ADIZ stirs fears for South China Sea

By Richard Javad Heydarian

MANILA -- China's recent controversial announcement of an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) covering disputed island features in the East China Sea has raised concerns in Southeast Asia that Beijing will soon invoke a similar measure for the hotly contested South China Sea.
The ADIZ encompasses the South Korean leodo rock as well as the Japanese Senkaku islands in the East China Sea, helping to China on a sharper collision course with Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, as well as the United States.
Southeast Asian claimants in the South China Sea, particularly the Philippines and Vietnam, have reportedly been alarmed by China's expressed willingness to "adopt defensive emergency measures to respond to aircraft that do not cooperate in the identification or refuse to follow the instructions".
China's Defense Ministry's announcement said that it will "establish other air defense identification zones at an appropriate time after completing preparations". 

To Manila and Hanoi, these statements signal that China intends to eventually adopt an ADIZ over the contested Paracel and Spratly islands and other features in the South China Sea.
Given the lopsided power asymmetry between China and its Southeast Asian neighbors, neither the Philippines nor Vietnam possesses credible indigenous deterrence against China's prospective announcement of an ADIZ in the South China Sea.
Both countries have thus carefully watched the response of Washington and its powerful northeast allies in the East China Sea, hoping that China will re-examine its apparent planned moves in the South China Sea.
"There's this threat that China will control the air space [in the South China Sea] ... It transforms an entire air zone into China's domestic air space," Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert Del Rosario said in response to China's ADIZ announcement.

"That is an infringement and compromises the safety of civil aviation ... it also compromises the national security of affected states."
The US, Japan and South Korea have swiftly challenged China's ADIZ. 

On November 27, Washington dispatched two B-52 bombers from its forward-deployment base in Guam to enter China's unilaterally declared ADIZ without notifying Beijing.
Two days later, Japan sent fighter jets to the area to fend off Chinese patrol ships, while on December 4 South Korea conducted a joint sea and air military drill in the vicinity of the Chinese ADIZ to protest the inclusion of its Ieodo rock.
The concerted challenge coincided with the visit of US Vice President Joe Biden to the region, where he met leaders in Tokyo, Beijing, and Seoul. 

"China's recent and sudden announcement of the establishment of a new air defense identification zone has, to state the obvious, caused significant apprehension in the region," Biden declared during his visit to Beijing, contrasting with his earlier expressions of solidarity with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe while in Tokyo.
China, meanwhile, has adamantly asserted that there is no reason for "panic" among its neighbors, arguing that its ADIZ adheres to established international practices. 

Beijing has contended that a wide range of countries, from India, Japan, Pakistan, Norway, the United Kingdom and the US, maintain their own air identification zones.
"[The ADIZ is] a defensive measure and in line with international common practices," Chinese air force spokesperson Shen Jinke stated, emphasizing his country's sovereign right to protect its airspace. 

"China's air force is on high alert and will take measures to deal with diverse air threats to firmly protect the security of the country's airspace."

Unpunished defiance
China has sought to avoid further embarrassment of the open and unpunished defiance of its ADIZ by dispatching its own jet fighters to the area and reiterating the legal legitimacy of the new imposed measure.
Some analysts believe Beijing could soon move to impose an ADIZ in the South China Sea to underline the rationale of its claim. 

China's ADIZ is viewed by some commentators as an extension of its broad "cabbage strategy" to exert control over adjacent waters, combining new regulations and increased military maneuvers to consolidate its claims over contested features in the Western Pacific.
China's decision to include disputed territories in the East China Sea under its ADIZ, and the issuance of an explicit threat against uncooperative foreign aircraft, is a reflection of its rising territorial assertiveness. 

All ADIZs around the world only apply to civilian aircraft, with the US limiting its application to civilian aircrafts bound for US territory.
Many Southeast Asian states had earlier pinned hopes on a new era of constructive relations under Xi's leadership. 

For leading Filipino officials, this year has instead seen an escalation in territorial tensions, with the Xi administration more vigorously stepping up its claims, expanding military maneuvers in contested waters and leveraging its economic heft in a bid to sideline the US and Japan in the region.
Widely viewed as China's most charismatic leader since Deng Xiaoping, President Xi Jinping has more explicitly sought to reward regional allies with multi-billion trade and investment deals while isolating more recalcitrant Southeast Asian claimants such as the Philippines, which has expanded its military relations with Washington and Tokyo and openly challenged Beijing's territorial claims at The Hague.
Shortly before the ADIZ announcement, Xi's administration established a new State Security Committee, an overarching decision-making body tasked with handling foreign policy and national security issues. 

China's leaders previously handled such issues through a fragmented institutional arrangement, involving so-called Leading Small Groups on Foreign Affairs and National Security as well as the Central Military Commission.
Now with a streamlined decision-making process, Xi is personally directing all key decisions in the East and South China Seas. 

To his critics, Xi's close relations with the military and his "China Dream" motto signals a considerably more assertive stance in regional affairs and territorial issues, with the ADIZ announcement a reflection of this new trend.
In response, Japan and its Southeast Asian allies, most notably the Philippines and Vietnam, have fortified bilateral ties, hedging against a potential escalation in territorial disputes. 

Japan and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are drafting a joint statement to express concern over any "threat" to international civilian aviation. 

The draft statement, which reaffirms the common positions of Southeast Asian nations and Japan on "maritime security" and "freedom of navigation" in international waters, will be presented at the upcoming Japan-ASEAN summit in Tokyo.
There are no signs so far that China will back down from its new regulations. 

Indeed, the Xi administration seems determined to stand up to external powers and assert China's national security and territorial interests. 

The Philippines and Vietnam, on the other hand, hope that the widespread criticism of China's ADIZ will deter the imposition of a similar measure in the South China Sea. 

Otherwise, they will have to hope Washington and Tokyo launch similar challenges to any southern extension of China's new aerial ambitions.

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Safeguarding the Seas

How to Defend Against China's New Air Defense Zone
By Michael J. Green

A helicopter of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force lifts off from the aircraft carrier USS George Washington during Annual Exercise 2013.

Much of the coverage of China’s November 23 announcement of a new Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over waters claimed by Japan and South Korea has focused on the reactive and blundering nature of Chinese diplomacy. 

China’s sudden insistence on its right to take defensive action against foreign aircraft in this zone, the argument goes, was either an attempt to play to domestic nationalism or else to respond to Japan’s own increasing assertiveness in the region. 

Either way, the coverage concludes, China underestimated how quickly and vigorously other countries in the region would respond, including with flights directly into that airspace.
The implication of this analysis, which may be tempting to the overstretched Obama administration, is that Beijing made a hasty move that the region will now correct with a little help from Washington. 

Unfortunately for the administration, however, this was not just an ill-conceived slap by Beijing against a testy Japan. 

The reality is that the new ADIZ is part of a longer-term attempt by Beijing to chip away at the regional status quo and assert greater control over the East and South China Seas.
To understand this reality, one must begin the story of the ADIZ before Japan’s nationalization of three of the eight disputed Senkaku Islands in 2012, which is where most assessments start. 

Over three decades ago, China and Japan agreed to set aside their disagreement over the islands and focus on a common problem: the Soviet Union. 

It was China that first nullified the understanding by staking claim to the islands in 1992. 

It was also China that, in 2008, began significantly expanding its maritime patrols in and around those waters. In recent years, the Chinese maritime services have conducted patrols at least once a day near the islands and have crossed Japan’s 12-nautical-mile border around the islands on hundreds of occasions. 

Meanwhile, Chinese navy units have circumnavigated Japan and conducted major military exercises on all sides of the Japanese archipelago. 

In other words, by the time Tokyo purchased some of the Senkaku Islands from private landowners in 2012, Chinese pressure had reached alarming levels for Tokyo.
Both Japanese and Chinese diplomacy on the issue have been inept at times, of course, but the difference is that Japan -- which has effective administrative control of the islands -- is trying to preserve the status quo, whereas China is bent on using coercive pressure to try to change it. 

And Japan is not China’s only target. 

Beijing has also been pressing Manila over the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. 

China has increased its maritime and air presence around the contested area and imposed export bans on key products from the Philippines. (This strategy smacks of the same mercantilism China showed when it halted rare earth exports to Japan because of those two countries’ island disputes.)
Unlike the ongoing dispute with Japan, the Scarborough Shoal confrontation going badly for Manila. 

In 2012, Chinese maritime patrol ships finally overwhelmed the tiny Philippine navy and took de facto control of the shoals. 

Filipinos whose families have fished those waters for a millennium are now barred from entering.
Japan’s air force and navy are too strong for China to attempt a similar grab of the Senkaku Islands anytime soon. 

But Hanoi, Manila, Taipei, and Tokyo all sense that, in the Scarborough Shoal, Beijing “killed the chicken to scare the monkey,” as officials from those governments say. 

Most observers would agree that China has every intention of following the same strategy against Japan, just in slow motion. 

Although the smaller powers have remained quiet about the announcement of a new Chinese defense zone, most are privately urging Japan not to back down.
Japan, South Korea, and the United States have stated that they will not let the Chinese ADIZ announcement change their military operations in the area. 

To prove the point, the Pentagon sent two B-52 bombers out of Guam to fly through the new defense zone. Japan and South Korea quickly followed suit with their own patrols. 

The administration’s opening move certainly demonstrated by word and deed that Beijing went too far. 

But if the Chinese announcement comes from a deeper strategy of coercing smaller states and establish greater control in the Western Pacific -- as many governments in the region rightly suspect -- then Washington had better be prepared for a longer-term test of wills with Beijing.
The administration needs to consider the larger context that the rest of the region sees. 

Some of the policies included in the so-called rebalance to Asia will help, including the announcement in October that Washington and Tokyo will revise their bilateral defense guidelines to deal with new contingencies, including from China. 

Other moves have been less helpful. 

It was not lost on China or Japan, for example, that U.S. service chiefs testified in front of Congress that planned defense budget cuts would leave the armed forces unable to fulfill their current missions or security commitments; that U.S. President Barack Obama threw the decision about honoring his redline in Syria to Congress; or that senior U.S. officers in the Pacific continue trying to calm the waters by speaking of a new strategic partnership with China and naming climate change as their greatest security concern in the region.
More immediately, the disconnect between Washington and Tokyo this week over whether commercial flights should recognize the ADIZ and file flight plans with Beijing (Tokyo says no and Washington says yes) was a poor case of alliance management and an embarrassment for Tokyo during a serious security problem. 

Whatever the merits of each side’s respective policies in terms of strategic signals and airline safety, the two will have to work as one in the future.
The Obama administration needs to stick to a disciplined message of resolve and reassurance. 

And that would mean accurately assessing Beijing’s strategic intent. 

Confrontation with China is far from inevitable, and the potential areas for productive U.S.-Chinese cooperation remain vast. 

Vice President Joe Biden will no doubt emphasize the positive in U.S.-Chinese relations when he travels to Beijing this week. And that makes sense. 

But he should also leave no doubt that the United States is prepared to work with regional allies and partners to ensure Beijing understands that its attempts at coercion will not work. 

Then, when he is in Tokyo and Seoul, he should take time to listen carefully to what those allies think is at stake in the troubled East and South China Seas. 

Their problem is our problem, not just because we are allies but also because this moment could determine how China uses its growing power.

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China’s creeping ‘cabbage’ strategy

The pattern has become familiar: Construct a dispute, initiate a jurisdictional claim through periodic incursions, and then increase the frequency and duration of such intrusions, thereby establishing a military presence or pressuring a rival to cut a deal on China’s terms.

By Brahma Chellaney

China’s growing geopolitical heft is emboldening its territorial creep in Asia. 

After laying claim to 80 percent of the South China Sea, it has just established a so-called air defense identification zone in the East China Sea, raising the odds of armed conflict with Japan and threatening the principle of freedom of navigation of the seas and skies.
Meanwhile, China continues to nibble furtively at territory across the long, disputed Himalayan border with India.
Few seem to fathom the logic behind China’s readiness to take on several neighbors simultaneously. 

China is seeking to alter the “status quo” gradually as part of a high-stakes effort to extend its control to strategic areas and resources. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s 習近平 promise of national greatness — embodied in the catchphrase “China dream” — is tied as much to achieving regional hegemony as to internal progress.
China’s approach reflects what the Chinese general Zhang Zhaozhong 張召忠 this year called a “cabbage” strategy: Assert a territorial claim and gradually surround the area with multiple layers of security, thus denying access to a rival. 

The strategy relies on a steady progression of steps to outwit opponents and create new facts on the ground.
This approach severely limits rival states’ options by confounding their deterrence plans and making it difficult for them to devise proportionate or effective counter-measures. 

This is partly because the strategy — while bearing all the hallmarks of modern Chinese brinkmanship, including reliance on stealth, surprise and a disregard for the risks of military escalation — seeks to ensure that the initiative remains with China.
The pattern has become familiar: Construct a dispute, initiate a jurisdictional claim through periodic incursions, and then increase the frequency and duration of such intrusions, thereby establishing a military presence or pressuring a rival to cut a deal on China’s terms.
What is ours is ours, the Chinese invariably claim, and what is yours is negotiable. 

For example, China says “no foundation for dialogue” with Japan exists unless the Japanese accept the existence of a territorial dispute over the uninhabited Senkaku Islands.
Here, as elsewhere, China has painted its rival as the obstructionist party.
As Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi 王毅 put it, “Japan needs to recognize that there is such a dispute. The whole world knows that there is a dispute.” 

However, there is a dispute only because China has succeeded in shaking the “status quo” in recent years by popularizing the islands’ Chinese name and staging incursions into their territorial waters and airspace.
After steadily increasing the frequency of those incursions since September last year, China has recently begun increasing their duration. 

The establishment of a new air defense identification zone extending over the islands is its latest cabbage-style security “layer” — a unilateral power grab that US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel quickly branded “a destabilizing attempt to alter the status quo in the region.”
The zone even covers the sky over the South Korean Ieodo Reef.
As China escalates its campaign of attrition against a resolute Japan, it increases the risk of armed conflict, whether by accident or miscalculation.

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China pushing to change order

By Song Sang-ho

The U.S. and its Asian allies will continue to face increasing pressure from China, as the emerging great power seeks to reshape the security order and ultimately expel the U.S. from the region, a top political thinker said.
In an interview with The Korea Herald, Stephen M. Walt, professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, also noted the need for collective action to fend off China’s unilateral territorial assertions.
“It is unacceptable for any states in Asia to unilaterally declare new territorial arrangements. I believe China is likely to keep pushing for revisions of this kind, and it will be important for its neighbors and the U.S. to resist these probes,” said Walt.
“If China’s power continues to rise, there will be intensifying security competition in Asia. China will try to push the U.S. out of Asia, mostly by pressuring America’s current allies. The U.S. will want to maintain its current position, but it will need resolute and enthusiastic support from its Asian allies,” he added.
China’s recent demarcation of its Air Defense Identification Zone in the East China Sea has sharply raised military tensions in East Asia. 

South Korea and Japan have strongly protested the unilateral move and vowed not to recognize the zone, which overlaps with their own zones.
Seoul demanded last week that Beijing adjust the zone to exclude parts of South Korean territory. 

Beijing rejected the demand, asserting its right to ensure territorial integrity. 

China’s ADIZ incorporates the area over Ieodo, a South Korea-controlled submerged rock in the overlapping exclusive economic zones of the two countries.
At the same time, South Korea has sought to strengthen its strategic partnership with China ― a crucial partner in trade, investment, tourism as well as North Korea’s denuclearization.
Commenting on Seoul’s increasingly difficult strategic position between the preponderant U.S. and ascendant China, Walt cautioned against becoming too reliant on China.
“There is nothing wrong with South Korea having mutually beneficial economic ties with China; the U.S. does too,” he said. 

“But it is even more important for South Korea not to become too dependent on China, and to maintain a reliable security relationship with the U.S.”
As to Japanese’ pursuit of the right to collective self-defense ― the use of force against an attack on an ally, namely the U.S. ― and heavier armaments, Walt painted a positive outlook.
“I think a more ‘normal’ Japan would be in everyone’s interest,” he said, referring to the archipelago state’s push to become a “normal” state with a full-fledged military, which would go beyond the current defense-oriented force management.
Walt also dismissed concerns that Japan’s stronger armament could lead to its reversion to a militaristic national strategy. 

“The militarist attitudes that dominated Japan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries are a thing of the past, and are not going to return in any serious way,” he said. 

“Given economic and social trends in Asia, Japan is not a security threat that other Asian countries need to worry about.”
To a question of whether Washington would feel uncomfortable with Japan adopting too aggressive a military policy, Walt pointed out that the U.S. would not want anyone else to try to alter the status quo.
“The U.S, Japan, and South Korea have a common interest in maintaining the status quo in East Asia,” he said. 

“Fortunately, I do not think any of our Asian allies have such ambitions (to alter the status quo), so I am not particularly worried about Japan becoming too aggressive.”
Urging Seoul and Tokyo to try harder to improve their ties, strained due to historical and territorial animosities, Walt underscored that conflicts between the U.S. allies were “counterproductive” for regional security.
“(Conflicts) can weaken our joint efforts to maintain stability in Asia. South Korea and Japan should do more to resolve their current differences, as quarrels between them will make it harder for the U.S. to work with both,” he said.
On North Korea, Walt said the current regime in Pyongyang was unlikely to give up its nuclear program considering that it is the regime’s ultimate protection from external pressure.
“I believe a post-Kim government might be willing to give up their nuclear weapons in exchange for economic benefits, just as South Africa, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Belarus did. But political change will have to come first,” he said.
Walt also expressed skepticism over the possibility that negotiations would lead to a complete denuclearization of North Korea.
“Negotiations may convince North Korea to freeze its program, or convince it not to expand its nuclear arsenal further. But I do not believe that the six-party talks will lead to actual disarmament at any point in the near to medium term,” he said.

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China’s Aggressive Expansionism Hits Archaeology

China Has Begun Asserting Ownership of Thousands of Shipwrecks in the South China Sea
By JEREMY PAGE

A replica of a treasure ship sailed by Zheng He about 600 years ago at a museum in Nanjing. 
Underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio's team was exploring the wreckage of a 13th-century Chinese junk off the coast of the Philippines when it made an unwelcome discovery about China's maritime muscle in the 21st century.
As a twin-prop plane swooped overhead, a Chinese marine-surveillance vessel approached the team's Philippines-registered ship and began broadcasting instructions in English over a loudspeaker.
"They said this area belonged to the People's Republic of China, and they told us to scram," recalls one of the people on board last year. 

"It was pretty scary." 

Chinese officials confirm the incident took place but say the archaeologists' mission was illegal.

A boatman paddles away from the Sarangani, a ship on which archaeologists became embroiled in a standoff with China, in Manila Bay.

With territorial disputes escalating in the waters off China, the Chinese government has begun asserting ownership of thousands of shipwrecks within a vast U-shaped area that covers almost all of the South China Sea, which it says has been part of its territorial waters for centuries.
China has ordered its coast guard to prevent what it considers illegal archaeology in the waters it claims, and it is pouring money into a state-run marine-archaeology program. 

Chinese archaeologists are preparing their first comprehensive survey of undersea sites, including in disputed areas.
Chinese officials say their efforts will curb the theft and treasure hunting they say has destroyed numerous sites and flooded the global market with looted Chinese antiquities.

There is a political dimension to China's plans. 

Chinese archaeologists openly aspire to bolster their country's historical claims to the contested South China Sea, which overlap with those of Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines.
"We want to find more evidence that can prove Chinese people went there and lived there, historical evidence that can help prove China is the sovereign owner of the South China Sea," says Liu Shuguang, head of the Chinese government's Center of Underwater Cultural Heritage, set up in 2009 to oversee underwater archaeology in the country.
Tensions have been running high in the region over China's intensifying campaign to assert territorial claims, not only in the South China Sea, but in the East China Sea, which is contested by Japan. 

On Nov. 23, China proclaimed a new air-defense identification zone over Japanese Senkaku islands.
The South China Sea, one of the world's busiest trading routes, is littered with wrecks from the last two millennia, including Chinese junks, Indian and Arab dhows, Dutch and British trading schooners and World War II warships. 

Chinese archaeologists say they have gathered coordinates for 70 shipwrecks in those waters but estimate there are at least 2,000, and possibly many more.

A team working with French underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio, shown in 2010, was exploring the wreckage of a 13th-century Chinese junk off the coast of the Philippines when a Chinese marine-surveillance vessel ordered them to leave the area. 

Mr. Goddio, a Frenchman who is one of the world's leading marine archaeologists, had worked in the area since the 1980s, excavating 15th-century Chinese junks, 16th-century Spanish galleons and 18th-century British merchant ships. 

In addition to the trip last year, his team had visited the cluster of reefs and rocks off the Philippines, called the Scarborough Shoal, in 2011. 

Both expeditions were part of a joint research project with the National Museum of the Philippines, which collaborates with foreign archaeologists because of a shortage of state funding.
Different countries refer to the disputed islands by different names.
People involved in the project say it has no political or commercial agenda. 

During last year's trip, they say, they were examining pieces of celadon, a form of green-glazed ceramic, from a wreck that long ago broke apart on the sharp coral.
Chinese officials see ulterior motives.
"The Philippines sent some French archaeologists to do what? To drag away this shipwreck," says Mr. Liu of China's Center of Underwater Cultural Heritage. 

"Because this was material evidence that Chinese people first found the Scarborough Shoal, they wanted to destroy evidence that was beneficial to China." 

The archaeologists deny that.
Chinese archaeologists haven't started excavating sites at the Scarborough Shoal, but they have begun work on Chinese wrecks around the Paracel Islands, which lie about 200 miles from the coasts of China and Vietnam and are claimed by both countries. 

China has controlled the islands since 1974, when it defeated Vietnam in a brief naval battle.

Mike Hatcher prepares to dive from his ship in the South China Sea in 1986. On the expedition he found the 'Nanking cargo,' a haul of Chinese porcelain and gold from the wreck of the Geldermalsen, an 18th-century Dutch East India Co. ship that raised more than $20 million at auction in Amsterdam. 

"Marine archaeology is an exercise that demonstrates national sovereignty," Li Xiaojie, the vice minister of culture, was quoted as saying by state media in September 2012 as he examined porcelain retrieved from a wreck off the Paracels.
Chinese archaeologists say the survey encompassing other disputed areas will begin this year or next.
They also say they hope to support the government's efforts to re-establish China as a world maritime power, by focusing their research on the "Maritime Silk Road," which connected China by sea with India and Africa beginning in about the second century B.C.
China's five-year plan for 2011 to 2015 calls for the government to promote a seafaring heritage embodied by Zheng He, a eunuch admiral who sailed an armada of treasure ships as far as Africa about 600 years ago. 

The admiral is celebrated in China as the face of an era when it projected power far beyond its shores.
Xi Jinping, China's new president, has repeatedly emphasized the importance of maritime power—at times invoking Zheng He—as part of a vision to reclaim China's world prominence.
Zhang Wei, one of China's first underwater archaeologists, says the nation is "extremely focused on being a great and strong maritime power," which he calls the "grand backdrop" to China's marine-archaeology program. 

The program was launched, he says, under the auspices of President Xi's father, who served as vice premier under Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s.

Two enameled globular teapots painted with peony and bamboo below a border of trellis-pattern; the porcelain survived the wreck and lasted more than two centuries under the sea so well because it was packed inside the tea, which in turn was in wooden chests.

Mr. Zhang says interest was kindled by commercial treasure hunters who operated in the South China Sea. Among the most famous was Mike Hatcher, a Briton whose haul of Chinese porcelain from the wreck of the Geldermalsen, an 18th-century Dutch East India Co. ship that sank in the South China Sea, raised more than $20 million at auction in Amsterdam in 1986.
Chinese leaders dispatched two officials to that auction to try to buy some of the items with cash, according to Mr. Zhang. 

"They only took about $30,000, and they couldn't buy a single thing," he says.
China's National Museum established its Underwater Archaeology Center the following year and appointed Mr. Zhang to head it—mainly, he says, because he was one of the few Chinese archaeologists who could swim.
The first big find in Chinese waters—a roughly 800-year-old merchant ship named the Nanhai One—was made in 1987 while a British salvage company was searching for a Dutch East India Co. wreck. 

The British team was forced to withdraw after the Nanhai One was identified as a Chinese ship.
Since then, there has been almost no foreign participation in marine archaeology in China, according to Chinese and foreign archaeologists. 

And only Chinese wrecks have been excavated in Chinese waters.
Chinese authorities, meanwhile, have trained more than 100 marine archaeologists, built at least three underwater-archaeology museums and invested millions of dollars in research. 

On Thursday, they announced a new project to remove up to 80,000 artifacts from the Nanhai One, which was lifted off the seabed in 2007 and placed in a water tank in a museum.
Next year, China plans to launch a 184-foot ship designed for marine archaeology, the first of its kind in the country, according to state-media reports.
China also is funding joint projects in other countries' waters, focusing mostly on locating wrecks linked to Zheng He. 

Last year, Chinese archaeologists using sonar identified five wrecks they believe were part of his fleet in the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz, according to Chinese state media.
One reason Chinese authorities are so interested in tracing Zheng He's travels is that he is said to have visited several rocks and islands in the South China Sea.

Chinese archaeologists work with porcelain artifacts from the Nanhai One shipwreck, which dated back to the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279), in a structure in Yangjiang, China, in 2009.

Foreign experts say they welcome China's new willingness to invest in underwater archaeology and relish the prospect of learning more about sites in China's waters.
But they are concerned that a political agenda might be driving China's choice of sites, its exclusion of foreign archaeologists and its relative lack of openness about its research.
"There's this strong sense of nationalism that flows through the Chinese program," says Jeffrey L. Adams, an anthropologist at the University of Minnesota who has written about Chinese archaeology.
Foreign archaeologists mostly agree that Chinese-built ships and cargo account for many of the sites in the South China Sea because of the international trade in Chinese porcelain and silk.
But many of the wrecks lie far from the Chinese mainland, around the reefs and rocks off the coast of Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines, because ships used to hug those shores to help with navigation and avoid bad weather.
Even if a wreck isn't in a disputed area, tracing its national "ownership" is often complicated. 

A ship, its owner, its cargo and its crew all may have originated in different countries.
Internationally, the trend in recent years has been toward acknowledging "common heritage," pursuing joint excavation and sharing results among academics from different nations. 

A 2001 Unesco convention on underwater cultural heritage encouraged states to cooperate when they had a shared interest in a site, but offered no guidance on jurisdiction and no mechanism for dealing with sites in disputed areas.
"If there's a disputed site, what we recommend is just get together and don't get into a fight over it," says Ulrike Guerin, who oversees protection of underwater cultural heritage at Unesco, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. 

"If you look around the world now, the majority of projects are multinational ones."
None of the countries involved in the South China Sea disputes have ratified the Unesco convention. 

Only China has the resources to enforce its claims to wrecks in the area and to excavate them.
China did little to enforce those claims until March 2012, when the government announced its first-ever crackdown on illegal salvage and archaeological work in China's territorial waters.
The incident at the Scarborough Shoal occurred less than a month later.
China says the standoff stemmed from an incident that April when a Philippines navy ship detained some Chinese fishermen near the Scarborough Shoal. 

But Chinese officials also have made it clear they regarded Mr. Goddio's project as illegal.
The Chinese marine-surveillance ship that approached the archaeologists was one of three Chinese vessels that took turns monitoring them over the next week or so, according to two people on board the archaeologists' ship and accounts in Chinese state media.
A Philippines coast guard ship was sent to the area but kept its distance. 

A tense standoff ensued as Chinese and Filipino officials accused one another of violating territorial boundaries.
Eventually, on April 18, the archaeologists' ship was forced to leave, prompting a formal protest from the Philippines' government. 

China has had effective control of the area since then.
The team abandoned its project. Mr. Goddio declined to comment.

Neither he nor the National Museum of the Philippines has a track record of using finds to justify territorial or ownership claims. 

"We don't really care who owns the ship," says Sheldon Clyde B. Jago-on, the head of underwater archaeology at the National Museum of the Philippines. 

"It's our shared heritage. It should be about collaboration. We care about the trade patterns, the trade routes, the cargo, the boat building."
Some experts say the overlap between politics and archaeology is neither surprising nor unique to China. Vietnam is expanding investment in its state-run archaeological program, and this year its Institute of Archaeology opened an underwater-archaeology department.
One of Vietnam's first projects has obvious political resonance—excavation of the site of a naval battle in which Vietnamese forces defeated a Chinese army in 938 A.D., bringing an end to centuries of Chinese rule over Vietnam. 

That site is on a river inside Vietnam.
The Scarborough Shoal incident, by contrast, marked the first time a country in the region used force to stop another nation's underwater archaeological project, experts say.
"China has the largest navy and the ability to chase people off, and then follow up with archaeological work," says Mark Staniforth, a marine archaeologist at Australia's Monash University who is working with Vietnam's Institute of Archaeology. 

"There's no sense they want to cooperate or collaborate with anyone."

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Face-off

Like a teenager on a growth spurt who doesn’t know his own strength, China has underestimated the impact of its actions. 

The Economist

THE announcement by a Chinese military spokesman on November 23rd sounded bureaucratic: any aircraft flying through the newly designated Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea must notify Chinese authorities in advance and follow instructions from its air-traffic controllers. 

America’s response was rapid. 

On November 26th Barack Obama sent two B-52 bombers to fly through the new zone without notifying China. 

This face-off marks the most worrying strategic escalation between the two countries since 1996, when China’s then president, Jiang Zemin, ordered a number of exclusion zones for missile tests in the Taiwan Strait, leading America to send two aircraft-carriers there.
Plenty of countries establish zones in which they require aircraft to identify themselves, but they tend not to be over other countries’ territory. 

The Chinese ADIZ overlaps with Japan’s own air-defence zone (see map). 

It also includes some Japanese specks of rock called the Senkaku islands, as well as a South Korean reef, known as Ieodo. 

The move is clearly designed to bolster China’s claims. 

On November 28th Japan and South Korea sent aircraft into the zone.

Teenage testosterone
Growing economic power is bound to go hand-in-hand with growing regional assertiveness. 

That is fine, so long as the behaviour of the rising power remains within international norms. 

In this case, however, China’s does not; and America, which has guaranteed free navigation of the seas and skies of East Asia for 60 years, is right to make that clear.
How worrying China’s move is depends partly on the thinking behind it.

It may be that, like a teenager on a growth spurt who doesn’t know his own strength, China has underestimated the impact of its actions. 

The claim that America’s bombers had skirted the edge of the ADIZ was gawkily embarrassing. 

But teenagers who do not realise the consequences of their actions often cause trouble: China has set up a casus belli with its neighbours and America for generations to come.
It would thus be much more worrying if the provocation was deliberate. 

The “Chinese dream” of Xi Jinping, the new president, is a mixture of economic reform and strident nationalism. 

The announcement of the ADIZ came shortly after a party plenum at which Mr Xi announced a string of commendably radical domestic reforms. 

The new zone will appeal to the nationalist camp, which wields huge power, particularly in the armed forces. It also helps defend Mr Xi against any suggestions that he is a westernising liberal.
If this is Mr Xi’s game, it is a dangerous one. 

East Asia has never before had a strong China and a strong Japan at the same time. 

China dominated the region from the mists of history until the 1850s, when the West’s arrival spurred Japan to modernise while China tried to resist the foreigners’ influence. 

China is eager to re-establish dominance over the region. 

Bitterness at the memory of the Japanese occupation in the second world war sharpens this desire. 

It is this possibility of a clash between a rising and an established power that lies behind the oft-used parallel between contemporary East Asia and early 20th-century Europe, in which the Senkakus play the role of Sarajevo.

Seas of troubles
Tensions are not at that level. 

Japan’s constitution bans it from any military aggression and China normally goes to great lengths to stress that its rise—unlike that of Japan in the 1920s and 1930s—will be peaceful. 

But the neighbours are nervous, especially as the establishment of the ADIZ appears to match Chinese ambitions in the South China Sea.
Chinese maps show what is known as the “nine-dash line” encompassing all the South China Sea. 

In the wake of the global financial crisis, perhaps believing its own narrative of Chinese rise and American decline, it began to overreach in its dealings with its neighbours. 

It sent ships to disputed reefs, pressed foreign oil companies to halt exploration and harassed American and Vietnamese naval vessels in the South China Sea. 

These actions brought a swift rebuke from America’s then secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and China appeared to back off and return to its regional charm offensive. 

Some observers say that the government is using the ADIZ to establish a nine-dash line covering the East China Sea as well. 

They fear China’s next move will be to declare an ADIZ over the South China Sea, to assert control over both the sea and the air throughout the region.
Whether or not China has such specific ambitions, the ADIZ clearly suggests that China does not accept the status quo in the region and wants to change it. 

Any Chinese leader now has an excuse for going after Japanese planes. 

Chinese ships are already ignoring Japanese demands not to enter the waters surrounding the disputed islands.
What can be done? 

Next week Joe Biden, America’s vice-president, arrives in China. 

The timing may be uncomfortable, but it is fortuitous. 

Mr Biden and Mr Xi know each other well: before Mr Xi became president, he spent five days in America at Mr Biden’s invitation. 

Mr Biden is also going to South Korea and Japan.
America’s “pivot” towards Asia is not taken very seriously there: Mr Obama is seen as distracted by his domestic problems. 

Mr Biden could usefully make clear America’s commitment to guaranteeing freedom of navigation in the region. 

Japan and South Korea, who squabble over petty issues, need to be told to get over their differences. 

As for China, it needs to behave like a responsible world power, not a troublemaker willing to sacrifice 60 years of peace in north-east Asia to score some points by grabbing a few windswept rocks. 

It should accept Japan’s suggestion of a military hotline, similar to the one that is already established between Beijing and Washington.
The region must work harder to build some kind of architecture where regional powers can discuss security. If such a framework had existed in Europe in 1914, things might have turned out differently.

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With air-defence overreach, China has proven itself a paper tiger

By Matthew Fisher

A Chinese produced J-10 fighter jet is displayed outside the offices of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China in Beijing on November 28, 2013. The US on November 28 pressed its concerns over China's newly declared air defence zone, a day after US B-52s flew over the disputed area in the East China Sea.
TOKYO — To use an old Asian expression, is China just a toothless paper tiger?
Beijing threatened “emergency defensive measures” early this week against any aircraft, civilian or military, whose pilots had not received advance clearance from its aviation authorities to overfly islands and reefs that Beijing suddenly has claimed as part of an “air defence identification zone,” although the islands have have been under Japanese, South Korean and American (fairly briefly) administrative control since the 19th century.
The U.S. air force mocked China’s bellicosity by almost immediately flying a pair of lumbering, unarmed B-52 heavy bombers into the “protected air space.” 

After a moment’s hesitation, the country’s two major carriers, All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines (JAL), acceded to a request by their government to continue flying in the area without informing the Chinese in advance. 

I flew directly over the Senkaku Islands on a JAL flight on Thursday without a hint of trouble.
Also on Thursday, Japan and South Korea sent military aircraft on uncontested patrols through China’s air defence zone without seeking permission.
For all its fierce rhetoric, until now China had reacted to the American bomber run and what it regards as unsanctioned overflights by Japanese and South Korean military and civilian aircraft by doing absolutely nothing. 

However, on Thursday, China, which had earlier claimed it was aware that the U.S. bombers had been there, belatedly sent warplanes into the maritime air defence zone.
Tensions have been growing since China’s dictatorship began asserting sweeping territorial claims over most of the South China Sea a few years ago. 

These assertions have also caused growing tensions with Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei and, especially, the Philippines. 

China also has a toxic land dispute with India. 

In fact, the whole neighbourhood has been in high dudgeon over China’s expansive interpretation of what it owns, with the exceptions of Cambodia and Kim Jong-un’s North Korea.
Japan’s Shinzo Abe wrote late last year that China considered the South China Sea to be “Lake Beijing.” More provocatively, the right-wing politician wrote that nations such as India, Australia and the U.S. should form a “security diamond” to hem in China and keep the Indian and Pacific oceans open for unfettered maritime commerce.
China’s official media reported this week that in declaring an air defence zone, Beijing was behaving no differently than Canada. 

What it did not report was that although Canada and the U.S. jointly co-ordinate the North American “air defense identification zone,” which requires foreign aircraft to file a flight plan, it was not established above disputed territory.
This rough patch for China is jarring because everything had been going its way recently. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping was the beneficiary when U.S. President Barack Obama — who has made a lot of noise about a strategic pivot to Asia — postponed a four-nation tour of Asia in early October in order to try to untangle the budgetary fiasco with Congress.
Overplaying its hand by declaring a protected zone nearly the size of the British Isles has particularly soured China’s warming ties with South Korea, which has its own bitter historic differences with Japan. 

Nor was this China’s first international miscalculation this month. 

It also erred in its niggardly response to the typhoon disaster in the Philippines.
While much of the world, and especially the U.S., rushed to help Manila, China initially chose to do little to assist its neighbour. 

China did eventually send a hospital ship to Tacloban. But the vessel did not arrive until 16 days after typhoon Haiyan did.
With the Philippines still reeling from that monster killer storm, China made yet another aggressive move this week. 

Its new aircraft carrier, the Liaoning (actually an old, refurbished Ukrainian flat top) left its home port in northeastern China for the first time to begin deep water training manoeuvres with four guided missile ships near islets that the beleaguered Filipinos have long regarded as theirs. 

The battle group may sail these politically sensitive waters for several months, according to official Chinese media.
Most Asian nations, and Canada, have held their noses in recent years over China’s human rights record in order to trade with it.

It’s a policy the Harper government — without specifically naming China — officially enshrined as “economic diplomacy” in a report released Wednesday by the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development.
The latest countries to happily shake China’s hand have been Serbia, Romania and Hungary. 

Their leaders sealed a deal with a triumphant Premier Li Keqiang in Bucharest on Monday to build a high-speed rail link between the eastern European countries.
A complicating factor that is feeding the verbal skirmishes over the Western Pacific today is that the vast waters that China claims are, unsurprisingly, believed to be above large pools of oil and natural gas.
To prove that it’s more than a paper tiger, China is spending huge amounts of money on its armed forces. 

To protect their positions, India, South Korea and Japan have joined the Asian arms race, too.
The battle for hegemony in Asia is only beginning.

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Seoul Sees Territory Threat in China Defense Zone

South Korea Wary That Beijing Vying for Advantage With Disputed Rock
By ALASTAIR GALE And JEYUP S. KWAAK

South Korean Vice Defense Minister Baek Seung-joo, left, shakes hands with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Guangzhong, deputy chief of general staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, ahead of their talks in Seoul on Thursday. 

SEOUL—South Korea's forceful response to China's new air-defense zone despite otherwise warming ties reflects concern over Beijing's apparent move to tilt a long-running dispute over territorial waters in its favor, officials and analysts in Seoul said.
On Thursday, Seoul confirmed that a South Korean military plane had flown into the new Chinese zone on Tuesday without giving prior warning to Beijing, a day after the U.S. challenged the Chinese demarcation with two B-52 bombers.
South Korea also called for China to redraw its zone at high-level defense talks on Thursday and, after the request was rejected, said it would consider extending its own air-defense zone. 

Seoul says it will send further flights into the Chinese zone without advance notice.
The assertive stance contrasts with South Korea's initial response to China's declaration of the zone on Saturday. Seoul expressed concern but said then the issue would be resolved through dialogue.

A senior South Korean government official said that the more muscular approach was driven by Seoul's wish to reassert its claims over contested territorial waters within China's new zone, primarily an area of ocean around a submerged rock claimed by both Beijing and Seoul.
The rock, known internationally as Socotra Rock, and Ieodo in Korea, has been the subject of a dispute running for decades. 

The rock, northeast of Shanghai and southwest of the Korean island of Jeju, is one point of disagreement in a bigger dispute about the drawing of the countries' respective exclusive economic zones, or EEZ.
The rock, around 15 feet below sea level, lies in an overlapping section of the countries' EEZs. 

Under United Nations guidelines, a country has rights over use of marine resources in an EEZ within 200 nautical miles from its shores—but in case multiple countries' zones overlap, they must negotiate the maritime border.
Beijing and Seoul have met to discuss the issue 16 times previously without reaching consensus.

In 2003, South Korea completed the construction of a marine research center on the rock, including a helicopter landing pad.
A spokesman for South Korea's defense ministry the country's navy and coast guards conduct routine surveillance with aircraft around Ieodo about once or twice a week on average. 

The senior government official said Tuesday's military flight into China's claimed air-defense zone was made to demonstrate South Korea's jurisdiction over the waters around the rock.
On Monday, a spokesman for China's foreign ministry said there was no dispute over the rock and the issue would be resolved through dialogue.
South Korea's shift from its initially restrained response highlights the domestic pressure it faces with regards to territorial sovereignty, said Kim Han-kwon, director of the Center for China Policy at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, a Seoul-based think tank.
Though the Chinese air-defense zone isn't set under international law—and has no impact on territory—South Korean politicians and media have treated China's move as an incursion, helping drive a stronger reaction from the government, Mr. Kim said.
"None of the countries (involved in the regional dispute) can step back at this point" or risk losing face, he said.
In addition to the dispute over the rock, South Korea has protested China's move to create 3,000 square kilometers of overlap in the two countries' air-defense zones in the East China Sea. 

After a senior Chinese military official rejected South Korea's demand for Beijing to redraw its zone, his South Korea counterpart said Seoul may increase its own zone, potentially creating further overlap.
The spokesman for the defense ministry in Seoul said the issue of extending South Korea's air-defense zone was under review but declined to provide further details about where it might be increased.
The dispute marks a sharp turn after months of progress in developing closer political and economic ties between Beijing and Seoul. 

During a state visit to Beijing by South Korean President Park Geun-hye in June, the two countries signed a number of agreements and are in discussions about a bilateral free trade agreement.
Ms. Park's personal interest in the Chinese language and culture has also been warmly received in China. South Korea has prioritized ties with China over Japan, which remains in dispute with Seoul over long-running historical and territorial issues.

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China's Latest Territorial Moves Renew Fears In Philippines

by FRANK LANGFITT

U.S. and Philippine navy personnel patrol the seas off a naval base west of Manila in June as part of joint exercises.

China is flexing its muscles these days. 

Over the weekend, it declared a sprawling air defense identification zone that covers disputed islands controlled by Japan. 

And it has sent its lone aircraft carrier for first-time trials in the South China Sea, where Beijing has territorial feuds with other neighbors, including Vietnam, Brunei and the Philippines.
None of this was making China any friends in Manila, where the Chinese government is particularly unpopular these days.
"It only tends to confirm and reinforce the fears and worries of many people in the region," says Jay Batongbacal, a University of the Philippines law professor, who has spent a decade and a half studying territorial disputes in the South China Sea. 

"Right now, I think they are seen more as a bully, because of the actions that they've taken."
Among those actions was last year's takeover of a disputed and potentially strategic shoal in the South China Sea that had been under Philippine control.
It started when Philippine authorities tried to arrest Chinese they accused of illegally fishing inside the shoal, which is really a shallow, triangle-shaped reef with a small opening at one end. 

China sent marine surveillance ships to block action by a Philippine navy frigate.
"One of the measures that they put in place was to string a line across the mouth of that entrance," says Batongbacal, "because if any vessel tries to cross that line, it will get entangled in the propellers."
The Chinese effectively sealed off the reef from Philippine fishermen and took control of Scarborough Shoal without firing a shot.
The shoal, rich in fish, is about 140 miles from the Philippine mainland and more than 500 miles from China. At high tide, only five rocks stick up out of the water, but Philippine officials worry China might one day declare them Chinese territory.
Batongbacal says in the worst-case scenario — from the Philippine perspective — China could turn the shoal into a safe harbor for Chinese government vessels and a way to extend its influence and power in the region.
"Right now, it's clear that their motivation is that they want to vindicate their claim to the entire South China Sea," Batongbacal says.
A huge amount of trade and oil passes through the South China Sea, which China has claimed since the 1940s. Back then, though, it was militarily too weak to do anything about it. 

Today, China is the world's No. 2 economy and a rapidly rising military power.
Dindo Manhit, president of Stratbase Research Institute, a strategic think tank in Manila, says China now wants to ensure it has a major say in what happens in the South China Sea. 

Like all economic powers, Manhit says, China wants to spread its influence.
"At the end of the day, any economic influence needs to be protected by either strong military or political influence," Manhit says. 

"I think that's where it's coming from."
Chito Santa Romana, who spent nearly four decades living in China where he served as the bureau chief for ABC News, thinks it also comes from a desire to restore China, which means "Middle Kingdom" in Mandarin, to what it sees as its rightful place as a respected global player.
"I would attribute it to what I call the resurgence of the 'Middle Kingdom Complex,' " says Santa Romana, who works in Manila with a think tank, trying to forge understanding on the South China Sea dispute between the two countries. 

"The 'China Dream' that the Chinese talk about, they want to recover the glory that was lost when they were a pre-eminent power."
The U.S. has dominated East Asia militarily for decades, ensuring the peace and security that allowed the region's economies to grow so rapidly. 

The Philippines hopes America will back it up if its dispute with China turns violent, but some worry Washington's deep and complex ties with Beijing will win out in the end.
"We just hope and expect that the U.S. remembers us really as the true ally here," says Manhit, "because some people are saying that in a conflict between China and the Philippines, the U.S. will choose China because of the economic relationship."
Jay Batongbacal, the University of the Philippines law professor, says turning its back on a longtime ally with whom it has a mutual defense treaty would have serious implications for America and its other diplomatic relationships. 

Most people in the Philippines are hoping it never comes to that.

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Flight of the B-52s

Joint patrols of the Senkakus would send a stronger message.
The Wall Street Journal

A U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortess is being refueled by a KC-135 Stratotanker 

Full credit to the Obama Administration for showing solidarity with Japan as it seeks to defend itself against China's aggression over the Senkaku Islands. 

On Tuesday a pair of B-52s flew unannounced—and unchallenged—through an "air defense identification zone" covering the islands that was unilaterally declared by Beijing late last week. 

Maybe President Obama's pivot to Asia means something after all.
The flight of bombers comes after more than a year of Beijing brinksmanship with Tokyo over the uninhabited Japanese islets, which is designed to change the status quo on the sea and in the air around them. In its response to the flight, the Chinese Foreign Ministry backed down somewhat, saying "we will in accordance with different situations take corresponding reactions." 

But the real test of the air defense zone will come in the next few days or weeks when the People's Liberation Army uses it to challenge Japanese forces as they patrol the Senkakus.
The U.S. can help to deter an armed clash by making more concrete its treaty obligation to assist Japan in defending the islands. 

The best ways to do that are joint sea and air patrols with Japanese forces. 

If Beijing challenges those patrols, it would be taking on both countries at once—a security trip-wire similar to the stationing of U.S. forces on the Korean Peninsula.
This could lead to an eruption of Chinese anger, and the U.S. might pay a short-term price in economic and diplomatic retaliation. 

Washington could pre-empt that to some extent by cancelling next week's visit of Vice President Joe Biden to Beijing. 

But allowing China's aggression to succeed means running a high risk of future conflict, accidental or intentional.
It isn't clear why Chinese leaders are acting belligerently. 

One theory is that they feel their rising economic and military power entitles them to restore the tributary system by which their imperial predecessors dominated East Asia. 

Others think their lack of domestic political legitimacy makes them eager to stir up nationalist sentiment. Maybe it's some combination of the two.
In any case they miscalculated this week by assuming their intimidation would succeed. 

As long as Beijing continues its bullying, the aim of U.S. policy should be to make sure that China's provocations are met with further demonstrations of solidarity and resolve.

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