Sub incident fuels clash between China, Japan

By The Associated Press and Los Angeles Times

NG HAN GUAN / AP Chinese demonstrators burn Japanese flags during a March protest outside the Japanese embassy in Beijing over disputed islands in the East China Sea.

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TOKYO — Despite a thriving economic partnership, political ties between Japan and China are at their lowest ebb in years. The two countries are locked in disputes over World War II history, natural-gas exploration and now a bold incursion by a Chinese nuclear submarine.

The startling intrusion by a Chinese nuclear submarine last week into Japanese waters introduced a disturbing military aspect to the tensions between East Asia's two leading powers, putting greater urgency on calls for a repair in relations.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said he has called for a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Santiago, Chile. Both men will attend the summit beginning Saturday, as will President Bush and other Pacific Rim leaders.

China expressed regret through diplomatic channels yesterday that one of its nuclear-powered submarines intruded into Japanese territorial waters last week for "technical reasons," Japanese officials said.

A spokeswoman refused to confirm that China had apologized or even that the submarine belonged to China.

This was at odds with the word from Japan. "China has said it regrets the incident and will carry on its policy of partnership with Japan unchanged," Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura told reporters in Tokyo, relaying a message given to Japan's ambassador in Beijing.

The submarine, reportedly a Han class model, was spotted in Japanese waters off Okinawa on Nov. 10. Japan gave chase with destroyers and a patrol plane as the sub zigzagged toward China, passing the contested Diaoyu islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan.

The turmoil is a marked contrast to flourishing business relations. Bilateral trade hit a record $130 billion in 2003, a 30.3 percent increase from the previous year, and officials expect another record to be set this year.

Political ties, however, have long been rocky between Asia's most populous nation and its biggest economy.

Japan's military conquest of China in the 1930s and 1940s and what the Chinese see as Tokyo's reluctance to atone for its aggression have gnawed for decades at Chinese sensitivities.
 
The countries also have squabbled over territory and natural resources. Both, for instance, claim the cluster of Japan-controlled East China Sea islands, called the Senkakus in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese where the sub was spotted.

In addition, the two are sparring over Chinese exploration of natural-gas fields near Okinawa that Japan claims could infringe on its exclusive economic zone, and they have competing plans for an oil pipeline from Siberia to East Asia.

China's spectacular economic performance has turned it into a global growth engine, and Beijing is eagerly converting that power into diplomatic influence, especially among Southeast Asian countries that Japan had long considered its back yard.

Tokyo fears being eclipsed and has eyed with suspicion Beijing's military spending and diplomatic maneuvering. The influential right-wing strongly favors responding with a more robust and assertive Japanese military.

Experts said it was possible that the Chinese vessel strayed off course. But it was more likely, they said, that the sub was on a reconnaissance mission. The waters where it was spotted are politically and militarily sensitive, because they contain resources claimed by both countries and are near Taiwan.

China has made no secret of its intention to attack Taiwan if the island declares independence and has been building up its naval, technological and command-and-control systems to that end. Beijing considers Taiwan a Chinese province. The two split in 1949 after a civil war.

While the submarine incursion did not turn violent, it has come to symbolize the escalating friction between China and Japan in recent years.

The intrusion prompted calls for greater military vigilance in Tokyo, and joined a long list of incidents that have soured the atmosphere between China and Japan.

Koizumi has angered China repeatedly since 2001, when he began making annual visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, a war memorial that China and other critics deride as a glorification of Tokyo's military aggressions.

China has responded with a virtual block on summits between the two countries, calling for an end to the visits as a prelude to warmer ties.

The anger overflowed dramatically in August, when rowdy Chinese fans booed, spat and burned Japanese flags when the Japanese soccer team visited for the Asian Cup tournament.

The frayed relations between East Asia's two heavyweights has raised concerns throughout the region. Some say the economic links, robust as they are, would bloom much more fully without the tensions. Japan is competing with Europeans and others for business in China, and there is concern the friction puts the Japanese at a disadvantage.

"Economic cooperation is happening," said Makoto Iokibe, a political scientist at Kobe University. "But if the political ties became better, China might be able to cooperate on major projects such as buying Japanese bullet trains."