The Chinese air force in
2013 scrambled
Su-30 and
J-11 fighter jets after a dozen
American and
Japanese military aircraft entered the air defence identification zone (
ADIZ) proclaimed by
Beijing last weekend in the
East China Sea.
The incident is the first direct
Chinese reaction to a US or
Japanese incursion and heightens the danger of a miscalculation leading to a clash and conflict.
Having declared the ADIZ, which overlaps with
Japan's own ADIZ and provocatively includes the disputed
Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, the
Chinese government has come under pressure from hawkish sections of the ruling elite not to back away. The
Obama administration immediately challenged the ADIZ by flying nuclear-capable
B-52 bombers into the area on Tuesday without abiding by Chinese rules to provide flight plans, identification and maintain radio contact. Japan and
South Korea followed suit on Wednesday, sending military aircraft to the zone.
According to the Chinese
Defence Ministry, the Chinese fighters identified two US reconnaissance planes and 10 Japanese military aircraft, including early warning, reconnaissance and fighter aircraft.
The statement explained that the
Chinese aircraft monitored their American and Japanese counterparts throughout their flights in the ADIZ.
Asked about the Chinese statement,
Pentagon spokesman
Colonel Steve Warren acknowledged the US flights but provided no details. "
The US will continue to partner our allies and will operate in the area as normal," he said. Japan's
Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera also played down the incident, saying: "
We are simply conducting our ordinary warning and surveillance activity like before."
Far from operating "normally," the US and Japan have seized upon the Chinese ADIZ to justify their closer military collaboration and build-up in areas adjacent to the
Chinese mainland.
An American defence official told
Bloomberg.com yesterday that the
US military was conducting daily flights through the zone without notifying Chinese authorities in advance.
The US and Japanese navies are conducting a major joint exercise, AnnualEx 2013, in waters off
Okinawa in Japan's southern island chain near the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands.
The war games involve the aircraft carrier, the
USS George Washington, as well as dozens of American and Japanese warships, submarines and aircraft.
US 7th fleet commander,
Vice Admiral Robert Thomas, reaffirmed that American warplanes would ignore Chinese rules for its ADIZ. "So for us it's 'steady as you go.' Our operations in the East China Sea will continue as they always have."
US air force activities, which include regular reconnaissance flights off the Chinese coast, have in the past led to dangerous incidents, including a mid-air collision near
China's Hainan Island in
2001 that resulted in the downing of a Chinese aircraft and the death of the pilot.
The latest navy exercises near Okinawa are part of Japan's strategic shift from the defence of the country's north against the former
Soviet Union, to boosting military forces in the southern island chain—opposite
China. Abe has made clear his government's intention of enforcing Japan's own ADIZ around the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, threatening to order the shooting down of unmanned Chinese surveillance drones. According to the
Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan plans to station
E-2C early warning aircraft at the
Naha base in the
Okinawa region and deploy long-range
Global Hawk drones to monitor the area.
The new Chinese leadership of
President Xi Jinping has been under internal pressure to respond to Abe's more aggressive stance, especially over the disputed islets. Like the
Japanese government, the Chinese regime is whipping up nationalism, which is particularly directed against its neighbour across the East China Sea, to divert mounting social tensions at home.
In declaring China's ADIZ, the Xi leadership apparently counted on being able to put pressure on the US-Japan alliance and isolate Japan. An editorial in the hawkish state-run
Global Times on Thursday urged the government to pursue this strategy and make Japan the "prime target" of Chinese pressure. The newspaper dismissed criticisms from South Korea and
Australia, and opined: "
Washington is expected to refrain from confronting Beijing directly in the East China Sea, at least for now."
The danger is that political miscalculations and misjudgments by one or more governments can rapidly lead to an escalating confrontation, in which an apparently minor incident can trigger a wider conflict.
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- published: 09 Jan 2014
- views: 122348