Uppsala March 27, 2012

Democracy and Crisis in Thailand – prospects for reconciliation?

As a warming-up exercise for our own program workshop in Bangkok in the beginning of March, we attended an international conference entitled  ”Democracy and Crisis in Thailand” at Chulalongkorn University.  This was a useful warming-up indeed, as our workshop also focused a lot on the Thai exception to the East Asian Peace.

Six years after the military coup, two years after the violent end to redshirt mass-demonstrations in Bangkok and almost one year after the last round of elections that brought Puea Thai and Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to power, the word on everyone’s lips is reconciliation. But are there any real prospects for reconciliation? Or is reconciliation just the latest of buzzwords, without any real meaning to it?

An editorial in the Bangkok Post is pessimistic: “there is no hope yet for national reconciliation since all the opposing parties are still stuck resolutely to their political agendas and refuse to accept the other side’s concerns” . This editorial is based on a recent reconciliation report produced by the King Prajadhipok’s Institute (KPI), where 47 stakeholders from different sides of the conflict have been interviewed.

The conference at Chulalongkorn gave a rich and varied background to who the different opposing parties are, but it also offered some clues as to what it would take to bring about real reconciliation. Three different arenas were discussed: Elections, Social Movements, and the Monarchy.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak offered a slightly optimistic view on the importance of elections in Thailand. There is no exit from democracy and elections, he claimed. While Thailand in modern history has a dire average of four years between every coup, there were 15 years between the three latest successful coups. Coups are decreasing in frequency, there is a return to elections and – importantly – nowadays elections in Thailand actually matter. On a more pessimistic note, what is lacking, according to Thitinan, is an efficient opposition party as well as – on both sides – “sportsmanship” when finding oneself on the losing side and political restraint when it comes to pushing through controversial legislation when on the winning side.  On the same note, Siripan Nogsuan Sawasdee argued that Thailand need political actors that help to further institutionalize electoral competition instead of demeaning it.  She also argues that there is a democratic awakening among people in the sense that although money, canvassers and local leaders still influence voters’ electoral preferences, this influence is steadily declining, and people tend to rely more and more on themselves when deciding whom to vote for.

The democratic awakening and increasing self-reliance is also evident in the new social movements in Thailand, commonly referred to as the “yellowshirts” and the “redshirts”.  Political parties in Thailand have never been mass-based and instead, political organization takes place in loose social movements.  Although it was argued that the “reds” and the “yellow” only understand themselves in relation to each other, the panel unfortunately focused entirely on the redshirt movement.  This movement, panelists Pinkaew Laungaramsri and Somchai Phatharathananunth agreed, is not steered from Bangkok and is horizontally organized. Each node of the heterogeneous network is autonomous and mobilization and communication are made possible through radio stations. The increasing political consciousness of rural villagers is of course the backbone of this political movement, but it can also be seen as a weakness in terms of communication strategies. Rural villagers refuse to have political strategies dictated to them from above. Radio stations are now working to bridge the gap between the urban middle class and the rural villagers within the redshirt movement.

Finally, the difficult subject of the monarchy was discussed. This was possible because of the academic seminar-like setting, but also because it was rather skillfully discussed within an international framework and with an indirect focus on the lèse-majesté law. Benedict Anderson set the stage for international comparisons with his keynote address on modern monarchies in a global comparative perspective. The increasing number of lèse-majesté cases and the use of this law as a political tool were issues touched upon by several panelists.

Taken together, insights from the conference points to several important issues for reconciliation – both positive and negative. There are many different and heterogeneous stakeholders, and neither parties nor movements are organized in a manner to facilitate communication between them. At the same time, this reluctance to submit to a hierarchical organization should, at least on the part of the redshirts, be understood as a rising political awareness and, as such, it should be safeguarded. The conference also further emphasized the findings from my own research: that there is a lack of respect for democratic institutions in Thailand and, as a consequence, a lack of acceptance of election results. Constitutions and laws are too often used as short-term political tools.

It should thus not come as a big surprise that the aforementioned KPI reconciliation report also has been criticized for being a political tool, and the government is accused of having dictated its suggestions. Just like the Bangkok Post editorial points out, it is sad that the one of the main messages of the report, that the root causes of the conflicts in Thailand have to do with power inequalities, is not discussed in the political debate. The conference pointed to important issues of inequalities of different kinds in three important arenas of Thai politics. If political actors started to address and discuss some of these issues, instead of using the reconciliation report as another short-term political tool – then there might be a real prospect for reconciliation.

Elin Bjarnegård

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Uppsala, 15 November 2011

China’s maritime claims and deep intentions

An e-mail exchange between professors Stein Tønnesson and Pham Quang Tuan

How should the rest of the world treat the u-shaped line that appears on most Chinese maps of the South China Sea? As a claim to the whole sea area? Or just to the islands within it and their maritime zones? This question was discussed at the Third international workshop The South China Sea: Cooperation for Development and Security in Hanoi 3-5 November 2011, organized by the Vietnam Lawyers Association and the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam.

In his presentation at the conference, Stein Tønnesson expressed the opinion that the rest of the world should decide to take for granted that the u-shaped line means only a claim to the islands inside it and their maritime zones since any other interpretation is impossible. Chinese legal experts also realize that no other interpretation has any basis in international law.

After the conference, Professor Pham Quang Tuan of the School of Chemical Engineering and Industrial Chemistry at The University of New South Wales pointed out in a message to Stein Tønnesson that his statement was in total contradiction with a statement made at the same conference by Professor Su Hao of the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing. Su Hao said clearly that China laid claim to not just islands, but also the South China Sea as a “sea area”.

This led to the following e-mail exchange, which is reproduced here with permission from Stein Tønnesson and Pham Quang Tuan.

Pham Quang Tuan to Stein Tønnesson and others:

1. SU Hao, professor/director, Center for Strategic and Conflict Management, China Foreign Affairs University: “The South China Sea is the sea area which was discovered and explored by the ancient Chinese people, and was then effectively managed by the Chinese government. Compared with its neighboring countries, China owns abundant historical records to prove its legal rights over the South China Sea and most islands in that area.” 

2. Stein Tønnesson, Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University: “The widespread idea that China claims all the waters within the u-shaped line should simply be put aside as false. The ambiguity maintained by China as to the extension of its maritime zone claims must not be seen as an indication that China is making such a preposterous claim. It can be taken for granted that the u-shaped line means only a claim to the islands within it and the maritime zones that can be generated from baselines around those islands.” 

Both these statements were made at the same conference! 

Le Van Ut (Oulu University, Finland) to Pham Quang Tuan and Stein Tønnesson: 

Today I got a message from Professor Tuan Pham from Australia. I found that this was also sent to you. 

Since your idea about “the u-shaped line” is strange, say incorrect, I would like you to read the following two articles in Nature: 

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111019/full/478293a.html

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v478/n7369/full/478285a.html

I am looking forward to hearing your further comments on this issue.

Tønnesson to Le Van Ut and Pham Quang Tuan: 

The contradiction between Su Hao’s and my statements at the recent South China Sea conference in Hanoi is due to a lack of legally based precision in Su Hao’s statement. Just like the authors behind the two articles in the magazine Nature referred to in Ut Van Le’s letter, Su Hao does not appreciate the fundamental difference in international law between land and water. While it is possible to make a sovereignty claim to land (such as the Spratly islands) based on historical discovery and permanent occupation, it is only under very special circumstances (which are certainly not present in the South China Sea) possible to claim so-called “historical waters.” Sovereign rights to resources in “water areas” are obtained on the basis of distance from the nearest coast (12 nautical mile territorial waters, a further 12 nm contiguous zone, and a 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and continental shelf). The only possible legal interpretation of the Chinese u-shaped line is therefore that it indicates a claim to the land features (islands) within the line, i.e., the Paracels, Scarborough Reef and the Spratly islands, and maritime zones around these islands. This is also no doubt the way the line was meant when it was first officially published by the Republic of China in 1948 (at that time most countries’ territorial waters were just 3 nautical miles). 

While some scholars in China and Taiwan have tried to argue that China can have a “historical waters” claim in the South China Sea, the majority of legally trained Chinese scholars realize that this is impossible and that the u-shaped line can only be understood in the way mentioned above. This comes out clearly from a 1994 article written by China’s lead legal expert on the law of the sea Gao Zhiguo, who was later appointed judge on the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg. The UK based Chinese legal scholar Zou Keyuan also notes in his recent book China-ASEAN Relations and International Law (Chandos 2009, p. 178): “Though still debated, the majority of the Chinese scholars tend to recognize that the line is the one that only defines the islands and other territories within the line.” (What Zou Keyuan means by “other territories within the line” is unclear to me; perhaps he will clarify). 

On 7 May 2009, when the Chinese government sent its official protest to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf against the joint Malaysian-Vietnamese submission concerning the extension of the continental shelf in the southern part of the South China Sea, the map with the u-shaped line was for the first time attached to an official Chinese letter to the United Nations. In the cover letter, the line was explained in the following way: “China has undisputable sovereignty over the islands in the South China Sea and the adjacent waters, and enjoys sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the relevant waters as well as the seabed and subsoil thereof (see attached map).” While the wording here is (no doubt deliberately) ambiguous and uses vague terms such as “adjacent” and “relevant” instead of the correct legal terms, the only reasonable interpretation of the sentence is that China claims the islands and the maritime zones they can generate. 

The ASEAN claimants (Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines - Brunei maybe too) seem now to converge around the view that the Spratly islands are too small to generate more than 12 nautical mile territorial waters. This is based on article 121.3 in the Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC), which says that rocks that cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own cannot have more than a 12 nm territorial water zone. China has recently expressed the opposite view. This may now be the main legal dispute in the South China Sea, and the main question that needs to be resolved in order to move forward. If two countries ask the Law of the Sea Tribunal in Hamburg for a legal opinion on this issue, it might be very helpful. If it could be established that the Spratly islands are too small to generate more than 12 nm territorial waters, the dispute over the Spratlys would lose much of its salience. The surrounding states could then begin to negotiate their maritime borders in the area with no regard for the dispute over the Spratly islands, except that they would have to leave 12 nm enclaves around each of them. The dispute to these enclaves could simply be shelved. 

I think it is ESSENTIAL that international commentators and media stop conveying the impression that China may claim, or is claiming, all the waters within the u-shaped line. And we must stop reproducing misleading maps of the kind to be found in the magazine Nature under the title “Disputed regions,” which superposes the u-shaped line in red (with far too many dashes) on a map with quite correctly drawn EEZ lines in blue and says that the u-shaped line represents a Chinese “territorial waters” claim. This is absurd. It would mean that China claims territorial waters that go far beyond its EEZ. This is to turn the law upside down, since territorial waters can only go out to a maximum of 12 nm while EEZs can go to 200 nm. 

It is high time we help Su Hao and others to understand and then explain to the Chinese public that the only way to promote China’s interests is to correctly clarify China’s EEZ and continental shelf claims, launch convincing legal arguments in favour of Chinese claims to islands and then perhaps try to argue that some such islands satisfy the conditions for having an EEZ and continental shelf of their own. While this will be very difficult with regard to the Spratlys (the largest, Taiwan-occupied Itu Aba, is just 1400 m long and 400 m wide), I personally think it might be possible to argue that Woody Island in the Paracels is big enough to have its own EEZ, which would then probably encompass Macclesfield Bank. This bank is submerged under water and is therefore a part of the seabed in the eyes of the law. Macclesfield Bank can thus not be claimed by China or anyone else as land, but sovereign rights to its resources may be claimed on the basis of distance from the nearest coast, which might be Woody Island, which has been occupied more or less continuously since November 1946 by China, first the Republic of China 1946-50 and then the People’s Republic of China since 1955-56. 

The proliferation of misleading maps like the one in Nature serves to create dangerous illusions among the Chinese public and instill exaggerated fear in others. Let us discuss on the basis of international law instead of nationalist phantasies. 

Pham Quang Tuan to Stein Tønnesson: 

Thank you for responding to my email. Your eloquent response put me in a quandary. In this matter of Chinese foreign policy, who shall I believe, a high-ranking Chinese scholar from China Foreign Affairs University, or a Scandinavian researcher? 

No offence intended towards Scandinavia. On the contrary: it is an admirable part of the world, more democratic than practically anywhere else, where everybody can have and promote his own ideas, interpretations and so on without fear of repercussion. Even preposterous ones. China, however, is another thing altogether. Even humble physical scientists and engineers have to obey their government and insert silly, internationally unrecognized maps into their scientific papers (see Nature article). What chances do people like Prof. Su Hao have of  being able to advance their own, “preposterous” foreign policy ideas? 

People like Prof. Su, director of a research centre in a Chinese university - not just any university, but the CHINA FOREIGN AFFAIRS UNIVERSITY - did not get to where he is by championing preposterous and unorthodox personal ideas about foreign policies. His views would have been scrutinized every inch of the way since his undergrad days by the powers that be, to make sure that they conform to the accepted line. 

You preferred the interpretation of a 1994 paper by a Chinese scholar to a 2011 interpretation by another Chinese scholar. That’s another problem, because it is now 2011, not 1994, and you seem to assume that Chinese South China Sea policy is something that is immutable in time and has remained the same in the last 17 years. Now 17 years is about one third of the time since the U-shaped line appeared in official Chinese maps, about three times the time since it was made mandatory in China, about half the time since China transformed from a communist economy to a capitalist economy, about the same time that China grew from an emerging nation to a major world power, and almost exactly the same time that has passed since China acquired its first aircraft carrier. Would you have us believe that China’s foreign policy and ambitions have remained immutable all that time? 

You admit that China has deliberately kept its interpretation of the U-shaped line ambiguous, but you insist that this must be interpreted in the most benign way possible. But China is not a frivolous girl who keeps her intentions hidden just to tease others, or a mute child who is incapable of enunciating his own ideas. It is a major world power and a country who has been a master of political techniques for the last three millennia. It is a country who produced Sun Tsu, whose work is still studied in military academies all over the world, and who has nothing to concede to Machiavelli. If such a major power deliberately keeps its intentions hidden, then what should we conclude? It must have something to hide. 

Now I would like to say what I believe. We can take it for granted that the ambiguous attitude of China concerning the U-shaped line is all about maximising the pluses and minimising the minuses. That of course is what all governments do. By not saying anything concrete, China avoids tying itself down to a certain position while leaving all options open. Of course, its options will grow wider and wider as its strength grows. However, it will let its scholars be its unofficial mouthpieces: that’s convenient, because the policies are still promulgated without any accountability. It will thus avoid direct criticisms of its ambitions, because if anybody criticises its illegal claims, it can simply stay silent and avoid answering the question - until the timewhen this ceases to matter, i.e., when it has become overwhelmingly dominant militarily. Better still, it will have apologists who, whatever the motive, will jump to its defence and argue that it has never claimed, or even better, will never claim anything excessive.

Stein Tønnesson to Pham Quang Tuan and Su Hao: 

I find it interesting, Pham Quang Tuan, that you have pointed out to a wider audience the contradiction between Su Hao’s and my statements at the recent South China Sea conference in Hanoi concerning China’s claims in the South China Sea. While I agree with you that a China Foreign Affairs University Professor’s statement should be considered a better source to what China’s claims are than a statement by a Scandinavian researcher, I still think I’m right in what I say about the only possible interpretation of the u-shaped line. I also think I’m right to propose that we now all work on the assumption that China’s u-shaped line means only a claim to the islands within it and the maritime zones they may generate. Su Hao’s unfortunate statement in Hanoi reflects the deliberate ambiguity of the Chinese government concerning its claims in the South China Sea, while my statement reflects the only possible legal interpretation of China’s claims. If China should decide to make its precise claims known, it will surely have to abandon any illusion that it may claim the whole “sea area” within the u-shaped line. 

I also find it interesting, Su Hao, to see how China’s ambiguous use of the u-shaped line provokes the kind of strong reactions among Vietnamese both in Vietnam and in the Vietnamese diaspora that you and I heard at both of the conferences we attended together, first in Washington, DC in June and then in Hanoi in early November, and also can see reflected in Pham Quang Tuan’s letters to me. China’s ambiguity works against the interests of China and of the Chinese Communist Party since it provokes strong anti-Chinese sentiments in countries China wants to have good relations with, and since it also provokes opposition in Vietnam towards those of their own leaders who want to preserve a friendly and peaceful relationship with China. And as I argued at the conference, there is no way China can use hard power to enforce a claim to the whole “sea area” within the u-shaped line. No matter how strong the Chinese navy becomes, the neighbouring countries shall never accept to give away what is rightfully theirs. They know the law of the sea just as well as China’s legal experts do, so they know what is clearly theirs, what China may claim, and where there may be overlapping legitimate claims. So if China should choose to use force to take control of resources in what other countries rightfully consider to be their exclusive economic zones, Vietnam and the Philippines will do their utmost to seek outside help against China, and also use their own means to sabotage Chinese exploitation of their oil. They will also disregard any Chinese fishing ban. The only way for China to realize its interests in the South China Sea is to negotiate bilaterally and multilaterally on the basis of international law. This is why it is such good news that the Chinese and Vietnamese leaders agreed on 11 October 2011 to go back to the negotiating table. The Gulf of Tonkin agreement was negotiated by China and Vietnam in 2000 on the basis of international law. It did not follow the two dashes of the u-shaped line that were once included on Chinese maps, but the maritime border was negotiated in the same way such borders are negotiated elsewhere in the world. Bilateral negotiations undertaken by good legal experts are likely to have a highly beneficial effect on Sino-Vietnamese relations. 

In my previous letter to Pham Quang Tuan, I mentioned that China’s judge at the Law of the Sea Tribunal in Hamburg, Gao Zhiguo, wrote already in 1994 that the u-shaped line should be understood as a claim to islands and the maritime zones they may generate. I also quoted Zou Keyuan who said in 2009 that this is the majority view among Chinese legal scholars. Pham Quang Tuan now thinks that China’s claim may have changed since 1994 and become more radical and less founded in international law. This is a wrong assumption. Gao Zhiguo did not express an official Chinese view in 1994, and the Chinese official position was at least as vague and ambiguous back then as it is today. If there has been change, it is that since China ratified the Law of the Sea Convention in 1996 many more Chinese legal experts have realized that the only possible interpretation of the u-shaped line is the one mentioned by Gao Zhiguo in 1994. 

Pham Quang Tuan interprets China’s deliberate ambiguity as a sign that China has “something to hide.” I would be keen to know your opinion, Su Hao, on why China has failed to present its precise maritime zone claims in the South China Sea. Some possible reasons are: a) It is psychologically difficult for the Chinese leaders to present precise claims as long as so much of the Chinese public thinks that virtually the whole South China Sea belongs to China. Precise claims will by necessity have to be more modest and this might lead to adverse reactions from nationalist public opinion; b) There are different opinions among Chinese institutions and policy makers, and no one has managed to overcome these differences so as to establish a reasonable official view; c) The top leaders do not sufficiently understand the law of the sea, and do not listen to legal advice; d) It is realized that a resolution of the disputes in the South China Sea will be linked to the Taiwan issue; as long as Taiwan has not been united with the mainland, it is considered preferable to leave legal claims in the South China Sea in the vague; e) There may be an expectation that by getting others to fear that China intends to have sovereign rights in virtually the whole South China Sea, they will be more ready to yield in negotiations once China decides to negotiate on the basis of international law; f) There may be a mistaken belief that time works for China so once it becomes strong and forceful enough, the neighbouring countries will accept a solution on Chinese terms rather than international law. This mistaken belief is also held by many of China’s critics, such as Pham Quang Tuan, who says that “of course, its options will grow wider and wider as its strength grows.” If China becomes economically and militarily stronger but does not nurture friendship and sign agreements with its neighbours, it will see its options narrowing instead of widening. And friendship is impossible to combine with disregard for international law in such essential matters as the delimitation of exclusive economic zones in the South China Sea. 

Some of these reasons, and maybe others, must be responsible for having got China to pursue a policy in the South China Sea that works against China’s own interests. It undermines China’s diplomatic efforts in the region, and could also hamper its economic relations with other regional countries. It leads these other countries to encourage the United States to play a stronger role in the region. And it delays exploration for oil and gas, resources that China would very much like to see developed within its close neighbourhood so as to reduce dependence on imports from countries far away. And it prevents the institution of a responsible fishery management regime. 

I’m pretty sure that Sun Tsu would have seen how counter-productive the Chinese policy is. He would also have understood that it is impossible to take oil, gas and fish by force. Land may be occupied and held by armies. The sea  may not. You can sail there with your ships, but not control the sea in the way you control land. If you want to exploit the resources in the sea and under the seabed, you need international agreements. 

And, Pham Quang Tuan, I’m not an apologist for China as you seem to say in your last paragraph. I do not hesitate to criticize China when I think it errs, and it certainly errs in the South China Sea. But I deeply appreciate the relative peace that China has kept with its neighbours since the last Sino-Vietnamese battle in 1988. China has also wisely negotiated land border agreements with all of its neighbours except India and Nepal, often at the cost of substantial concessions. Sun Tsu would recommend a similarly proactive approach in the South China Sea. 

Pham Quang Tuan to Stein Tønnesson: 

I believe that only Chinese scholars can answer the questions that you raised, and resolve the differences between us, regarding China’s deeper intentions. Therefore I am looking forward to Prof Su Hao’s response.

Stein Tønnesson to Pham Quang Tuan: 

Questions concerning “China’s deeper intentions” can perhaps only be resolved by Chinese scholars, but my concern is not so much China’s “intentions.” My concern is to establish what China can legitimately claim. When I say that China does not and cannot claim the whole area within the u-shaped line, my purpose is not to give a “benign” interpretation of China’s intentions, as you seem to think, but to clarify which parts of the South China Sea are under legitimate dispute and which are not. If you and others interpret Chinese ambiguous statements concerning the “sea area” within the u-shaped line to mean that China “claims” this whole area, then you actually do give a degree of recognition to an illegal Chinese claim. Not that you support it, of course, but you give it the status of a claim. This can then easily lead some people to conclude that no one should explore for oil and gas in “disputed territory” or that oil and gas there should be subject only to joint development. 

My point is that China can only claim sovereign rights to areas that are within 200 nm of its coasts (or, if the natural continental shelf extends beyond that, to a maximum of 350 nm). In areas that are less than 200 nm from the Vietnamese coast and more than 200 nm from the coasts of any other state only Vietnam can claim any sovereign rights. You may not appreciate how important this is. Let me spell it out: If China uses force to disrupt Vietnamese oil exploration or fisheries in an area where only Vietnam can claim sovereign rights, as it did in June this year, then China does not act in defence of its own claim but undertakes a pure act of aggression. This grossly violates the UN Charter, and could therefore become a matter for the UN Security Council. 

Pham Quang Tuan to Stein Tønnesson: 

I have no dispute with your interpretation of legal limits to China’s claims, as outlined in the second paragraph. 

However, I cannot agree with the logic of your first paragraph. To sound a warning is not the same as to “give a degree of recognition.” On the contrary, in international relations, keeping silent about potential illegal actions is tantamount to giving tacit support and encouragement for more and more unreasonable demands, until the situation becomes so unstable that war may break out. Chinese scholars and media often say that the lack of objection to China’s U-shaped line in past years is proof of its international acceptance. 

Ignoring a threat will not make it go away. You called me a critic of China just because I sound alarms about the threat it may pose to its neighbours. On the contrary, if people and countries are aware of potential threats to peace at an early stage, they will raise their voices and the tide of opinion may force potential aggressors to have second thoughts. 

Thus, if you wish to serve the cause of peace effectively, according to the objectives of your university department and, I am sure, your own personal objectives, I invite you to be more open and realistic about the threat that China’s excessive maritime claims is posing to peace. Above all, you MUST become concerned by China’s deeper intentions, because they are the real key to peace and war in the South China Sea. 

Stein Tønnesson to Pham Quang Tuan: 

1. Those who say that China “claims” the whole water area within the u-shaped line do not “sound a warning” but  reinforce the mistaken belief that it is possible to make such a claim. Legally informed people should sound a warning to China that by giving the impression that it is claiming something that cannot be claimed it undermines regional peace and also China’s best interests. 

2. Are you sure that China has “deeper intentions” or that a whole country as such can have “deeper intentions”? Does Vietnam,  Japan or the United States have “deeper intentions”? A nation is not a scheming person, but a collection of a great many people and institutions with different interests and views. The Chinese leaders, as I see it, are not really sure what to do with their rising power, except that they want to preserve the stability of their regime and continue to have economic growth. There are in China some widespread and dangerous ideas that the nation shall make up for historical humiliation and start throwing its weight around, and also among some people a conception that the world was better at the time when China was in the middle - or at the top - of a tributary regional hierarchy. However, there are also many Chinese who see how much China has gained from immersing itself peacefully in the world during the last thirty years and understand how much China may continue to gain from keeping peace with its neighbours. When we sound warnings against the danger of the first kind of thinking, the people of the second kind are our natural allies. 

Pham Quang Tuan to Stein Tønnesson: 

1. While small nations must rely on international laws and institutions to protect their interests, big powers have more choices. They may choose to pressure for the laws to be changed, stretch the laws, or simply ignore them altogether. If they miscalculate, well it’s war. It is rather optimistic to say that they “cannot” or “do not” claim this and that just because it’s against the law. 

2. Democratic countries like Japan and the US may not be able to have “deeper intentions” because their system is free and democratic and their policy deliberations are open. But one-party dictatorial/totalitarian countries like China and Vietnam certainly can. I don’t know what Vietnam’s (by that I mean the Vietnamese communist leadership’s) deeper intentions are, but I do know that, as a small country, it must eventually rely on diplomacy and international law for the protection of its rights. 

Such limitations do not hold for China. The very fact that it has deliberately and steadfastly disguised its intentions (regarding the U-shaped line) means that it must have some deeper motivations. Of course we have to guess what it is, but an informed guess can be made from its actions. For example, making the U-shaped line mandatory in all maps (including Google maps), or pressuring scientists to insert it into scientific papers: the intended effect is to brainwash the Chinese people at large into believing that the South China Sea is rightfully theirs. Once that point is reached, possession of the South China Sea will not be just a deep intention, but will have become a national purpose. 

You said that the Chinese leaders are concerned with maintaining the stability of their regime. That does not preclude territorial ambitions, because territorial expansion or the drumming up of territorial claims have always been a recourse for dictatorial regimes to maintain their stability. 

I think China knows full well that territorial claims on the South China Sea beyond what the Law of the Sea Convention allows are illegal. That’s why it has never said what the U-shaped line means to them. Saying it would attract international condemnation. The very fact that they haven’t said it is a pretty sure sign that they harbour illegal intentions. If you think that it is important to teach them what is legal and what is not, that’s fine, but I think that’s hardly necessary - they already know international laws just as well as anybody else. For the sake of peace in the region, what they need to learn is that world opinion will be united against any attempts to transgress the law, and that is something I’m afraid you haven’t stressed enough. 

Le Van Ut to Stein Tønnesson

I followed the discussion of professors Stein Tønnesson and Pham Quang Tuan. I agree with Professor Tuan Pham’s arguments about the U-shaped line.

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Slightly edited in Uppsala, 15 November 2011

Stein Tønnesson 

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Dunedin, 10 November 2011

The Decline of Violence and the East Asian Peace

In The Better Angels of Our Nature, Professor Steven Pinker sets out to describe and explain the decline of violence throughout history. It is a fantastic book, with the widest possible grasp of trends in different dimensions of violence that human kind has been experiencing, from family violence to genocide. For those of us interested in the East Asian Peace, this is an important book, which can help to situate the seemingly surprising peacefulness of East Asia after 1979 into a much larger historical pattern and a much broader geographical context.

Professor Pinker identifies five “historical forces” that can explain the waning of wars and other forms of violent interaction (as well as the attitudes supporting violence in various forms): the Leviathan (that is, the state with its monopoly on violence), commerce, feminization, cosmopolitanism, and the escalation of reason. How can these factors help to explain the peace in East Asia? My guess is that Leviathan and commerce would be the most important explanations, whereas feminization, cosmopolitanism, and the escalation of reason, play less of a role in the creation of the East Asian Peace.

Pinker does not engage in a comparative analysis of the world regions and their different trajectories. This is fair enough since the book already is 802 pages! The ’East Asian Peace’ is mentioned though, but only in passing (page 303, and footnote 25). Another omission that seems a bit peculiar, in particular considering the latest developments in the Arab World, is the lack of analysis on the prevalence of non-violent forms of uprisings. If violence within states is on the decrease, as Professor Pinker suggests, this may be because the opportunities for alternative, non-violent ways of airing protests have become more effective or more well-known. This idea of ‘progressive substitution’ would have been very interesting to integrate into the analysis.

Isak Svensson

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Uppsala, 21 October 2011

War and Four Levels of Peace

Although East Asia has seen remarkably little warfare in the last three decades, both in comparison with the preceding period and with other world regions, the East Asian peace is generally considered to be shallow. Some of the most serious militarized international disputes have not been resolved. They still give ground to recurring tensions and incidents. The regional peace is also not democratic and not much anchored in regional institutional integration.

Christian Davenport and Jessica Brandwein of the Kroc Institute, University of Notre Dame (Davenport & Brandwein 2011), have suggested to distinguish between five levels of international, regional and national conflict/peace: Hot War, Latent Conflict, Tolerance (negative peace), Respect (positive peace), and Cooperative Integration. Datasets measuring the number of armed conflicts and their intensity (battle deaths) can be used only to distinguish between the first and second level. The indicators needed to distinguish between the four levels of “peace” would be a combination of measures of tension (international crises, incidents or non-lethal militarized interstate disputes) and repression (political prisoners, executions, repression of protests or riots).

The East Asian peace since 1979 has been on levels 2-4. It seems therefore that in addition to explaining why there has not been more hot war/armed conflict and why the number and intensity of such conflicts has gone down we also need to establish how the various interstate and intrastate dyads that constitute the East Asian peace have moved between Latent Conflict, Tolerance and Respect. The factors most apt to explain the avoidance of armed conflicts or the reduction in their intensity are not necessarily the same that can best explain a deepening of peace through the development of Tolerance, Respect or Cooperative Integration. On the other hand, it seems likely that the longer a Conflict has been just latent, the more a population and its leaders get used to the absence of war. This may be expected to facilitate an advance towards more positive peace. Then again, however, when the scourge of war is forgotten by new generations, they may succomb more easily than their parents to aggressive temptations. The tone of youthful blogging in East Asia has become worrisome. Peace is weak on the web.

A significant contribution to deepening the East Asian Peace could perhaps be made by telling the story of the regional peace on the web, and discussing in plain, accessible language why it has not yet moved to the stage of Respect or Cooperative Integration.

Reference: Davenport, Christian & Jessica Brandwein 2011. “Peace by Piece: Developing a Multi-Level Measure for Peace.” Paper presented to a seminar at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), 18 October 2011.

Stein Tønnesson

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Stockholm, 19 October 2011

The Jagland Paradox
 

Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre has launched an appeal to China for repairing the damage done to the two countries’ bilateral relationship by the Nobel Committee’s decision to award the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who remains in a Chinese prison. China’s reply was negative.

Many critics of the Norwegian Nobel Committee have pointed out how difficult it is to claim that the Nobel Committee is independent of the Norwegian government when it is led by Torbjørn Jagland, a former prime minister and speaker of the Norwegian parliament (Storting). Critics use this as an argument to change the way the Storting elects the committee. It should not consist of veteran politicians, but of more independent personalities from Norway and abroad, the critics say.

It is paradoxical that this kind of criticism has come up in connection with the prize to Liu Xiabo. The committee’s choice was in this case an example of great courage and independence. When Beijing now turns a cold shoulder to Støre’s attempt to repair the bilateral relationship, it accuses the Norwegian government of having supported the award. This is at most a half truth. The Norwegian government could not of course openly criticize the Nobel Committee’s choice, but the government’s support was far from wholehearted. The Chinese know this, of course, and when they now ask the Norwegian government to take tangible action to repair the bilateral relationship, it may want the Norwegian government to express some kind of regret. This is of course out of the question.

Norway’s relationship to China is of great importance to Norway and of some importance to China, but the ongoing struggle for democracy in China is of fundamental importance for the whole world.

Norway’s relationship to China will be slowly, but surely repaired. When Liu Xiaobo is released from jail at some point in the future, the world will remember where his peace prize came from. The pragmatic Western critics of the award to Liu Xiaobo may then prefer to be forgotten.

Stein Tønnesson

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Uppsala 17 October 2011:

Peace from East to Middle East
 

The conservative American columnist Ross Douthat has a thoughtful piece in today's International Herald Tribune: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-198871167.html. Reflecting on the plight of Egypt's Copts he asks if the European peace hailed by Steven Pinker (Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined) and others has come with a huge cost. Except in multi-ethnic societies like the United States, peace has been achieved through violent ethno-religious cleansing. Modern nation states have gained stability at the cost of diversity. Whereas in 1900, he says with reference to Jerry Z. Muller, there were many states in Europe without a single overwhelmingly dominant nationality, by now there are only two, and one of those, Belgium, is close to breaking up. This suggests, according to Douthat, that if an age of democratic peace awaits the Middle East and Africa, it lies on the far side of ethnic and religious re-sortings that may take generations to work out.

This is not necessarily so. Even states with a dominant ethnic group may well accommodate diversity. And instead of seeking inspiration from European-style democratic peace, the Middle East may look east at Southeast Asia for examples of peaceful development of multi-ethnic societies. A book to seek inspiration from is Anthony Reid's Imperial Alchemy (2010). His superb analytical grasp of the historical transformations of various overlapping identies in Southeast Asia shows how, in spite of much conflict and friction, ethnic and national identities may well co-exist, and not at each other's expense.

At the upcoming International Studies Association conference in San Diego (1-4 April), Isak Svensson and I intend to reflect on the Arab Spring in light of the Southeast Asian experience.

Stein Tønnesson

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Uppsala 18 September 2011

Eight Points on the East Asian Peace

Eight is the lucky number, and there are eight points that came out with a particular strength in this meeting.

1. East Asia: Who are in the Region?  In the founding documents of the program 18 states are listed, 6 in Northeast Asia and 12 in Southeast Asia. These are all countries located in the geographical region, but does this capture all important state actors influencing the region? There is one obvious No. 19 that was frequently alluded to during our deliberations: The United States. Should it be regarded as a member and thus included in statistics? Would US involvements in other parts of the world also be part of the program’s concern? Or should the US be regarded as an independent (unpredictable?) variable? Clearly the region is more internationalized or globalized than many others. Global considerations also enter the region’s dynamics.

However, if this question is raised it also opens-up questions about other influential actors and their role in the region’s relations. Some references have been made to a No. 20: Russia, a No. 21: India, a No. 22: Australia. Is it farfetched also to think of a No. 23: the EU?

How the program can handle such actors needs to be considered. There are many ways ranging from commissioned papers to specific themes at annual program conferences.

2. East Asia: Is it One Region? Many papers have drawn a distinction between Northeast and Southeast Asia. There are no armed conflicts since 1980 in the former, but many in the latter, but the dangers of escalation to large scale warfare may be higher in the former than in the latter. During the conference there were a number of suggested explanations for conflict patterns that were specific to one or the other region, notably the role of the presidency, the history of state formation, gender dimensions, etc. It was also claimed that while inter-state relations had become more peaceful in Southeast Asia, they had become more conflictual in Northeast Asia in recent years. Thus, the program will have to balance region-wide explanations with country or area-specific ones. This interaction between levels and explanations may be beneficial for a deeper understanding of war and peace.

3. What May Democracy Explain? One general explanation figured prominently at this particular conference, it was also its theme: democracy. At first it seemed that democracy would not be a plausible explanation for the absence or limited extent of violence in the whole region. However, several studies looked at alternative ways of measuring democracy, pointing to the possible effects of observing lower scores on the democracy scales; or taking long term developments into consideration. It was also pointed out that democratization in one country may have effects for peace both inside that country, on its relations with other countries, and on internal developments in other countries. Thus, there may be more to the question of democracy than just the lack of war between democracies, and thus the conference stimulated further thinking on the short and long term effects of democratization on peace in the region.

4. Are There Solid Alternative Explanations? A number of alternatives were put forward and many seemed fruitful in addition to customary military balance (‘realist’) variables, notably matters of identity distance, national priority shifts, gender and, not the least economic factors.  The economics of peace may be a necessary topic for further exploration.  The idea of a capitalist peace (i.e. the reverse of Lenin’s expectations of capitalist wars) is suggestive, but it is unclear what the causal mechanisms would be. Would economic growth necessarily lead to protracted peace, or could it make some countries stronger than others and fuel rivalries? Would economic growth combined with regional integration be a better option, since it would restrain the option to resort to hostile behavior among states? Would economic growth with integration and a redefinition of the ‘national project’ as one of welfare building, be the ultimate combination for long-term peace? Or is it the transnational effects of trade and mutual investments that is the key? Possibly economists could contribute to such a discussion. This is something for the Core Group to consider.

5. Is there a Research Method for this Problem? The methodological challenge of addressing a zero variable came up at various instances of the conference. It is customary to explain war, but this program focuses on non-war: Why has there not been any major war in the region for such a long period? For instance: To start a war could be the matter of one decision by one actor at one moment in time. To prevent such an occurrence, however, requires a number of decisions by many over a long period of time.  So to explain non-war  requires an understanding of habits, learning and expectations that have to be shared among diverse societies, and probably seen in a similar light by all of them. Explaining peace, in other words, is different from explaining war, and there may be important methodological lessons to be learned from the program.

6. To What should East Asia be Compared? The observation of a reduction of war in East Asia builds on a comparison with the rest of the world. The region displays a different pattern from other regions, notably in the 1980s. But are there daring cross-regional comparisons that could be done? Could Northeast Asia today be compared to the situation in Europe in the middle of the 1970s? Could a systematic comparison of the end of the Cold War in different regions generate significant lessons? The matter of a sustained peace would require an investigation of other longer periods of peace. What would a study of the long  European peace before World War I  tell us? After all, it lasted for 40 years and was, by many, seen as a stabilizing system of alliances that would keep the peace.

7. How Solid is the East Asian Peace? There were data presented at the conference that did not fit with the overall pattern, notably on militarized inter-state disputes (MIDs), territorial disputes that gave rise to strong sentiments, secondary support patterns that went on much longer than one might assume (and with various kinds of external actors, such as Islamist networks). Perhaps such information could be treated as indicators of the fragility of the present ‘arrangement’. Further to this, one must take into consideration that there are arms deliveries, unresolved territorial disputes, financial uncertainties, very few peace agreements and very little resort to extra-regional mediation. Indicators of fragility would have to be part of an understanding of the present ‘peace’ in East Asia.

8. Does the Program have a Message? Some consideration was given to the output from the program. The plan includes some 150 papers, a number of articles, book chapters, books and other presentations. There are good reasons to make the website as attractive and lively as possible. It may also be a good idea to work towards some form of Concerned Scientists’ Statement on the East Asian Peace? It would be based on the reports and general consensus that the participants share and perhaps be a statement that also could generate interest. It could point to the strengths as well as the weakness of the present state of the East Asian Peace, possibly including general recommendations or courses of action. For the time being, it was left as one more matter for the program Core Group and the Advisory Board to consider.

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The Advisory Board of the East Asian Peace program at Uppsala University is chaired by Professor Peter Wallensteen (Uppsala University), and has the following members, all of whom took part in its constitutive meeting on 16 September 2011:

• Professor Kevin Clements (University of Otago, New Zealand)
• Director Bates Gill (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI)
• Ambassador Börje Ljunggren (former Swedish ambassador to Vietnam and China and co-ordinator, Stockholm China Forum)
•Professor Moon Chung-in (Yonsei University, Seoul)
• Professor Robert S. Ross (Boston College)
• Professor Thommy Svensson (Stockholm China Alliance and Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Copenhagen)
• Professor Wang Yizhou (Beijing University).

Peter Wallensteen (Eight-point summary comment delivered at the concluding session of the East Asian Peace Program’s First Annual Conference, Uppsala, Sweden, September 16-18, 2011)

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