. In other words Tokyo expressly authorised
the Shonan Maru 2 to transform itself
into a strong diplomatic message to the New Zealand Government.
In transmitting that message, the Shonan Maru 2 has been greatly assisted by a New Zealander. Glen
Inwood is the official spokesman for the NZ Institute for Cetacean Research – a
Japanese front organisation established to defend not only the Japanese
Government’s “scientific whaling” programme, but also, at need, to serve as
Tokyo’s unofficial mouthpiece.
Interviewed by Radio NZ’s Morning Report on Monday, Inwood made it very clear that, so long
as New Zealand remained content for her harbours to be turned into safe havens
for the re-provisioning and repair of the Sea Shepherds’ anti-whaling fleet (in
this particular case, The Steve Irwin)
then the Japanese would continue to exercise their right to pre-emptive
self-defence in New Zealand’s EEZ.
The same chauvinist pride that prevents Japan from
acknowledging that it took the Diaoyu Islands by force (along with Taiwan and
Manchuria!) from its Chinese neighbours, has hardened
its attitude towards the Sea Shepherd organisation. The Japanese
Fisheries Agency’s new policy of pre-emptive self-defence reflects the
anti-whaling fleet’s unprecedented success in protecting the pods of the Great
Southern Ocean during the killing season of 2012/13.
But Japan’s aggressive tactics have had only limited success
in the present season, and so long as the Sea Shepherds’ vessels can find safe
haven in Australian and New Zealand waters, the Fishery Agency’s ability to
meet its “research” targets will continue to be compromised.
If the Australian and New Zealand effort to have Japan’s
“scientific” programme ruled illegal at the International Court of Justice
succeed, then the possibility for a significant escalation of hostilities in
the Great Southern Ocean will only increase.
In those circumstances the best option for Australian-New
Zealand diplomacy might be to offer to facilitate one more year of Japanese
cetacean “research” by closing our ports to the Sea Shepherd fleet. In return
the Japanese Government would undertake to suspend its “scientific whaling”
programme indefinitely.
Japanese pride demands nothing less than a “victory” over
its Sea Shepherd foes. If that is not supplied to her, then she will take one
anyway. And thanks to the debilitating defence policies of successive New
Zealand governments, there’s nothing we can do to stop her.
This essay was
originally published in The Dominion Post, The Waikato Times, The
Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru
Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 14 February 2014.
