 Good morning. It's 11 o'clock. It's in Honolulu. I think it's a few hours earlier in Tokyo at Ritsumaki University. We are joined this morning on Global Connections by Yochiro Sato, who's a professor of political science there, and a very old friend, a very old friend of ThinkTech. We have known him for probably 10 years and we appreciate every time we see him. Good morning, Ohio Yochiro Sato. Good morning. How are you, Jay? I'm good. I'm good to be with you. So one of the big issues in our time is the Chinese moves on the South China Sea and the East China Sea, and that means maritime security that's going to have, it is having a huge effect on the world order, at least in Asia, on trade and on the balance of power and in general, you know, the relative position of China, vis-à-vis the other Asian countries and the United States. So it's very important that we talk about that and I'm so glad you're here to help us. So you have some slides and some thoughts about it, and I'll let you present, you know, the situation in the, what, the East China Sea today in maritime security. Thank you, Jay. Today I'll talk on both East China Sea and South China Sea in some comparison and also kind of interconnections between them. Well, the international law of the sea defines territorial war, I mean, territorial water exclusive economic zone and extended continental shelf. So the coastal states have a degree of sovereignty over the water, but it's not unlimited. The continent, excuse me, the territorial sea is limited to 12 nautical miles from the shoreline and the exclusive economic zones up to 200 nautical miles and continental shelf goes beyond up to 350 nautical miles or to the end of the continental shelf. So when you put it on the actual map, this is the example of Japan and how much sovereign control Japan can exercise according to the international law. And actually the area size is something like the sixth largest in the world. So the state with long coastal line like Australia, United States, Brazil, Russia, they can claim quite a bit of the ocean. Also surprisingly, France is also up in rank because of its colonial island possessions in the South Pacific. So the South China Sea and East China Sea are both important sea lanes for East Asian countries, Japan, Korea, China, they all import the petroleum resources from the Middle East and also North Africa through the Indian Ocean. And those oil tankers and LNG, the natural gas tankers, they have to come up through the South China Sea after coming from the Indian Ocean side through either the Malacca Strait or the Sunda Strait, Lombok Strait and going up. Then they have to pass through South China Sea and East China Sea in order to get to their main destinations in China, Korea or Japan. So as long as those sea lanes are secure, the commercial fleets can safely pass through. But it's not only about the commercial vessels, it's also about the control of the area by the military. So the naval access to the area is also important and so is the air defense control over those areas. The boundaries are however not strictly defined by international law because the overlapping claims need to be adjusted by the relevant countries. And here is the example of how Japan, Korea adjusted their continental shelf claims by creating a joint development zone in the overlapping areas. But such negotiations are not always successful and in the case of Japan and China, the claims are overlapping and the adjustment of the claims has not been concluded. But first of all, I wanted to take a look at this kind of how the seabed looks like in the East China Sea. And the northwestern part closer to the Chinese continent looks pretty flat. That means the depth there is less than 200 meters. So it's relatively flat seabed up there. Whereas before reaching to the Okinawan chain of Ireland, there is a deeper trough, a deeper area, sort of like a valley. And the presence of this valley is a very important factor and also is the location of the Senkaku Island on the edge of that continental shelf. You can see it in the orange circle. That's where the Senkaku Islands are, which is administratively controlled by Japan. But Japan's claim has been politically challenged by China, politically and increasingly physically through sending the patrol boats into the area. So China claims the boundary all the way to the Okinawan trough and where Japan's insisting on the median line determined from the Japanese baseline and the Chinese baseline. So the dotted line here is Japan's claim. The green straight line is the Chinese claim. The orange area, quite a large area, is being disputed between Japan and China. Near the boundary, which is claimed by Japan, there are kind of purple squares on the map. And those are the locations of the known gas fields. There are some natural gas deposits in the seabed. And China has been drilling the areas and pumping gas already. And this became a major political issue back around 2005, already 15 years ago. After some negotiations in 2008, they agreed on a very limited joint development of one of the fields up north. But the details about the terms of joint development stored and joint development never materialized. And meanwhile, China continued pumping gas. And already from 2008, when they agreed to start discussing the joint development, it's been 12 years already. Most likely the gas will be depleted before anything is agreed. But the problem is Japan cannot utilize the gas effectively. First of all, the gas fields, China built rigs on the Chinese side of the boundary claimed by Japan. So Japan cannot do anything about the rigs China built inside the Chinese side of the line. But the chance is that the gas field is spreading across the boundary. And when China pumps it from the Chinese side, it's siphoning the gas from the Japanese side as well. So Japan could possibly start pumping from the Japanese side of the boundary. But the problem is, even there, according to the Chinese claim, is well inside the Chinese control line. So if Japan pumps from near the boundary, then there's a possibility that China will intervene. And that will likely involve military forces. So Japan has been hesitating to do that. So here it shows the location of the prospective joint development area up north, but it has not happened. And all these disputes, both East China Sea and South China Sea, are kind of nested in the broader Chinese strategy of the so-called second archipelagic line. In the medium term, China wants to control the sea inside the second archipelagic line, which will pretty much reach the Ogasawara Bonin Islands, Saipan, Guam, and Mariana. And then go to the southern end of the Philippines. And South China Sea will be completely included in this line. So Chinese admiral has mentioned in the past during the meeting with US admiral Keating. Basically China wants to split the Pacific by half, western half under Chinese control, eastern half under US control. And the two superpowers will decide the global power relations. And Japan has some problem with that kind of the Chinese dream. In 2013, I believe it was November, China claimed the air defense identification zone over the East China Sea. And this goes pretty much over China's maritime claim. And US and Japan has not accepted the Chinese demand that the planes flying through this area has to give a prior notification to the Chinese Authority. So the US response immediately was to fly B-50 bombers through the declared ADIZ of China. And since then, the US, Japan both have been flying military flights in this area without informing the Chinese. And China simply cannot stop them. Lately, there is a speculation that China might start declaring ADIZ over the South China Sea. So far it hasn't happened, but it's pretty clear that China is making preparations for better air control over the South China Sea. As most of you know, the Chinese are claiming the so-called 9-dash line area over the South China Sea, which includes the Paracel Islands, Plazvir and Scarborough shoreline. You can see if you establish air bases on all those three locations and start deploying fighter planes and so forth, anti-submarine warfare assets, you can control the South China Sea quite effectively. And so far China has built on Paracel Islands, Splattery Islands, but if China starts reclaiming Scarborough shore and start building there, then that's like the final stage of reaching such capability. So many of those small shores, islands, reefs, they are subjected to this intensifying competition among the littoral countries of the South China Sea. This year we have seen Chinese coast guard patrol boat colliding with a Vietnamese fishing boat near the Paracel Islands and this resulted in the sinking of the Vietnamese fishing boat. The U.S. launched a very strong protest and also responded with the maritime patrol operations, the passage operation to challenge the territorial water control by China. The Chinese fishing boats go all the way to the southern end of the Nain Dash Line to threaten Indonesian controlled water around the Natuna Island and Indonesia has responded rather strongly by seizing the Chinese fishing boat and blowing it up in the sea. So this could develop into a kind of diplomatic food between the two countries. The littoral states however not just waiting for China to expand, they are also trying to develop the seabed resources in the joint venture with outside powers. The Vietnam-India joint venture here in the Orange area. We sent the case of West Capella, which is a Malaysian Petronas operation, test drilling the water near the splattery islands. The Vietnam-Malaysia joint development area is nearby and for Chinese it's very much inside the Nain Dash Line. So the Chinese naval ships and Coast Guard patrol ships came by to check what's going on and again U.S. responded by sending its own naval ships together with Australians and even sending the bombers, B2 bombers from the mainland bases, some 32-hour operation to conduct. So the tension this year is quite high. The littoral states negotiate code of conduct and they're supposed to finish the negotiation by 2021 but the coronavirus situation is making the negotiation more difficult. They can only do it on the online platform and such platforms are not suitable for sensitive political negotiations like this. So the countries go through joint ventures in disputed water for various reasons but the economic calculations, political calculations are quite complex matters. So the military control is advancing in the South China Sea and China has been building and Chinese activities are by far ahead of others but lately the Philippines started developing a little war on one of the islands it controls. So others are also responding in kind. China wants to make South China Sea safe for its strategic submarines and deny the U.S. access to this sea. So this military competition is on the bottom line of the dispute over sovereign control and fishing and natural resources. They are the immediate causes of actual crashes but the behind that is the legal questions which has long-term implications for the military control. Thanks, Jay. I think my slides are finished. Hey, let's go back to our regular format. I really appreciate that, Sato-san. China has revealed on a daily basis an expansionist policy and it's not just in the South China Sea and the East China Sea it's with respect to all kinds of areas around China. Look at what's happening in Hong Kong. Look at the moves it's trying to make with maybe less success in Taiwan. And so this is all seems to me this is part of a larger expansionist plan and frankly I think the Chinese see the COVID as an opportunity as they are seeing it definitely in Hong Kong. The more Hong Kong is troubled by COVID the more China seems to move into it and that tells you the state of mind diplomatically and politically and militarily. So my question to you and I mean I'm thinking about this for a long time is are we doing enough when I say we I mean the U.S. and Japan are we doing enough it seems like we're doing some things but they're like tentative things they're so careful and they don't want to really provoke the the dragon. Query, can we do more? Do we need to do more in order to contain China's ambitions in this area? Yeah, both the U.S. and Japan have defamed from taking side on the question of which islands belong to which country and this is actually quite messy and the dispute is not only between China and another Southeast Asian countries. Oftentimes some of the islands are disputed between Southeast Asian countries as well like between the Philippines and Malaysia and the Philippines and so forth. So this is like kind of warms and the U.S. doesn't want to stick its heads into that but gradually the Southeast Asians are sorting out their differences by pretty much following the ruling by the arbitrary tribunal and that tribunal ruling basically nullifies all of the claims of the exclusive economic zones established around those land features in the South China Sea. So that makes the boundary determination much much simpler as opposed to everybody trying to draw a circle around the disputed land features. So if they can do that, then also the tribunal ruling nullified the Chinese 9-dash line claim as well. So China's control will be limited to the territorial water around the land features it controls. As I recall, Shani did not participate in those proceedings in the Hague. They did not agree to abide by the determination made in the Hague and it's a standoff right now and there's no single orbiter in the world the United Nations or the Hague or any tribunal that can say to China come on you've got to follow the rules here. China is a party to the Hague Convention as I recall but it ignores the Hague result. There's no enforcement mechanism in many international law and the arbitration itself is mandatory. So basically China has no rights to refuse it but still China is refusing it. So how can other countries enforce it? I think you really have to go through both kind of legal means as well as the building of defense capabilities and the U.S. plays the most important role in this. Is the U.S. playing a role right now? Is the U.S. playing a role or is the U.S. falling back on isolationism and distancing itself from the engagement? The U.S. is trying hard to maintain presence there but previously U.S. made certain decisions such as putting B-50 bombers back from Guam to the U.S. mainland and when the South China Sea tension rose U.S. quickly sent B-1B bombers to Guam on a temporary basis and so forth so the policy is kind of going back and forth and possibly China is getting a wrong message from that. So the recent mainland flight, the B-1B bombers was intended to show that the U.S. has a long range force projection capability but it's not convenient. It's different from having useful access to air bases in the South China Sea and the Philippines is actually quite important in that regard and the Philippines recently announced that it canceled its decision to terminate the visiting force agreement with the United States so the next six months I think two countries will continue to negotiate the possible renewal of the U.S. presence in the Philippines. So you're true, is there the possibility, I mean force or the projection of force is always important but it doesn't seem to have had a huge effect and if you just look down the pike, look into the future with those tools being deployed it's not clear at all that China will stop or that the U.S. interests or Japanese interests will be protected but it just seems to me that I ask myself, isn't there a smart power way to do this short of projecting military force? In other words, China doesn't like to be embarrassed. China doesn't like to be made to look like a rogue. It likes to project the idea of a global responsible accountable, that's not true, but accountable power. Isn't there a way for various countries to get together and create a kind of multilateral group to impose some international pressure on China to stop doing this? China has been saying that China will guarantee the safe and free passage of commercial vessels through the South China Sea but the problem with China, the biggest problem is that China is challenging the U.S. interpretation of the law of the sea which basically permits the military intelligence activities in the exclusive economic zones. So if you divide up the South China Sea among China and the Southeast Asian countries then some of them, not only China but some others might also start insisting on the ban on military intelligence gathering maritime research activities by U.S. Navy and getting a consensus around that among all stakeholders is not likely to happen any time soon. Coming back to the issue of being isolationist and sort of turning our backs on the risks in this area I thought we were going to pivot into Asia but I don't think we're doing that now. Don't you think it would be just the best interest of all the non-Chinese players here if the U.S. became more active that it took a more, that it engaged more and that it got involved? Wouldn't that help? Could that help? How could it help? Sure, I think the U.S. involvement is necessary to deter China against taking more assertive actions keeping the competition in the domain of legal and political negotiations because without the U.S. presence China can more casually resort to forces against Southeast Asian countries which would really create a turmoil in the region but deterring is not sufficient and I think U.S. needs to take a somewhat more proactive approach diplomatically and currently the U.S. is active legally in terms of the legal debate and especially this year U.S. started issuing a statement on, for example, Vietnamese fishing boat incident and the West Capella incident also they are all accompanied by immediate U.S. statements having some implications on the legal discussions so that's a good sign but I think more political because I don't think laws can solve this issue laws are important but ultimately you have to have a political compromise here and the U.S. needs to assert itself as an important stakeholder but rather than just confronting it has to produce a very creative bargain vis-à-vis multiple players in the region and we haven't seen that yet Well, we'll have to leave it there it's really been interesting to hear your thoughts on this and I hope we can circle back with you and look at it again in a few weeks or a couple months and see how it's changed and how it's changing because one thing is clear, it's very complex there's a lot of moving parts there's a lot of vagaries and there's a lot of risks to everyone involved so I hope we can come back and talk to you again Thank you so much, Sato-san Thank you, Dave