Look who's trying to defuse tension in the East China Sea
| Taipei, Taiwan
News that hasn鈥檛 hit the headlines 鈥� yet
Ever since China declared an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) over contested territory in the East China Sea, its neighbors have been quick to slam China鈥檚 moves 鈥� and bolster their own claims.
Every neighbor that is, except Taiwan 鈥� who also has an air zone now overlapped by China鈥檚, and who also has territorial claims in the East China Sea.
But while Japan has responded by sending fighter jets through China鈥檚 zone, and South Korea expanded its own ADIZ, Taiwan is quietly calling for a different solution: actually talking to each other.
Taiwan has issued three calls for peace talks since China declared its zone Nov. 23 in order to defuse the tension.
On the surface, no one is taking Taiwan seriously. China sees the island 160 kilometers offshore as part of its territory since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, not as a country empowered to conduct diplomacy. Japan, South Korea, and the United States听谤别肠辞驳苍颈锄别 Beijing, not Taipei. China would erupt if they sat down with Taiwan.聽
鈥淚n reality Taiwan has no bargaining chips,鈥� says Nathan Liu, international affairs professor at Ming Chuan University in Taiwan. 鈥淚t would be very difficult for Taiwan to say something or do anything too irrational or too serious.鈥� 聽
But Taiwan 鈥渁ctually gains,鈥� just by proposing talks - even if they never materialize, Mr. Liu says.
The聽recent calls for talks, on the heels of聽an East China Sea peace initiative outlined by Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou last year, could impress Japan and the United States.聽That,聽in turn, could shore up informal relations with a growing number of deliverables,聽such as high-level visits, expanded maritime rights, and trade deals.聽
Mr. Ma made his latest pitch for peace Wednesday聽before Raymond Burghardt, a de facto US diplomat in charge of Taiwan. US officials hint that Taiwan鈥檚 cooperative stance on China over the past three years has earned it more high-level visits from Washington, including trips in 2013 by Ed Royce, House Foreign Affairs Committee chair, and Robert Wang, State Department senior official for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation affairs.
Taiwan hopes such visits ultimately will pay off with a hard-to-get trade liberalization deal with the United States and a spot in the Trans Pacific Partnership, a regional trading bloc being formed under US guidance.
Taiwan also counts former colonizer Japan as a friend and has avoided confronting it over competing maritime claims. In April, Tokyo and Taipei reached a rare deal to let Taiwanese boats fish in disputed waters also claimed by China, a slight against Beijing.
