1. Introduction
3.3. Parties’ economic and strategic necessities
3.3. Parties’ economic and strategic necessities
Another important aspect to examine, it is to understand the involve parties’
behavior in the dispute based on their economic and strategic necessities. For instance, the main challenge for China will be the bargain between its foreign investment safety and its access to natural resources, especially oil and gas. Therefore, Chinese leaders have to prevent any military conflict in order to maintain its remarkable economic growth and prosperity. An additional question is how assertive the nationalism sentiment will remain in Chinese politics and educational system. The fact that strategic investors (Japan, Taiwan, and U.S.), which are crucial for China’s economic development.
Furthermore, in terms of values and principles there is a certain constraint of interaction of China with Taiwan, especially with Japan and the United States [92].
Human rights, religious beliefs, international law, and democratic political institutions do not fit within the CCP foundations. Most of the times such principles are attached to the policy making process. Therefore, these values and principles are important to avoid misperceptions among Beijing-Taipei-Tokyo-Washington foreign policies. In this sense, Chinese leaders have influenced the American interests not only in East Asia, but also in other regions by building strategic alliances with governments opposed to the U.S. (North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, and Sudan, among others).
Certainly, China will continue to foster the relationship with these governments, in order to globally compete with the United States [92].
Additionally, an important point for China’s foreign policy is to guarantee the access of hydrocarbons beyond its borders. In fact, it is China’s large demand on energy and the instability of free markets that have created certain insecurity among the Chinese leaders to rely on energy and commodities imports. Hence, China will encourage the exploration and exploitation of natural resources inside and outside of its sovereignty. Consequently, in the long term, Japan and the United States will be
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the main nations affected by the emergent Chinese demand on hydrocarbons and raw materials. For instance, increase of foreign oil prices will eventually take place, following a more direct confrontation over disputed maritime boundaries with natural resources attached as in the Pinnacles case. Therefore, the parties will try to justify its claims with the support of nationalism in order to secure or pursue their economic interests [52, 16].In September 1970, Taiwan’s legislative body promulgated the Statute for Exploration and Exploitation of Petroleum in Offshore Areas in the East China Sea. A month later, the Taiwanese government also announced the delineation of five reserved offshore petroleum zones. Under these legislations, the exploration and exploitation of natural resources were extended between the limits of the Okinawa Trough and the outer edge of the East China Sea continental shelf as well as the South China Sea [39, 23]. Taiwan has limited energy resources and relies on oil and gas imports principally from the Middle East. The Taiwan’s oil consumption increased more than double from 1990 to 2010, accounting an average annual growth of 2.93 percent. The gas consumption multiplied dramatically to 606 million cubic meters in 1990 to 13,354 million cubic meters in 2010. Overall, Taiwan’s dependence was 99.3 percent in 2010, which was 30 percent more than 2009. Therefore, the ROC Ministry of Economic Affairs Bureau of Energy has proposed initiatives to diversify the energy resources and secure its access [93].
In the meantime, China’s and Japan’s energy needs are more challenging. For instance, China remains as the most populated nation, and its rapid economic growth has substantially enhanced its energy demands. Indeed, China’s energy needs have multiplied over the last two decades. Furthermore, China has already surpassed Japan as the second world’s largest oil consumer after the United States [94]. According to the World Energy Outlook (2006), China will exceed the U.S. oil demands by 2020, accounting about the twenty percent of the world’s sum by 2030 [19]. Chinese leaders have prognosticated that within two decades the internal demand will exhaust its oil and gas reserves [95]. In light of this problem, the Chinese government published the first report on energy “China’s Energy Conditions and Policies” on December 26th, 2007. This document underlines the China’s strategy of energy development inside and outside of its sovereignty [96].
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Currently, China’s imports of hydrocarbons from the Middle East account to fifty percent of its entire energy imports. However, Beijing has not limited their import to this region, and it has fostered relationships with other oil producer countries and strategic partners, such as Angola, Myanmar, North Korea, Venezuela, and Sudan. In fact, China has developed energy programs in Angola, Sudan, and other African oil producer nations, by which China obtains one third of its oil imports from Africa. Venezuela granted Chinese firms to conduct surveys of its oilfields. Myanmar is planning to build an oil pipeline across its frontier with China. North Korea and China ratified an agreement to cooperatively develop undersea oil reserves in the East China Sea. Evidently, as long as Chinese population increases and their living standards grow, China will compete with the United States for oil and gas reserves around the world [19, 97, 98].The remarkable economic growth of China has also allowed the country to make huge investments on its defensive lines. Indeed, China’s military modernization has been centered to assert its territorial disputes and to guarantee its access to natural resources. As discussed above, the PLAN for developing its strategies has coordinated an extensive drills and strategies along the East China Sea and South China Sea.
However, China has not yet established a joint military operation with its allies [92], which can bolster its military power in East Asia. Meanwhile, China’s military tensions over its territorial disputes will be more tangible as in the Pinnacles case, risking the region stability and power balance that the United States has tried to maintain for almost seven decades. China already surpassed Japan as the second economy in the world after the United States. Certainly, as China’s economy continues growing, its military capabilities are growing as well. The military capabilities of the PLA are increasing progressively, while those of JSDF are only growing marginally. China’s military budget has increased double digits each year, while the JSDF’s account is basically nulled.
It seems that the strategy of Chinese military modernization aims at extending its power and influence. In 2002 only, China’s rapid economic growth made it possible to budget one hundred billion dollars for military expenses. The PRC have acquired several Su-27 and Su-30 Russian-made combat jets, and it has also improved its missile defense capabilities. The Chinese government has acquired supersonic 3M-80E missiles, Moskit SS-N Sunburn missiles, and SA-N-7 missiles. Between 2003
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thirty percent, buying Soveremenny destroyers and Kilo-class submarines, as well as stealth diesel submarines and Project-094 nuclear submarines [17]. In general, from 2000 to 2009, China’s shares of military modernization have increased in all its defensive lines: 1) surface ships from less than five percent to around twenty five percent; 2) submarines from less than ten percent to fifty percent; 3) air force from less than five percent to about twenty five percent; and 4) air defense from about five percent to around forty to forty five percent [18].Japan’s oil supplies heavily rely on the Middle East, which compose of 86 percent of its total imports. However, after the Oil Crises in the 1970’s, the Japanese government launched a program to diversify its energy sources, to secure its strategic reserves, to do research and innovation (R&I) on green energy and sustainable development. Likewise, China’s oil demand will continue to exceed that of Japan in 2020. Under this circumstance, Japan will gradually encounter a lot of competition for hydrocarbons. Therefore, Japan’s energy security policy has turned more conscious over China’s increasing demands [19, 99]. This reality has already replanted the Japanese political agenda to consider whether or not Japan should still rely on energy imports. As a result, the Japanese Diet promulgated the “Fundamental Law of Energy Policy” in 2002. Basically, this regulation stipulates for safeguard the energy supply with a diversification of resources and their sustainable development [100].
Afterwards, the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy of Japan published the
“New National Energy Strategy” in 2006. This strategy is aiming to satisfy the energy demand and supply toward year 2030 by saving energy and securing national energy resources. This initiative is an attempt of the Japanese government to reduce its dependency on energy imports and reinforce the diversification of other sources of energy [99].
The Japanese government’s preliminary initiative was the nuclear energy.
Nowadays, about thirty percent of the Japanese energy originates from nuclear reactors. The Basic Energy Plan stipulated that by the year 2030 fifty percent of Japan’s electricity would have come from nuclear power. Nonetheless, the core initiative has been unsecured after the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami disaster,
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Therefore, Japan still has to rely on energy imports to compensate its domestic energy shortage and to ensure its economy. Recently, Japan started negotiations with Russia for the construction of gas pipelines between both nations connecting the Russian island of Sakhalin and Wakkanai, Hokkaido [102].
Under these conditions, it is very hard for Japan to give up the Pinnacle Islands’ undersea resources. Consequently, the word ‘Pinnacles’ denotes a difficult challenge for the Japanese government because of China’s ambitious plans for seeking natural resources bolstered by an ardent nationalism and anti-Japanese sentiment [34, 22]. For that reason, there is a possibility that China will seek to assert its power in the region by continuing its military build-up and pointing towards armed force solutions to address its energy problems. In light of the Sino-Japanese tensions for competition over energy supply and natural resources, this possible latent conflict scenario will remain.
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