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It was designed as a forceful response to Japanese assertiveness, and a robust declaration of China’s maritime claims. But Beijing’s creation of an air defense zone may have backfired, experts said, after eliciting a strong joint response by the United States and Japan.

Instead of strengthening China’s position, the air defense zone has unsettled and united its neighbors.

On Saturday, Beijing said any noncommercial aircraft entering a broad zone over the East China Sea should first identify themselves, and it warned ominously that failure to do so could provoke “defensive emergency measures” by its armed forces. The statement heightened an already tense standoff with Japan over several tiny disputed islets in the East China Sea.

But the United States called China’s bluff by sending two warplanes into the zone Tuesday, and Beijing’s response was muted. The Defense Ministry merely said it had identified and monitored the planes, while the Foreign Ministry stressed that the zone was purely defensive and offered to strengthen communications with other regional players to maintain peace and security.

“We hope relevant countries do not make too much of a fuss about it, panic and read too much into it,” spokesman Qin Gang said.

Paul Haenle, director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy in Beijing, said the mild reaction was surprising. “It is almost as though they hadn’t anticipated the U.S. response and didn’t know what to do,” he said.

In Chinese eyes, the standoff began last September, when Tokyo purchased three of the islands — known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu islands in China — from a private Japanese landowner. In response, Beijing stepped up its own claims to the rocky landmasses, increasing sea patrols and pressing Japan to accept that the territory is disputed.

Japan, like numerous other countries, already has its own air defense identification zone. The country increasingly has used the zone as an excuse to warn or intercept Chinese planes in the area, according to military experts in Beijing. In September, Japan threatened to shoot down Chinese drones flying over the disputed islands; China warned that downing the drones would constitute an act of war.

The Chinese military had been considering establishing its own air defense zone for some time, and this increased tension may have tipped the balance, experts said.

“Japan has been acting more and more confrontational with regards to the Diaoyu islands, so China had to roll out its own measures to balance it out,” said Zhou Yongsheng of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of International Relations in Beijing. “Whenever Chinese aircraft entered Japan’s zone, they would dispatch fighter jets to intercept us, which put us in a very passive position.”

Popular sentiment within Japan and China has also become increasingly hostile toward the other country. Rising nationalism in China is now coupled with genuine concern about the intentions of a more nationalist Japanese government under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. His government has raised military spending since coming to power last December. More at http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinas-move-to-establ
ish-air-defense-zone-appears-to-backfire/2013/11/27/74313faa-5784-11e3-bdbf-097ab2a3dc2b_story.html?hpid=z5

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Japan, South Korea military jets cross through China air defense ID zone

Both Japan and South Korea said Thursday that they’d flown surveillance aircraft through China’s newly claimed air defense identification zone, the latest challenge to an airspace that China has vowed to defend.

The flights drew no unusual response from Beijing, but they intensify the game of dare being played above Asia’s contested maritime territory. China’s military on Saturday had said any noncommercial aircraft flying through a broad area of the East China Sea must report flight plans to Beijing, at the risk of facing “defensive emergency measures.”

The initial announcement drew condemnation from the United States and China’s neighbors. Beijing’s muted response to the incursions — including a fly-through on Tuesday of two U.S. B-52 bombers — suggest that China is either backtracking from its edict or will apply it unpredictably.

In Asia’s waters, territorial disputes go back decades or centuries and draw in nearly every nation in the region. The nastiest dispute of late has been between Japan and China over several uninhabited islets and rocks. Japan infuriated China last year by purchasing several of those islets from a private landowner, and China has since increased its surveillance — both with vessels and aircraft — around those islands.

U.S. officials said China’s unilaterally announced air defense identification zone needlessly raised tensions between Asia’s two largest economies. In his trip next week through the region, Vice President Joe Biden plans to convey those concerns to China, a senior Obama administration official told reporters on Wednesday.

“There is an emerging pattern of behavior by China that is unsettling to China’s own neighbors,” the official said. Biden will raise questions “about how China operates in international space and how China deals with areas of disagreement with its neighbors.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/japan-south-korea-military-jets-cr
oss-through-china-air-defense-id-zone/2013/11/28/6285d350-5816-11e3-bdbf-097ab2a3dc2b_story.html?hpid=z1

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