|
NOTE TO READERS
In the first two decades of the twentieth century, the relationship between the United States and Japan was marked by increasing tension and corresponding attempts to use diplomacy to reduce the threat of conflict. Each side had territory and interests in Asia that they were concerned the other might threaten. U.S. treatment of Japanese immigrants, and competition for economic and commercial opportunities in China also heightened tensions. At the same time, each country’s territorial claims in the Pacific formed the basis for several agreements between the two nations, as each government sought to protect its own strategic and economic interests.
 At the turn of the century, U.S. and Japanese interests appeared to be aligned. Both nations supported the idea of an “open door” for commercial expansion in China. After the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt acted as a mediator at Japan’s request, and the two sides of the conflict met on neutral territory in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In the same year, U.S. Secretary of War William Howard Taft met with Prime Minister Katsura Taro in Japan. The two concluded the secret Taft-Katsura Agreement, in which the United States acknowledged Japanese rule over Korea and condoned the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902. At the same time, Japan recognized U.S. control of the Philippines. In the years that followed, however, tensions rose over Japanese actions in northeast China and immigration to the United States. In 1905, the Japanese started to establish more formal control over South Manchuria by forcing China to give Japan ownership rights to the South Manchurian Railway. The Japanese used this opening to make further inroads into northeast China, causing the Roosevelt Administration concern that this violated the ideals of free enterprise and the preservation of China’s territorial integrity. Simultaneously, leading Japanese officials expressed frustration with the treatment of Japanese immigrants in the United States. A U.S.-Japanese treaty signed in 1894 had guaranteed the Japanese the right to immigrate to the United States, and to enjoy the same rights in the country as U.S. citizens. In 1906, however, the San Francisco Board of Education enacted a measure to send Japanese and Chinese children to segregated schools. The Government of Japan was outraged by this policy, claiming that it violated the 1894 treaty. In a series of notes exchanged between late 1907 and early 1908, known collectively as the Gentlemen’s Agreement, the U.S. Government agreed to pressure the San Francisco authorities to withdraw the measure, and the Japanese Government promised to restrict the immigration of laborers to the United States.
With the immigration problem temporarily settled, the two countries met to provide mutual reassurances about their territories and interests in East Asia. In 1908, U.S Secretary of State Elihu Root and Japanese Ambassador Takahira Kogoro formed an agreement in which Japan promised to respect U.S. territorial possessions in the Pacific, its Open Door policy in China, and the limitation of immigration to the United States as outlined in the Gentlemen’s Agreement. The Government of Japan redirected its labor emigrants to its holdings in Manchuria, maintaining that these were not a part of China. For its part, the United States recognized Japanese control of Taiwan and the Pescadores, and the Japanese special interest in Manchuria. By reiterating each country’s position in the region, the Root-Takahira Agreement served to lessen the threat of a misunderstanding or war between the two nations. This series of agreements still did not resolve all of the outstanding issues. U.S. treatment of Japanese residents continued to cause tension between the two nations. The Alien Land Act of 1913, for example, barred Japanese from owning or leasing land for longer than three years and adversely affected U.S.-Japanese relations in the years leading up to World War I. Economic competition in China, which the United States feared would result in increasing Japanese control, was another issue that increased tensions between the two nations. In 1915, the Japanese issued its “Twenty-One Demands” of China, in which it asked that China recognize its territorial claims, prevent other powers from obtaining new concessions along its coast, and take a series of actions designed to benefit the Japanese economically. China turned to the United States for assistance, and U.S. officials responded with a declaration that they would not recognize any agreement that threatened the Open Door. Although this was consistent with past policies, this announcement was of little use to the Chinese. However, President Woodrow Wilson was not willing to take a stronger stand given his need for assistance in protecting U.S. interests in Asia, addressing the growing conflict in Europe, and managing racial issues in California.
The potential for conflict between the United States and Japan, especially over China, led the two governments to negotiate yet again. In the Ishii-Lansing Agreement of 1917, Secretary of State Robert Lansing acknowledged that Manchuria was under Japanese control, while Japanese Foreign Minister Ishii Kikujiro agreed not to place limitations on U.S. commercial opportunities elsewhere in China. The two powers also agreed not to take advantage of the war in Europe to seek additional rights and privileges. Though non-binding, Lansing considered the agreement an important measure in promoting mutual interests in Asia, but it proved short-lived. Ultimately, the two nations agreed to cancel the Ishii-Lansing Agreement after concluding the Nine-Power Treaty, which they signed in 1922 at the Washington Conference. Japan and the United States clashed again during the League of Nations negotiations in 1919. The United States refused to accept the Japanese request for a racial equality clause or an admission of the equality of the nations. In addition, the Versailles Treaty granted Japan control over valuable German concessions in Shandong, which led to an outcry in China. This coupled with the growing fear of a militant Japan, contributed to the defeat of the League Covenant in the U.S. Senate. The persistent issues preventing accommodation continued to be racial equality (especially with regard to the treatment of Japanese immigrants in the United States) and differences in how to address expansion in Asia. In spite of the many efforts to reach agreements on these points, by the early 1920s Japan and the United States were again at odds.
China and Japan formally reestablish diplomatic relations after gradually rebuilding economic ties. In China, the failure of Mao’s Great Leap Forward (1958–1962) preceding the Cultural Revolution resulted in mass starvation that forced Beijing to reevaluate its domestic policies and look to Japan for aid. The Sino-Japanese reconciliation dovetails the rapprochement between the United States and China—a change in official political allegiance from Taipei to Beijing that is a crucial factor in the establishment of diplomatic ties between Japan and China. Nixon, whose administration has made normalizing relations with the PRC a diplomatic priority, visits Beijing the same year, establishing de facto relations with the country after U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s visit in July 1971. Trade between Japan and China surges in the period after normalization, deescalating the first round of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands disputes.
A year after the Paris Peace Accords, which end U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, Chinese forces occupy [PDF] the western portion of the Paracel Islands, planting flags on several islands and seizing a South Vietnamese garrison. Vietnamese troops flee south and establish the first permanent Vietnamese occupation of the Spratly Islands. Meanwhile, Beijing builds a military installation, including an airfield and artificial harbor, on Woody Island, the largest of the Paracels. After the fall of Saigon and the reunification of Vietnam, the newly formed Socialist Republic of Vietnam upholds the South’s former claims to the Spratlys and Paracels. To this day, China maintains around one thousand troops in the Paracels.
After an extensive exploration program, the Philippines finds the Nido oil field off the coast of Palawan Island, marking the first oil discovery in the Northwest Palawan Basin. The discovery comes four years after the government passes the Oil Exploration and Development Act of 1972, which provides the legal basis for exploring and developing petroleum resources as Manila pushes for energy independence. Philippine Cities Service, Inc., the country’s first oil company, begins drilling a well in the Nido oil field and launches commercial production in 1979, yielding 8.8 million barrels that year. In 2012, the IMF notes [PDF] that the Philippines’ petroleum industry may have “significant potential” in the South China Sea, which is adjacent to the Northwest Palawan Basin.
China wages a short but bloody war with Vietnam, launching an offensive in response to Vietnam’s invasion and occupation of Cambodia in 1978, which ended the reign of the communist, Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge. The conflict marks the apex of tensions between Beijing and Hanoi, which were already running high after Vietnam established ties with the Soviet Union, China’s Cold War rival, the previous November. China had aided Vietnam in its wars against both France and the United States. Although both sides claim victory, China withdraws from Vietnam after less than a month, having failed to coerce Vietnam to leave Cambodia. Roughly thirty thousand are killed in the short-lived conflict, which marks the beginning of many border disputes between Beijing and Hanoi and bolsters Vietnam’s lingering distrust of China.
After roughly a decade of relative calm in the South China Sea, China and Vietnam clash on the Johnson Reef, marking China’s first armed conflict over the Spratly archipelago. The Chinese navy sinks three Vietnamese vessels, killing seventy-four sailors in one of the most serious military confrontations in the South China Sea. The incident occurs after Beijing, pursuing a more assertive stance in the area, establishes a physical presence on Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratlys in January 1987. In response, Vietnam occupies several reefs to monitor China’s moves. The incident unfolds amid Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms of the 1980s, when Chinese economic activity begins shifting to the coastal provinces, and maritime resources become increasingly prized as hydrocarbons are needed to sustain growth.
China passes the Law on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone, which lays claim to the entire South China Sea based on its historical right to the area dating from the Xia dynasty, which ruled between the twenty-first and sixteenth centuries BCE. The law employs more generous methods of territorial determination that would not necessarily be recognized [PDF] and justified by UNCLOS, signed a decade earlier. The move is seen by some as a bid by China to obtain greater maritime security for itself, as Beijing was one of the most active countries at UNCLOS in attempting to obstruct the United States and Soviet Union’s efforts to secure freedom of navigation for warships.
Three Chinese naval vessels fight a ninety-minute battle with a Philippine navy gunboat near Capones Island in the Mischief Reef, part of the Spratly chain of islands claimed by Manila. The incident marks the first time China engages in military confrontation with an ASEAN member other than Vietnam. The clash, which triggers a crisis in Sino-Philippine relations, revives U.S.-Philippine military ties; soon after the incident, U.S. Navy SEALs conduct a joint exercise with their Philippine counterparts on Palawan Island, although Philippine President Fidel Ramos denies that this is connected to Manila’s row with Beijing. Tensions over the occupation subside by midyear, when the Philippines and China sign a nonbinding code of conduct that calls for a peaceful resolution to the territorial dispute and the promotion of confidence-building measures.
China and the United States sign the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement [PDF], the first bilateral military agreement between the two countries, which serves as a confidence-building measure after a period of frozen relations following the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. From the mid-to-late 1990s, the Clinton administration works toward security engagement with Beijing as China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) begins to shift from being a mostly coastal defense force to operating a blue-water fleet beyond Chinese territorial waters. The accord aims to promote defense dialogue between naval forces to prevent misunderstandings. However, its efficacy is questioned in April 2001, when a Chinese F-8 interceptor and a U.S. Navy surveillance aircraft collide over the South China Sea, killing a Chinese pilot.
China and the ten ASEAN states reach an agreement in Phnom Penh on the ASEAN-China Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea [PDF], a code of conduct that seeks to ease tensions and creates guidelines for conflict resolution. The agreement comes after six years of negotiations. Beijing had previously insisted on bilateral negotiations with claimants; China’s signing marks the first time it accepts a multilateral approach to the issue. Though the declaration falls short of a binding code of conduct, as the Philippines had sought, it signals China’s recognition that such an agreement could work in its favor by limiting the risk of conflict in the area, which could involve the United States in the dispute. |
What was an effect of japans fighting with china in the 1930s apex
Postagens relacionadas
direito autoral © 2024 estudarpara Inc.
