Chamber: United Nations Security Council

Agenda: The Situation in Syria

Country: United States of America
The Senkaku-Diaoyu Cliff: A Hawkish Future
Almost eight decades after Japans Cabinet approved the annexation of the Senkakus in 1895 as part of Okinawa Prefecture, Chinas
Foreign Ministry issued a statement asserting territorial sovereignty over the same group of islands which it regards as the Diaoyus, marking the
crystallization of what subsequently evolved into a long-standing, patriotism-driven territorial dispute in the East China Sea. Two layers of major
disagreements, on whether the islands had actually been terra nullius at the time of occupation by Japan and whether they were forcefully ceded to
Japan through the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki, had been preventing both claimants from reaching common technical grounds essential for dispute
settlement. The political air has been consistently turbid and increasingly polarizing, mainly in relation to Chinas repeated maritime surveillance
intrusions into what Japan regards as its territorial waters near the islands and Japans continuous refusal to acknowledge the existence of
territorial dispute. While the series of bilateral negotiations held since 1972 had barely touched the core issue, the dispute apparently risks escalating
into a dangerous, full-fledged military clash between the two superpowers, judging from Japans and Chinas simultaneous jet fighter scramble in
the airspace above the islands and Chinas alleged activation of fire-control radar towards Japans destroyer and helicopters, both surfacing in early
2013.
Washingtons Rebalancing Towards the East
Embarking from its Asia-Pacific strategic pivot, recently rephrased as rebalancing, US seeks to maintain liberal international order in
the region by ensuring that international law and norms are respected and that disagreements are resolved peacefully without threats or coercion. It
is reasonably fair to assert that US, although incidentally, has been deeply involved since more than half a century ago in the diplomatic standoff
between Japan and China, which in turn became a serious opportunity for US to persuade the latter to realign itself with modern, rules-based
international order. US views itself as a historical key player in the dispute, for it had once put the islands under its administration for nearly two
decades, starting with the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, which put an end to Japans status as an imperial power of the World War II, and
concluding with the 1971 Okinawa Reversion Treaty, which factually served as a kickoff for Japans new administrative jurisdiction over what it
regards as the Senkakus.
Despite that US bestows de facto acknowledgement on Japans current administrative control on the disputed area, it believes that the
1971 Okinawa Reversion Treaty could in no way prejudice any underlying claims on territorial sovereignty, which it regards as a matter for
resolution by the parties concerned, as documented in 1971 in a letter from the Acting Assistant Legal Adviser, Robert Starr, and as reiterated in
1996, 2010 and 2012. In order to balance this neutral stance with the strategic commitments of containing Chinas hawkish gesture and firmly
affirming the status of US-Japan alliance, US publicly submitted in 1996, through a statement from William Perry, the Secretary of Defense, that the
area also falls within the scope of Article 5 of the 1960 US-Japan Mutual Security Treaty which obliges US to protect Japan from its enemies, and
has since then consistently reemphasized this position for several times, as in 2004 and 2009.
To prevent further aggravation of the already complicated situation, US continued to intensify the deterrence towards China by passing in
early 2013 through the Congress a resolution stressing that the unilateral action of a third party would not affect the US acknowledgement of the
administration of Japan over the disputed islands, which was publicly restated in the same year by the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.
Nevertheless, believing that a naval clash between US and China in the East China Sea is not within the interest of any global actors of the modern
century, US has been calling for cooler heads to prevail, as urged by Kurt Campbell, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia, and
has conducted several diplomatic visits to both countries since 2010 to seek the beginning of trilateral private consultations to peacefully determine
possible resolutions for the dispute.
Security Council: Freeze-And-Settle Resolution
In order that the Security Council could issue a comprehensive resolution which effectively addresses the turmoil, US seeks to push two
basic premises to be preliminarily agreed upon by the Council members, aiming at avoiding complex yet unnecessary peripheral debates. First,
members should put their utmost priority on a specific territorial dispute upon the eight islands and surrounding territorial waters, which is not to
be confused with another dispute on the overlapping exclusive economic zones of the two countries. Second, although China might regard this as a
sensitive matter, members need to come to an objective consensus that Japan has been holding an effective control upon the disputed area, defining
Chinas and Japans status as challenger and defender, respectively, from the perspective of international relations. Provided that those points
are in order, US would further propose the following two pillars of mechanisms to resolve the ongoing dispute in a peaceful manner.
Conflict Freezing: The Security Council should demonstrate its authority to demand the disputing parties to cease all civilian activities in the area,
including but not limited to resource extraction, scientific research and political visit. China should be called upon to respect Japans administrative
control on the islands and surrounding territorial waters, and immediately stop its frequent maritime surveillance intrusions into the area. In
return, Japan would be urged to appropriately enhance its coast guard operations while automatically and safely deporting any foreign civilian
intruders back to their origin countries. To reduce the risks of possible misinterpretation of signals slipping into a violent clash in the event that
marine units of both sovereign entities are positioned within a close vicinity, Japan and China should be requested to promote the 2003 Code for
Unalerted Encouters at Sea (CUES) developed at the Western Pacific Naval Symposium, of which both disputing parties were attendants. It is also
imperative that both countries act with restraint to refrain from provocative political remarks, domestic policies and, intuitively, military gestures,
which had often heightened bilateral tensions in the region. However, US refuses the notion of setting a DMZ in the East China Sea for this matter,
considering the strategic importance of the waters for collective self-defense against lingering security threats from North Korea. Finally, both
parties should responsibly protect any foreigners and foreign assets subject to destructive impacts of social unrest associated with the dispute. With
a view to engineer a conducive atmosphere for initiating dispute settlement procedures, these demands are pursuant to Chapter VII of the UN
Charter and the urgency to reverse the situation back into the status quo observed when the dispute crystallized, which was at the time of Chinas
initial declaration of its territorial sovereignty upon the islands in 1972.
Pacific Settlement: Observing a worryingly stagnant trend that both parties to the dispute have been avoiding direct talks both upon territorial
sovereignty over the islands and upon conflict prevention technicalities, the Security Council needs to take the initiative by establishing a good office
mission, ideally consisting of UN Secretary General and representatives from three Council members including US, which would act as a facilitator
for intensive discussions between Japan and China aiming at negotiated, mediated or conciliated solutions on the basis of mutual respects. Such
diplomatic mission, besides serving as a go-between in the process of promoting a peaceful settlement, should also actively endorse a proposal that
both countries welcome the deployment of a reasonable size of UN unarmed monitoring mission in the area, which would be entitled to the tasks of
ensuring that the disputing parties comply with the conflict freezing measures specified in the resolution, reporting necessary updates on the
situation to the Council members on a regular basis, and possibly substituting the role of Japans coast guard in the area temporarily with Japans
consent. Nevertheless, the Security Council should cautiously take into account a historical reality that territorial sovereignty has traditionally been
a sensitive issue to be loosely compromised by any state actors, thus likely to yield another diplomatic deadlock unless disputing parties agree to
shelve the territorial issue and put the long-term stability management mechanisms as the main priority. In such event, without prejudice to US
withdrawal from the compulsory jurisdiction protocol of the International Court of Justice in 2005, US objectively believes that the ultimate
solution for both parties is to agree upon a fact-based, legally binding judicial settlement by bringing the case forward to the Court, or to the
Permanent Court of Arbitration as a more flexible alternative. These efforts and recommendations are in accordance with the mandates of the
Security Council specified in Chapter VI of the UN Charter and other relevant treaties on pacific settlement of international disputes.

References
Caleb Wan, Security Flashpoint: International Law and the Islands Dispute in the Far East.
Carlos Ramos Mrosovsky, International Laws Unhelpful Role in the Senkaku Islands.
Charter of the United Nations and Statute of the International Court of Justice (San Fransisco: United Nations, 1945).
James Manicom, Cooperation and Confrontation in the East China Sea Dispute: Lessons for China-Japan Relations (Adelaide: Flinders
University, 2009).
Japans Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Senkaku Islands (2012).
Ji Guoxing, The Diaoyudao (Senkaku) Disputes and Prospects for Settlement.
M. Taylor Fravel, Explaining Stability in the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands Dispute.
Mark E. Manyin, Senkaku (Diaoyu/Diaoyutai) Islands Dispute: US Treaty Obligations (Washington DC: Congressional Research Service, 2013).
Martin Lohmeyer, The Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands Dispute: Questions of Sovereignty and Suggestions for Resolving the Dispute (Canterbury:
University of Canterbury, 2008).
Reinhard Drifte, Japanese-Chinese Territorial Disputes in the East China Sea: Between Military Confrontation and Economic Cooperation
(London: London School of Economics, 2008).
Sheila A. Smith, Japan and the East China Sea Dispute (Washington DC: Foreign Policy Research Institute, 2012).
Shigeyoshi Ozaki, Senkaku Islands and Japans Territorial Rights.
Tetsuo Kotani, The Senkaku Islands and the US-Japan Alliance: Future Implications for the Asia-Pacific.
Vivek Kapur, Chinese Aerial Patrols Over Senkaku Island (New Delhi: Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, 2012).
What Does International Law Say About the China-Japan Dispute Over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands? (The Hague: The Hague Institute for Global
Justice, 2012).
William B. Heflin, Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands Dispute: Japan and China, Ocean Apart (Hawaii: Asian-Pacific Law and Policy Journal, 2000).
Yves Tiberghien, The Diaoyu/Senkaku Dispute: Analyzing the Chinese Perspective (Toronto: Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada, 2012).