Is China's air defense zone a game changer?

Beijing's declaration of an air defense zone could further harm relations with Japan, but some military experts question China's enforcement capabilities.

|
Kyodo News/AP/File
In this 2011 file photo, a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force P-3C Orion surveillance plane flies over the disputed islands in the East China Sea, called the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

China has ruffled a lot of international feathers with its weekend declaration of an “air defense identification zone” over airspace already claimed by Japan. Now the question is whether Beijing will aggressively enforce its self-declared rights – and whether they are capable of doing so.

The United States, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have all rejected, condemned or regretted Beijing’s announcement Saturday that all foreign aircraft must file flight plans before entering its newly declared zone, which includes Japanese-administered islands that China also claims.

Japan has said it will ignore the Chinese demand, which Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida called a “one sided action” that “cannot be allowed.” That heightened fears of a military clash in the contested area. 

“Irrational actions in the ADIZ [air defense identification zone] could lead to conflict,” says Wang Jinling, a former Chinese military officer who now heads San Lue, an independent think tank on security affairs in Beijing. “Real clashes are possible.” 

But a clash isn't likely, he adds. “China’s intention is not to show its military strength or to spark a conflict, but to underline its sovereignty” over the disputed islands, known as the Diaoyu in China and the Senkaku in Japan.

That is a view shared by a senior Japanese military analyst, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. “Both sides want to avoid an incident around the Senkakus,” he says. “Both militaries have been very, very careful about not going into each others’ air or sea space” since the dispute broke out in September last year, deploying civilian proxies such as Coast Guard vessels instead, he points out.

But with both sides claiming the right to monitor aircraft in an overlapping zone, and to scramble fighters to deal with unidentified craft, accidents are more likely. US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel warned Saturday that China’s declaration of an ADIZ “increases the risk of misunderstanding and miscalculations.”

Chinese radar capabilities questioned

Such risks may be heightened, Japanese and other military experts say, because the Chinese military does not appear to have sufficiently sophisticated radar capability to track fighter planes flying at low altitudes over the disputed islands, which are more than 200 miles from the Chinese coast.

Beijing explained its declaration of an air defense identification zone, similar to zones declared by the US, Japan, and a number of other states, as designed “to defend national sovereignty and territorial and air security,” according to a statement on the Defense Ministry website.

If foreign aircraft in the zone refuse to identify themselves or to follow Chinese instructions, “China’s armed forces will adopt defensive emergency measures to respond,” Beijing’s statement said. 

“This is a reminder to Japan that [China is] serious and prepared to hold to their position indefinitely until they get a concession,” says Denny Roy, an analyst at the East-West Center in Honolulu. “They want Japan to acknowledge there is a territorial dispute” and are taking steps towards de facto co-administering the islands.

The Japanese government, however, is showing no signs of being prepared to accept the existence of a dispute. Officials in Tokyo increasingly view Chinese pressure as a test of their determination; should they cede on the Senkakus, they fear, China will then press on other issues.

Nor will Japanese pilots obey Chinese demands for identification, the Japanese military analyst says. “That is unacceptable. It would sound as if we admit their claim” to the disputed territory, he points out.

China won no international sympathy for its move. US Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington was “deeply concerned” by what he called “an attempt to change the status quo in the East China Sea.” South Korea said the Chinese announcement was “regrettable,” not least because China’s new ADIZ overlaps with Seoul’s zone, and Taiwan, which also claims the Diaoyu islands, urged Beijing not to use military means to resolve its territorial dispute.

Island purchase stirs dispute

Tensions between China and Japan, the second and third largest economies in the world, have worsened since the Japanese government bought three of the disputed islands in 2012 from their private Japanese owner, saying it wanted to keep them out of the hands of a nationalist firebrand who could them to provoke Beijing.

China, however, saw the move as a violation of a longstanding informal agreement to leave the territorial dispute in abeyance pending a possible agreement to jointly exploit any resources, such as oil and gas, which may be discovered in the islands’ vicinity.

Beijing formalized its claim to the islands and surrounding ocean last year, publishing territorial baselines, and has since dispatched Coast Guard ships and other civilian vessels into or near Japanese waters on an almost daily basis. Japanese F-15 jets have scrambled about 300 times since the crisis erupted 14 months ago to deter potential intruders.

Only very rarely, however, has China deployed military vessels or aircraft in a threatening fashion. If Beijing wanted to ratchet up the pressure, suggests Dr. Roy, it could step up the frequency of its air and sea patrols around the islands, “or swap in navy ships for the maritime patrol ships they have been using.”

That, he says, “would mark a big escalation” in the dispute.

With tensions between the two neighbors rising, says Mr. Wang, “now is not the moment for their militaries to compete in strength, but for their leaders to compete in wisdom.” 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Is China's air defense zone a game changer?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2013/1125/Is-China-s-air-defense-zone-a-game-changer
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe