The Joint Formation of the Chinese and Russian Navies Sailed Through Japan has never felt so uneasy

Since the 18th, the Chinese and Russian navies have sent a joint formation of 10 warships to cross a number of "defensive circle throats" off the coast of Japan, almost circumnavigating the Japanese archipelago within 5 days, which has aroused great concern from the Japanese government and media. Some say that such a rare action by China and Russia is a warning that the U.S.-Japan alliance often "does whatever it wants" in the waters surrounding the two countries. The United States, which has always advocated "free navigation," has rarely remained silent. It wasn't until the 25th that Pentagon spokesman John Kirby responded: "We have no opinion on this military exercise ... Because that's what we do all the time. It can be said that this time, "the spear of the son attacked the shield of the son" poked at the sore spot of the United States and Japan. The Japanese media used this to call for the recovery of all five international waterways, but it was an ulterior motive.

Japan has never felt so uneasy

Since the 18th, Japan's NHK television station has followed up the "One Week Tour of the Japanese Archipelago" by a total of 10 warships from China and Russia. A formation of 10 warships of the Chinese and Russian navies sailed for the first time through the Tsugaru Strait between Honshu Island and Hokkaido Island for the first time on the 18th, entered the Pacific Ocean and continued south, and on October 22, for the first time, it crossed the Osumi Strait in Kagoshima Prefecture at the same time. The Japanese Ministry of Defense and the Self-Defense Forces are highly vigilant in this regard, and continue to send P-1 and P-3C maritime patrol aircraft and Maritime Self-Defense Force ships stationed in various places to closely track and monitor them. NHK TV said that due to the recent frequent joint military exercises in the Asia-Pacific region by Japan, the United States, Australia and other countries, China and Russia have carried out "demonstration operations."

Japan's Sankei Shimbun directly said that this is "a warning from China and Russia to Japan." In an interview with the Sankei Shimbun, Hiroshi Yama, director of the Japan Defense Research Institute, said that the "political intentions of sino-Russian military cooperation are greater than military intentions" and "are a kind of performance to contain the United States, and this kind of performance will continue in the future."

"Never since World War II has the passage of any naval formation made Japan feel so uneasy." Russia's "free media" published a report entitled "Russian and Chinese navies remind the United States of the Pearl Harbor incident in the Tsugaru Strait" on the 20th, saying that for the first time in recent history, a Russian-Chinese warship has passed through the Tsugaru Strait, which is of great strategic significance to Japan, which is completely in line with the provisions of the "United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea." In fact, both the Osumi Strait and the Tsugaru Strait are international waterways, allowing foreign ships, including warships, to sail, and Chinese and Russian warships to cross this sea, and Japan cannot say anything. There are five such "specific sea areas" in Japan: the Soya Strait, the Tsugaru Strait, the Tsushima Strait East Waterway, the Tsushima Strait West Waterway, and the Osumi Strait between Hokkaido and Sakhalin Island.

Chinese and Russian warship formations carried out joint voyages in the western Pacific.

Chen Xiang, an associate researcher at the Institute of Japanese Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times that according to the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, an international strait is an important strait sandwiched between two high seas or exclusive economic waters for international navigation. A littoral State may set its territorial sea in waters extending outward to 12 nautical miles (about 22 km) at the baseline of its territorial sea (the baseline for setting the equivalence of territorial and exclusive economic waters), but this does not mean that "the width of the territorial sea must be set at 12 nautical miles", and there is no problem with international law with setting a narrower territorial sea within that range.

Therefore, according to the provisions of the second paragraph of the above-mentioned Annex to the Territorial Sea Law, Japan limits the width of the general sea to 3 nautical miles (about 5.5 kilometers). Although the remaining sea areas are within the "territorial sea" range of 12 nautical miles of the baseline of the territorial sea, Japan enacted the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Waters Act in 1977 for such straits, designating part of the "territorial sea" of the strait as a "specific sea area" for use on the high seas. In contrast to the right of innocent passage enjoyed by ships in the territorial sea, exclusive economic waters, all vessels and aircraft, including warships, can exercise the right of transit passage in international navigation straits, while also restricting the exercise of jurisdiction by coastal States.

Chen Xiang said that Japan's five international shipping lanes were originally based on the "specific sea areas" originally designated under the cold war situation between the United States and the Soviet Union, in order to enable the US Navy stationed at yokosuka and Sasebo ports to better enter the Sea of Japan through Japan's "territorial waters" and thus suppress the Soviet Union. After the end of the Cold War, these five international shipping lanes became the sea lanes for the United States to impose military repression on China and Russia.

In dedicating "specific sea areas," Japan did not consider at all the question of whether the Chinese and Russian navies would be strong enough to cross these straits in the future. Japan's original consideration was that if the entire strait belonged to Japan's territorial waters, then when warships and submarines carrying nuclear weapons from other countries, including the United States, passed through these seas, even if they were only temporarily passed, the nuclear weapons that had been brought to Japan's territorial waters were in contradiction with the policy of "not bringing in" nuclear weapons stipulated in the "three principles of non-nuclear weapons" adhered to by the Japanese government after World War II.

Therefore, if these straits are included in territorial waters for management, it will not be able to explain to the "Emperor Taishang" US troops in Japan, and it will not be conducive to the Japanese-US alliance to encircle the Soviet Union and russia and China thereafter. Of course, in fact, Japan could not carry out law enforcement management of these US warships that had been running rampant in Japan for a long time, so it pulled out of the "specific sea area" to open a "convenient door" for the US military.

The OfficialDom of the United States has been repeated, and Japan can hardly hide its disappointment

The BBC reported that the Tsugaru Strait is located between the Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido. It is about 130 kilometers long and only 24-40 kilometers wide, connecting the Sea of Japan in the west and the Pacific Ocean in the east, making it an important strait in the northern part of the "First Island Chain" and the only unfrozen shipping channel in the northern part of the Sea of Japan. From the Tsugaru Strait to the north, it can reach the Sea of Okhotsk and the Aleutian Islands, the westernmost point of the United States, and the Hawaiian Islands and the Pacific Ocean to the south, and its transportation and strategic position are very important.

Japanese media previously reported that Chinese warships had crossed the Tsugaru Strait alone several times, the first time in October 2008. Since then, in January 2016, four Chinese Navy ships passed through the Tsugaru Strait, and in January 2017, three naval vessels returning from a visit to the United States crossed the strait again. However, taken together, the Chinese navy is not common in the waters. After the Sino-Russian joint crossing of the Tsugaru Strait, some analysts said that similar military operations may occur in the future, and the frequency may increase.

For decades, only U.S. warships have passed through the Tsugaru Strait frequently, and Russia and China have rarely sent warships through, mainly because they do not want to further deteriorate their already poor relations with the United States and Japan. Russia's "free media" said that the most crucial thing is that the coast of this strait is full of weapons and equipment from the United States and Japan against Russia and China. There are three U.S. air bases here, and four of the five regional commands of the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Forces are deployed in this area.

Russian media said that the Sino-Russian joint formation this time is aimed at the "bumblebee" nest here. The move between China and Russia is a joint response to the increasingly frequent provocations of the U.S. Navy near Peter the Great Bay and in the South China Sea.

As we all know, as soon as Japan is afraid, it will find a backer and tell itself not to be afraid, and "Uncle Sam". On the 24th, the commentator in charge of security issues of Fuji Television in Japan, Noh Shinobuyuki, analyzed that the "one-week tour of the Japanese archipelago" of the Chinese and Russian warships was not only concerned by Japan but also by the United States. "One of the purposes of this operation between the Chinese and Russian navies is to show that they can act jointly. In fact, just this month, during a Sino-Russian joint exercise in the Japan Sea, closer to Russia, the U.S. Navy's Aegis destroyer approached the Russian Navy destroyer, and the distance between the two warships was once less than 60 meters. In other words, the United States may have been trying to monitor the extent to which the Russian and Chinese navies can operate jointly through data links and communications. On the 25th, the U.S. Navy announced that its "Carl Vincent" aircraft carrier battle group and the Japanese "Izumo" class aircraft carrier "Kaga" had launched a joint operation in the South China Sea.

Because he was too worried about the "one-week trip to the Japanese archipelago" between Chinese and Russian warships, Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi began to formally "ask for help" from the United States. On the 25th, Kishi Nobuo held talks with US Secretary of the Navy Carlos del Toro, who was visiting Japan, and during the talks, Kishi Nobuo was worried, not only deeply afraid of Sino-Russian military cooperation, but also mentioned the DPRK's submarine-launched ballistic missiles, believing that the security environment around Japan is becoming increasingly severe, and it is necessary to seek the protection of the United States. For Japan, which sits on a needle and felt, the United States still says, "Cooperation between the navies is very important." We will continue to work to strengthen the partnership," which makes Japan feel both panic and disappointment.

In addition, the Japanese media collectively cheered about the first joint passage of Chinese and Russian warships through the Tsugaru Strait and clamored for the abolition of "specific sea areas." In this regard, Chen Xiang explained to the Global Times reporter that simply from the fact that Japan forced the compressed sea of 12 nautical miles to 3 nautical miles seems to have damaged Japan, but there are also many benefits for Japan in detail. First of all, this is not only a concession that Japan must make to comply with the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, but also a concession that Japan must make in pursuit of maximizing the overall interests of the country. The second is what most analysts point out as "convenient for the US military's nuclear weapons."

After World War II, the main direction of Japan's "maritime state" strategy is to expand the influence of the global economic and trade field, this guiding ideology promotes Japan's long-term implementation of adhering to the maintenance of free trade and pursuing pragmatism, so it is necessary to ensure the free navigation of merchant ships and large cruise ships on the main routes of international transportation.

The Sino-Russian cruise was made with the strong rise of the Chinese and Russian navies, and in accordance with international rules, the right of transit passage was reasonably and properly exercised to cross the Tsugaru Strait. Therefore, the Japanese media advocate abolishing the "specific sea areas" of these five international straits and turning them into Japanese territorial waters in legal terms, cursing and grinning about Sino-Russian navigation and speculating, with the aim of inciting the domestic people to achieve some ulterior motives. Compared with the transit passage between China and Russia, as Japan is firmly under the control of the US military, the priority is precisely how to make the US military move conveniently, or to be angry at the US military that runs amok in the usual days, so it has to use the Sino-Russian navigation to complain about itself.

"Eager to wake up a blindly optimistic and self-righteous Japan"

However, within the Japan Defense Research Institute, there is a clear divergence of opinion on the joint operation of the Chinese-Russian warship.

Before the chief researcher, Yama Hiroshi Yama, appeased the Japanese people with the same old rhetoric, the anxiety of Shinji Bingtou, the policy research director of the Japan Defense Research Institute, was already very serious. In an interview with the Asahi Shimbun on the 20th, Shinji Kishida mentioned that Kishida Fumio said in his policy speech after taking office as prime minister that he would reformulate the national security guarantee strategy. However, Kishida's strategy toward Russia is still to win over Russia, such as "to promote cooperation with Russia in various fields such as security and energy, and to enhance the overall relationship between Japan and Russia." Shinji further stressed, "Japan has always treated Russia differently from China on security issues, strategically aimed at separating China-Russia relations. When Japan formulated its national security strategy in 2013, it regarded China as its biggest imaginary enemy in the future. ”

Therefore, in recent years, Japan's strategy toward Russia has actually been subordinate to its strategy toward China. Japan does not have the strength to confront China and Russia at the same time, and japan and Russia also have territorial disputes, so it cannot confront Russia head-on. Under this premise, Japan's national security strategy emphasizes the need to maintain friendly relations with Russia.

The then Shinzo Abe administration ignored the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' call for a cautious response and hoped for a quick decision on the territorial issue of the four northern islands (russia's south Kuril Islands), but after 27 Japan-Russia summits, Russia had no intention of "returning" the disputed territory. Therefore, the friendliness to Russia emphasized in Japan's national security strategy and the purpose of separating Sino-Russian relations have long been seen through by Russia. Not only that, but In recent years, Russia has frequently joined forces with China militarily, and its typical manifestation is joint military exercises.

Shinji, the head of the army, said unceremoniously that Japan's "divisive plan" had collapsed and that it would have to consider changing its strategy again in the future. "Russia now has a sense of crisis, worried that the US-Russia Strategic Stability Dialogue that just began in July will collapse, and in order to increase the bargaining chips with the United States, it will only choose to be closer to China in the future." All in all, the premise of Japan's national security strategy of "separating China-Russia relations" seems to have collapsed. In the future, with the advancement of the new national security strategy, how to change the strategy toward Russia will become a major problem. ”

Asahi Shimbun's senior commentator Akiki Akiyoshi Komagi also warned on the 24th, "The Japanese always think that China and Russia are a masquerade couple, and although they are married, the actual relationship is not good, but they ignore that the masquerade couple is also a couple." "For its neighbor China, which shares more than 4,000 kilometers of borders, Russia will of course remain vigilant, but it will try not to irritate China as much as possible and maintain stable relations with China." That is what Russia really thinks now. ”

The BBC said that for a long time, Japan and China and Russia have both had territorial disputes, and in the past two years, such disputes have tended to intensify. For example, after Kishida Fumio became Japanese prime minister, Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Chief of Government Office Grigolenko and Deputy Prime Minister Husnurin both landed on the South Kuril Islands in mid-October this year to investigate economic development, which was the first time that a Russian political figure had landed on this disputed Japanese-Russian island.

Source: Global Times