The Sino-Japanese downward spiral deepens

The claws are well and truly out. Despite Japan’s release of Chinese fisherman Zhan Qixiong on Friday, China was not satisfied. The following day, it promptly demanded an apology and compensation from Japan, which was just as promptly rejected. In an official statement, China’s Foreign Ministry reiterated that it was “unlawful and invalid for Japan to detain, investigate or take any form of judicial measures against the Chinese fishermen and trawler.”

Zhan was also in agreement, affirming that the Diaoyu islands belong to China. “It’s legal that I go there to fish but it’s illegal that they detained me. I did not violate the law,” he said.

Japan, however, said China’s demand was “unacceptable.” It retorted that the Senkaku islands, as they are also known, belong to Japan itself, and Zhan was violating Japanese law by colliding in the disputed islands.

Since Saturday’s diplomatic faux pas on China’s part, which has unnecessarily deepened a quarrel that may otherwise have been able to rest, Japan has toughened its stance on the Middle Kingdom. Firstly, as the WSJ reports, it asked China to pay for the damage caused to the Japanese patrol boats after Zhan’s collision. “The ball is in China’s court,” Yoshito Sengoku, Japan’s chief government spokesman, said at a press conference today. Former Foreign Minister  Katsuya Okada was also quoted as saying, ”everybody knows that China is not a democratic country, but the latest demand will make that explicit.” Later this afternoon, it was also reported that the Japanese government ordered two Chinese fishery patrol boats to move away from the hotly contested waters.

The heat continues to be turned up. Meanwhile, onlookers are wondering who the winner is, if there indeed is one, as Al Jazeera’s Melissa Chan writes:

You wonder what the rest of the countries in Asia are thinking.

Not only did China get its way, everyone else saw it, and saw how it was done, too. You can’t imagine Vietnam, with its own territorial dispute with China, feeling any safer. Or the rest of ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations). Or South Korea. Or the people of Japan, as they watch their leaders capitulate.

Suddenly, everyone desires a referee in all this. Suddenly, everyone wouldn’t mind too much if the United States were around more often. China might have gotten its way this time, but perhaps at the cost of a more vigilant America.

*Updated* – Dealing with Qinghai

Image from china.org.cn

Update: The Telegraph’s Malcolm Moore and Al-Jazeera’s Melissa K. Chan have said foreign journalists have been banned from quake zone because it is too dangerous. Moore also says that Chinese blogs have reported road blocks 80km outside of Yushu. For photographs (although very distressing) of the aftermath, click here.

Yesterday a 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit Yushu, Qinghai province, killing over 500 and injuring around 10,000. Hundreds remain trapped, and according to the Yushu Red Cross, 70% of local schools have collapsed. In the nearby township of Jiegu, 85% of buildings were destroyed. A local spokesperson told Xinhua:

The streets in Jiegu are thronged with panic, full of injured people, with many of them bleeding from their injuries. (…) The biggest problem now is that we lack tents, medical equipment, medicine and medical workers.

The government has dispatched emergency personnel, over 3,000 paramilitary police and disaster response specialists to Yushu county, but infrastructure is damaging the relief work. According to reports from AP and The Guardian, the nearest airport is damaged, the road to Yushu has been blocked by a landslide, and several transmission stations are out of action. Rescue teams have also said they lacked heavy lifting equipment, instead relying on their bare hands to clear rubble, and one army police officer told The Guardian he and his team had no medical equipment.

A lingering thought is how far Wednesday’s quake will be similar to the Wenchuan earthquake of 2008, during which 87,000 died and China came under intense fire for shoddily built schools and restricted media reporting. So far, it has been reported that 56 students in Yushu have died, with tens upon tens remaining trapped. Evan Osnos cites a Xinhua report in which a teacher at Yushu Primary School said: “Morning sessions had not begun when the quake happened. Some pupils ran out of the dorm alive, and those who had not escaped in time were buried.”

Given Yushu’s population density being higher than Wenchuan’s, it is hoped there will be fewer casualties. Indeed, drawing parallels between the two at this stage is largely speculative, as news trickles through and relief efforts continue.

Interestingly, there does seem to be a more open approach to media coverage of the tragedy. Reports have cited Qinghai Propaganda Department head Jidi Majia calling on the media “to be responsible, to strengthen the role of guiding public opinion, strengthen political consciousness in propaganda work. (…) We must be ready to accommodate media from outside the province, and let everyone see the spirit of the Qinghai Province people, see that we are not afraid of difficulties.”

However, searches for the topic on the Baidu post bar initially resulted in the following message: “Sorry, according to relevant laws, regulations and policies, this bar [discussion] is temporarily not open.” According to the WSJ, a subsequent Twitter discussion soon led to searches for Qinghai on the post bar producing results.

For more details of the tragedy, see The Guardian’s interactive guide. Plus, if you would like to donate to Qinghai, click here.

Ousted editors, mummy astronauts and no more Namibia (*updated*)

• While breath was held over the 1st March’s joint editorial calling for reform of China’s hukou (household registration system), today one of its authors was ousted. The Economic Observer’s deputy editor in chief, Zhang Hong, was removed from his position and the paper’s top editors received stern warnings, the WSJ reported. *update, 10.03.10 – Zhang has also released this letter (kindly translated by the WSJ) explaining the context and reasoning behind the editorial.*
• In China and want to do some online research about Namibia? Mei you result. According to The Namibian, the southern African country’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) is keen to question President Hu Jintao’s son over a corruption case involving Nutech (of which Hu Haifeng was once chief), allowing the GFW to rear its filtering head when the topic is searched on the PRC’s web.
• Chinese officials are so concerned that going into space could damage the fertility of the country’s first female astronauts, that only mothers are being picked for training. According to an expert at an air force hospital in China, women are better suited to the role of astronaut than men: they are “more mentally stable, better able to bear loneliness and had better communication skills”, she told The Guardian.
• TIME‘s Austin Ramzy has provided some answers to why China is putting the brakes on its military spending, as announced during the NPC session. In addition to cutting costs in order to control inflation and delve out more to rural and social sectors, Chinese officials are now more cautious about intimidating foreign observers with the PLA’s stature, Ramzy says.
• Shanghai Scrap author Adam Minter was not impressed with the US’ pavilion for the upcoming Expo, and not just because of a “mediocre, uninspiring” design. In his piece for Foreign Policy, he gives a detailed overview of the nepotism and fundraising fiascos embroiled in the build-up to May’s event.
• The severe cut of communication networks in Xinjiang following 2009′s riots may be easing, as recent reports have claimed that the region’s return to the forgotten areas of the WWW is near. Josh from Far West China, however, offers 5 reasons why we should take these claims with a pinch of the proverbial.