Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for securing Beijing's interests over the Japan-administered Senkaku Islands and the disputed South China Sea, saying achieving that goal represents a "heavy historical responsibility" for his generation, according to internal documents.
As Xi embarked on an unprecedented third five-year term as general secretary of the ruling Communist Party last Sunday, he is likely to increase attempts to alter the status quo over the Senkakus in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, not to mention Taiwan, further exacerbating frictions with Japan and other neighbors.
Xi made the remarks at a closed meeting on Feb. 24, 2016, of the party's Central Military Commission, which he heads, the documents show.
Later that year, the Chinese military stepped up operations in the East China Sea and Beijing ignored an international tribunal ruling that invalidated China's sweeping claims over most of the South China Sea.
The internal documents, published in May 2017, have been used as a textbook for senior officials of the military and the party to "unify their thinking with Xi's strong military thought," according to Chinese sources familiar with the situation.
The documents showed Xi telling the officials at the meeting of the top military organ that "if we abandon the ocean, (China) will decline."
Xi pledged to "build staunch strategic bases in the South China Sea to win a battle to secure interests" for future generations, they said.
He stressed his achievements of "historical breakthroughs" since assuming the party general secretary post in 2012, such as waging "a battle to safeguard (China's) interests over the Diaoyu Islands" -- the Chinese name of the Senkakus -- and building outposts in disputed areas of the South China Sea.
Beijing has undertaken a massive land reclamation program in the contested waters of the South China Sea, building military and civilian facilities on islands and reefs claimed by a number of other nations, such as the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia.
Xi also mentioned as his achievement the establishment of an air defense identification zone in the East China Sea in 2013.
The unilateral action has triggered a protest from Japan as the zone overlaps that of Japan and covers airspace over the Senkaku Islands.
About three months after Xi made those remarks, a Chinese navy ship entered a contiguous zone just outside Japanese territorial waters near the Senkaku Islands for the first time.
In the year through March 2017, the number of Japanese Air Self-Defense Force scrambles against Chinese military planes hit a record-high of 851.
In July 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague ruled that China has no historic rights to resources in the South China Sea based on its expansive "nine-dash line" claim, in a move welcomed by the Philippines, which instigated the case. But Beijing rejected the decision.
At the 2016 meeting, Xi also shared his views that the era in which the United States and other Western nations led the international order was gone and that China had a "historic chance" for its rise, according to the documents.
Takashi Suzuki, an associate professor of Chinese politics at Aichi Prefectural University in central Japan, said Xi's remarks at the closed meeting are "an important clue" to elucidating his political motivations.
"President Xi singled out the Senkaku Islands and deemed Japan as a rival in the East China Sea" in the meeting, Suzuki said.
"For Mr. Xi, securing maritime interests and achieving the mainland's reunification with Taiwan are goals that must be fulfilled to overtake the United States and he feels a strong sense of responsibility," the scholar added.
