The Pacific’s Black Current: China, Japan, and the “Cooperative Study of the Kuroshio and Adjacent Regions” (CSK), 1965-1978

The Kuroshio–––literally known as the “black current”––is the Pacific counterpart of the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic. It is a west-to-east flowing warm current in the Northeast Pacific region. During the Cold War, a 13-year international program known as the “Cooperative Study of the Kuroshio and Adjacent Regions” (CSK) was launched between 1965-1978, incorporating participation from British Hong Kong, (Republic of) China, Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Korea, the US, and the USSR. This paper explores the complexity of scientific cooperation manifested in the divergent interests held by Chinese and Japanese scientists in the CSK. Just as Japanese oceanographers held different sets of concerns and expectation over the CSK than their Soviet counterparts, the Chinese delegates of the CSK also expressed different interests than their Japanese colleagues. Through studying the national differences in the international survey of the Pacific current, this paper aims to shed light on the politics of oceanographic internationalism as intertwined along the Pacific coasts. I argue that the participation of China and Japan in the mid-twentieth century study of the Kuroshio seem to highlight their divergent commitments and motivation in approaching the Pacific’s black current.