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China establishes air-defence zone over East China Sea

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Japanese airlines on Tuesday said they would follow rules set by China when it declared an air control zone over the East China Sea, even as Tokyo said they should ignore them.

All Nippon Airways (ANA) said that since Sunday it has been submitting flight plans to Chinese authorities for any plane that was due to pass through the area. Its affiliate Peach Aviation said it was doing the same “for now”.

The announcements came after former flag carrier Japan Airlines said it was complying with demands Beijing set out on Saturday when it said it had established an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) where all aircraft were required to obey its orders.

The zone covers the Tokyo-controlled Senkaku islands, which Beijing claims as the Diaoyus, where ships and aircraft from the two countries already shadow each other in a dangerous game of cat and mouse.

“We have taken the measures in line with international regulations,” an ANA spokesman said. “Safety is our top priority. We have to avoid any possibility of the worst-case scenario.”

Peach Aviation said it had taken similar steps. “We will continue submitting our flight plans to the Chinese side for now,” a spokesman said.

Transport Minister Akihiro Ota insisted that the Chinese declaration was “not valid at all” and called on Japanese airlines to ignore it.

On Monday, Tokyo called in Beijing’s ambassador to demand a roll-back of the plan which it said would “interfere with freedom of flight over the high seas”, but was rebuffed by Cheng Yonghua, who said Tokyo should retract its “unreasonable demand”.

Under the rules, aircraft are expected to provide their flight plan, clearly mark their nationality, and maintain two-way radio communication allowing them to “respond in a timely and accurate manner” to identification inquiries from Chinese authorities.

The area also includes waters claimed by Taiwan and South Korea, which have also both registered their displeasure at the move.

Japanese airlines say they will obey China's air zone rules ‹ Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion
 
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Good Job China. this is exactly peaceful rise! US and Japan did exactly the same thing and they said what they did is peaceful. China just repeat the peaceful thing which US and Japan did. so it is peaceful too.

See peaceful rise? Well thank you for proving us all right china good keep dinging your own damn grave
and only two-faced countries and demons like this guy can say something like Japan eats food to survive is peaceful and other people eat the same food to survive is evil!
 
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SOURCE: WANT CHINA TIMES

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The establishment of Beijing’s East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone is a strategic decision in accordance with China’s current national security situation, experts told Xinhua on Sunday.

“Setting up the air defense identification zone can effectively safeguard national sovereignty and security,” said military expert Zhang Junshe, adding that the move conforms to the fundamental spirit and principle of international law.

Beijing issued a statement on Saturday morning on establishing the East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone. It also issued an announcement on the aircraft identification rules and a diagram for the zone.

According to the announcement, China will take timely measures to deal with air threats and unidentified flying objects from the sea, including identification, monitoring, control and disposition.

“The move also accords with common international practices as the United States and Canada took the lead around the world in setting up such zones starting in the 1950s,” said Xing Hongbo, a military and legal expert, adding that more than 20 countries have set up air defense identification zones since then.

“Various aircraft with high altitude and high-speed flying capabilities have been broadly used around the world with the development of aviation technology, and it’s hard for China to identify an unidentified flying object and adopt countermeasures immediately,” said Meng Xiangqing, a military expert.

The establishment of the zone can help set aside early warning time to ascertain an aircraft’s purpose and attributes and adopt measures to protect air defense security, Meng said.
 
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China's Air Defense Zone Rattles Japan, US

The Pentagon and the US Pacific Command face new problems after Beijing’s announcement of the establishment of an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea on Nov. 23.

China listed five “Aircraft Identification Rules” that have clearly upset the region. The rules state that “aircraft flying in the East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone should report the flight plans” to China. The list does not distinguish between commercial and military aircraft, said Peter Dutton, an ADIZ expert and director of the China Maritime Studies Institute, US Naval War College.

“The failure to distinguish is a concern to the US,” he said.

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel reacted to the announcement by calling it a “destabilizing attempt to alter the status quo in the region.” The “unilateral” decision only “increases the risk of misunderstanding and miscalculations.”

China’s decision adds to the stress the US military is experiencing with the evolving corruption scandal involving US Navy officers and Singapore-based Glenn Defense Marine, efforts to implement the Asia rebalance during a time of defense budget cuts, and framing its Air-Sea Battle Doctrine without the pretense it’s not really about China.

“The US is being cautious” because of recent problems with the Health Care Act, the agreement with Tehran and the conflict in Syria, said retired US Navy Adm. Walter Doran, former Pacific Fleet Commander. “These are taking all the oxygen in the room. So much for our rebalance to Asia.”

Doran said this is an escalation on China’s part.

“It is certainly a challenge to the Japanese and by treaty obligation to the US. It looks like an attempt to try to force some daylight between the Japanese and the US and therefore nudge the US farther out of the Western Pacific.”

Doran said China’s ADIZ was “very dangerous” because it “increases the possibility of a miscalculation at a lower level that will force governments to react.”

South Korea has also expressed outrage over China’s decision. The ADIZ covers the Socotra Rock (Ieodo or Parangdo), which is under South Korean control, but also claimed by China as the Suyan Rock.

However, no one in the region is more upset than Japan. China’s ADIZ not only overlaps Japan’s ADIZ, but covers the disputed islets known as Diaoyu to China and the Senkakus to Japan. It also covers the Chunxiao gas field under development by China.

According to China’s Ministry of Defense, aircraft that enter the zone will follow the rules of identification or risk “China’s armed forces” adopting “defensive emergency measures to respond.” The penalty of ignoring China’s ADIZ are undefined at this time.

Sources indicate China does not have the radar redundancy and command integration capabilities to control the area or prevent accidents.

“Let China run itself crazy trying to enforce this,” said a US defense industry source based in Asia. “I just can’t see how China will sustain the enforcement. Too much traffic goes through there. If no country recognizes it, [and] don’t respond to China’s IFF [identification friend or foe] interrogation or VID [visual identification], then this new ADIZ is meaningless.”

Some US sources are concerned China’s ambiguity on the rules of engagement might get civilians killed; a reference to the 1983 shoot down of Korean Air Lines 007 by a Soviet Su-15 fighter after straying into Soviet territory.

In response, Chinese sources indicate the establishment of the ADIZ is nothing out of the ordinary and is a response to Japan’s decision to expand its own ADIZ in 2010.

Zhuang Jianzhong, vice director of the Center for National Strategy Studies, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, said ADIZs are a “common international practice and up to the normal international standards.”

Maj. Gen. Zhu Chenghu, director general the Department of Strategic Studies, National Defense University, Beijing, said Japan “has its own air defense identification zone, which has already extended to the coast of China.”

Zhu said the other reason is territorial disputes with Japan and the fact that aircraft are “highly concentrated in the zone.” China’s ADIZ would be “conducive to the prevention of accidents.” Zhu hopes the establishment of the ADIZ will also lead to negotiations on a “code of conduct in the air.”

Japanese reaction has been more emotional.

Narushige Michishita, director of the Security and International Studies Program at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Tokyo, said the decision was “bad and unfortunate.” Chinese President Xi Jinping “was actively involved in the decision-making process” and was “reckless and irresponsible.” If not, then Xi was not firmly in command of his armed forces, he said. “Either way, it is a scary situation.”

Ken Jimbo, senior research fellow at the Canon Institute for Global Studies/The Tokyo Foundation, said China misjudged if it thought the decision would gain international support. He said the ADIZ announcement was actually Beijing’s attempt to consolidate its territorial claims in the East China Sea.

Bonnie Glaser, a China specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, said the decision by China is “in conformity with international law,” but “it is an evident challenge to Japan’s claim to sovereignty over the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands.”

The Chinese have clearly “upped the ante,” said Paul H. B. Godwin, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and former CIA analyst.

“In essence, Beijing has raised the ante on its sovereignty claim by demonstrating it has taken responsibility for defending the airspace above the Diaoyu/Senkaku in addition to the Coast Guard vessels that regularly enter Diaoyu/Senkaku territorial waters to demonstrate China’s sovereignty over the islands.”

“The million dollar question is,” asks James Manicom, research fellow at The Centre for International Governance Innovation, “will China try to occupy the islands or try to station some kind of physical presence on the islands?”

US sources insist that if the Chinese military invaded the islands, this would force the US military to assist Japan in expelling them, as required under Article 5 of the US-Japan mutual defense treaty.

“What China announced is far more provocative and dangerous because it interjects a Chinese military function in an area that the United States has pledged to defend from attack under Article V of the US-Japan Security Treaty,” said Mike Green, senior vice president for Asia and Japan Chair at CSIS. “This is a slap at the United States now, and not just Japan.”

Green said this is part of a larger Chinese strategy beyond territorial disputes over Senkaku. “This should be viewed as part of a Chinese effort to assert greater denial capacity and eventual pre-eminence over the First Island Chain,” he said.

Green, who served in the US National Security Council from 2001 to 2005, said China’s Central Military Commission in 2008 “promulgated the ‘Near Sea Doctrine’ and is following it to the letter; testing the US, Japan, Philippines and others to see how far they can push.

“Any thought that it is a reaction to Japanese ‘nationalization’ or [Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo] Abe is fantasy,” Green said. In 1992, China changed the status quo when they included the “entirety of the East and South China seas as their territorial waters.” With the 2008 Near Sea Doctrine, China began “dramatically increasing PLA [People’s Liberation Army] and Maritime Surveillance patrols.”

Protests by the US and Japan annoy Wang Dong, director of the Center for Northeast Asian Strategic Studies, Peking University.

“I think the Japanese and US protests truly expose their hypocrisy and self-righteousness,” he said. The decision is consistent with international law and norms and China’s ADIZ will help stabilize the region, he said.

Japanese leaders have to come out of their “self-defeating delusion of trying to construct a ‘strategic encirclement’ against China and reciprocate Chinese leaders’ call to shelve disputes and seek a diplomatic solution to the issue.”

Wang said it was Japanese “stubbornness” and a “denial of the existence of any dispute over Diaoyu Island, which is utterly detached from reality and counterproductive” that has “become a stumbling block to the stabilization of the situation in the East China Sea.”

Another frustrated Chinese source is Zhu Feng, deputy director of the Center for International and Strategic Studies, Peking University. China’s decision to set up the ADIZ is a response to Japan’s “notorious objection to recognize the existing territorial dispute between Beijing and Tokyo.

“We spent 13 months waiting for Japan’s negotiation over the territorial dispute since September 2012 [when Japan nationalized the islands], but Japan’s hubris prevents it from showing any flexibility,” he said. “Additionally, every time a Chinese surveillance plane scratches Japan’s ADIZ, its jetfighters scramble, and its government officials cry out over China’s plane approaching Diaoyu Island.”

The truth, he said, is that there is no Chinese plan to fly over the islands. “Japan’s smear campaign truly irritates the PLA and Beijing. Now we have to react by declaring our own ADIZ, and keep them shut up.”

The US military has been working hard over the past several years to better military-to-military relations with China. However, Beijing’s announcement throws into question the wisdom of working closer with China as Beijing continues to disregard US advice and concerns.

“The US military needs to better understand the thinking of the PLA and its political influence in decision-making,” said Alexander Huang, senior associate at CSIS and a professor of strategy and wargaming at Tamkang University, Taiwan. “My only criticism of US-China mil-mil is that too much familiarity may not get better results.”

US reaction has been largely negative. Retired USMC Lt. Gen. Wallace “Chip” Gregson, former US assistant secretary of defense, Asian and Pacific Security Affairs, now with Avascent International, said the US “at the very least should break off mil-mil relations with the Chinese.” Gregson said the Chinese are quick to break off military ties with the US whenever “‘we hurt the feelings’ of 1.4 billion Chinese by doing something for Taiwan.” He said there is a real danger if the US does not react.

“I think what will happen is that we will see this as somehow our fault” and “we will lose even more credibility with our allies and friends.”

Gregson said the US does not have a coherent strategic framework for dealing with China. “How many wake up calls do we need” to get serious about a strategy?

Green said the US should at least send a “joint US-Japan patrol in the area to prove the point that coercion will not work.”

Do not expect China to “back down,” Glaser said. There will be more intercepts by China of Japanese and US aircraft in their newly established ADIZ, she said. This could disturb US surveillance flights along China’s periphery, such as the one in 2001 that resulted in a collision between a Chinese J-8 fighter and a US Navy EP-3 ARIES signal intelligence aircraft near Hainan Island. “The risk of accident will undoubtedly increase, especially with fighters flying at Mach 1 by young, inexperienced pilots.”

Dean Cheng, senior research fellow, Heritage Foundation, said the Chinese have enough fighter aircraft now to start harassing and escorting US military aircraft transiting the ADIZ.

“We will now have to start escorting ours, I suspect, or risk harassment,” he said. The only irony is that the US may not have enough fighters, which will “reduce our optempo, making it easier for them to harass us.”

When you couple this with trans-military regional exercises, “we have to face the real likelihood that the entire 4th/5th generation complement of the PLAAF [People’s Liberation Army Air Force] is potentially available for ADIZ duties, plus PLANAF [People’s Liberation Army Naval Air Force] fighters,” Cheng said. “This will be great training for them, if nothing else — overwater navigation, improved air intercept practices, and toughening of surveillance duties.”

The end result for Japan and the US military flying operations in the area will be “a lot of white-knuckle flying and near misses,” Cheng said.

Manicom said China could be changing as a result of the fact that it has begun to conduct naval operations in the US exclusive economic zone (EEZ) off Guam and Hawaii. “China could be adopting a more global maritime perspective on military activities by ships and aircraft in the EEZ,” he said. “On the other hand, the Chinese may insist on two regimes, one governing Chinese waters and another for everyone else’s waters.”

China's Air Defense Zone Rattles Japan, US | Defense News | defensenews.com
 
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oh it was unarmed otherwise mighty Middle Kingdom would have blown it to smithereens .
 
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Oh I would rather now question the Chinese credibility and military stature.
 
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No big deal.

Russia does this all the time with the American ADIZ.

When China is ready , China will send fighters jets for escorts.
 
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ADIZ is just a political tools. russian tu-95 planes does that all the time in american ADIZ. china does the same with japanese ADIZ. i've lost count of how many times japan scrambled jets for nothing..
 
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