A South China Sea ADIZ: China’s Next Move

American betrayal: Washington not only gave de facto approval of the East China Sea ADIZ, but also suggested that future Chinese moves would not be met with strong resistance. 
By Harry Kazianis

I hate making predictions. 

Truthfully, I am the type of person who likes to go to casinos for the latest sporting events or concerts and would never throw my money away in a slot machine or on the blackjack table. 

However, I can guarantee Vegas would lose its shirt on this bet, an easy wager to make: Look for China in the next year to eighteen months to declare an ADIZ over the South China Sea — in fact, Beijing’s ambassador to the Philippines appears to have alluded to such a move. 

Heck, I will even take it a step further and bet the wife and dog on this one: Beijing will create such a zone in the Yellow Sea as well at some point in the near future.

Why am I making such a prediction? 

Two recent factors come into play that in my view give China the rationale along with the ample cover they need to make such a move.
First, Washington appears to have given Beijing the green light to go forward — albeit unintentionally it seems.
Various reports based off a Kyodo news agency article have suggested a senior official traveling with Vice President Joseph Biden to Asia explained that “Washington is also asking China not to set up an air defense zone in the South China Sea, where Beijing is locked in territorial rows with Southeast Asian nations, without first consulting countries concerned.”
So let me see if I have this correct: It would be OK if China crafted an ADIZ in the South China Sea as long as it tells its neighbors in some fashion, in advance? 

Considering Beijing has already made a veiled reference that it could set up additional ADIZ in the future, the timing of such a comment was ill advised at best.
Honestly, I am hoping the official was misunderstood or misspoke because if accurate, Beijing could use such wording to openly declare such a new ADIZ in the South China Sea — an area with sovereignty disputes involving multiple claimants. 

In fact, Beijing has already gone so far to claim 80 percent of the area, effectively taking control of Scarborough Shoal last summer, which is well within the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the Philippines and is pressing its claims now on Second Thomas Shoal. 

China has also deployed its new aircraft carrier to the region in what could be seen as a show of force (although, let’s be frank, the carrier won’t be operational for sometime, however, the point is still made).
Second, when America’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) gave guidance that U.S. domestic carriers should inform Beijing of their flight plans, Washington not only gave de facto approval of the East China Sea ADIZ, but also suggested that future moves would not be met with strong resistance. 

Yet, any move that gives this ADIZ declaration on China’s part any legitimacy will certainly be used by Beijing as a sign of acceptance. 

If we got away with it once, why not try the same move again and again?
As I explained in a piece for the Washington Times recently, creating an ADIZ, an area that is essentially an early-warning buffer zone for possible intrusions into a nation’s airspace, is not aggressive. 

It is the arc of Chinese actions dating back to 2006 onward that should worry the international community. Looked upon as a whole, the trend is truly concerning. 

No one is saying Beijing does not have the right as a great power and possible someday a superpower to shape the international stage in a way that is friendly to its own national interest. 

It is the optics of how it is going about doing it that frightens its neighbors. 

For all of China’s worries about being contained by the U.S. “pivot” to Asia, China is doing a great job of aligning its neighbors against its actions — effectively containing itself and giving credence to the growing narrative as Asia’s new regional bully. 

Bad move Beijing.

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Air Defence Farce

After Challenges, China Backpedals on Air Zone
By JANE PERLEZ

Protecting the Senkakus

BEIJING — China has permitted rare street protests and sent armadas of fishing boats to show its growing national interest in a small string of islands in the East China Sea.

Earlier this year, the Chinese military locked its radar on a Japanese navy vessel.
Each step seemed like a measured escalation in the long-running territorial dispute, intended to press Japan to negotiate over jurisdiction of the islands. 

But they also seemed calibrated to avoid a sharp international backlash — or to raise expectations too high at home.
But by imposing a new air defense zone over the islands last weekend, Beijing has miscalculated. 

It provoked a quick, pointed challenge from the United States, set off alarm bells among Asian neighbors and created a frenzy of nationalist expression inside China on hopes that the new leadership team in Beijing would push for a decisive resolution of the longstanding dispute.
On Wednesday, after the Pentagon sent two B-52 bombers defiantly cruising around China’s new air defense zone for more than two hours, Beijing appeared to backpedal. 

The overflights went unchallenged, and some civilian airlines ignored China’s new assertion of air rights.
“We will make corresponding responses according to different situations and how big the threat is,” the spokesman at the Foreign Ministry, Qin Gang, said when asked about China’s lack of enforcement against the American planes.
Under President Xi Jinping, China has suggested that it intends to make a more robust defense of its national interests, including in maritime disputes, to match its rising economic and military power. 

But even some Chinese analysts say they wonder if the new leadership team fully anticipated the response to the latest assertion of rights — or had in mind a clear Plan B if it met with strong resistance.
“I believe Xi Jinping and his associates must have predicted the substance of this reaction; whether they underestimated the details of the reaction, I’m not sure,” said Shi Yinhong, an occasional adviser to the government and a professor of international relations at Renmin University.
China does appear determined to escalate the issue of the uninhabited Senkaku islands, as a way of forcing the Japanese to negotiate and give up control of territory that has symbolic and strategic value for both countries. 

In the long term, China has not tried to disguise its goal of weakening the alliance between the United States and Japan and supplanting the United States as the dominant naval power in the Western Pacific.
Beijing is especially frustrated that its previous, more cautious steps to convince Japan of the seriousness of its claim to the islands have not prompted Japan, which administers them, to negotiate in earnest.

But if China has been trying to drive a wedge between Washington and the Japanese government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, their strategy seems to have backfired, at least for now.
The United States had for months seemed reluctant to get involved or take sides in a dispute that carries so much emotional weight for China. 

And the Obama administration dodged requests by Japanese leaders to take a clearer stance in their favor.
That hesitation seems to have largely vanished since China pronounced it was expanding its hold on the region’s airspace.
With the flyover by the B-52s, the United States has shown it is more willing to work with Japan in opposing China’s efforts to unilaterally force a change in the status quo, even if the United States still takes a neutral stance in the islands dispute itself.

Hours after China declared its new air zone, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel reaffirmed that the United States would stand by its security treaty obligations to aid Japan if it was attacked.
Since Saturday, Japanese leaders have publicly emphasized the close coordination with Washington — largely to reassure their own population, which has felt growing anxiety over China’s increasingly assertive stance.
On Wednesday in Tokyo, the defense minister, Itsunori Onodera, pledged in a phone call with Mr. Hagel to work closely with the United States military by sharing information and coordinating in the surveillance of Chinese activities in the East China Sea, Japan’s Defense Ministry said.
The new United States ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy, said in her first speech since assuming her post, broadcast around the world on CNN, that China’s creation of the air defense zone “only serves to increase tensions in the region.”
The Chinese action also stirred the first official negative comments about China in South Korea since President Park Geun-hye took office this year and forged a closer relationship with Beijing. 

The coordinates of the air defense zone announced by China overlap with South Korea’s own air defense zone in some places and appear created to give China an edge in a separate maritime territorial dispute with South Korea.
“We see competition and conflict in the region deepening,” South Korea’s foreign minister, Yun Byung-se, said Wednesday. 

“Things can take a dramatic turn for the worse if territorial conflicts and historical issues are merged with nationalism.”
The announcement of the air defense zone may also have created problems at home for the leadership in China, where there are expectations among an increasingly nationalist population that the country can live up to its promise of standing up to Japan.
On Chinese social media, a barrage of commentary congratulated the government on the new air defense zone and warned that Beijing should make good on threats by the Defense Ministry that aircraft give notification or face military action.
“If the Chinese military doesn’t do anything about aircraft that don’t obey the commands to identify themselves in the zone, it will face international ridicule,” wrote Ni Fangliu, a historian and an investigative journalist, on his microblog, which has more than two million followers.
The Liberation Army Daily, the official newspaper of China’s military, said in a commentary published before the Chinese government acknowledged the B-52 flights that without strong enforcement, the zone would be just “armchair strategy.”
Despite the risks, Mr. Shi, the government adviser, said that proclaiming the air defense zone was important because it represented China’s first effort to expand its strategic space beyond offshore waters since the establishment of Communist China in 1949.
The response by the United States, he said, amounted to “a negative development for a strong great-power relationship” that China sought between the United States and China.

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China's presence looms amid massive U.S.-Japanese AnnualEx war games

• USS George Washington in huge naval exercise -- AnnualEx 2013 -- off Okinawa
• This year's games held against backdrop of tension after China imposes new air zone

By Paul Armstrong

As the United States prepared to mark Thanksgiving, the centerpiece of the U.S. 7th fleet in the Pacific, the USS George Washington, was deployed off the Japanese island of Okinawa.
USS George Washington, East China Sea -- The deafening roar of state-of-the-art warplanes being catapulted into the air from its huge flight deck signaled that the USS George Washington was back in combat mode after its recent detour to the Philippines to take part in the aid effort in the wake of Super Typhoon Haiyan.
Barely a week on and the 90,000-ton Nimitz-class aircraft carrier is now patrolling waters off the island of Okinawa as part a huge naval exercise -- AnnualEx 2013 -- involving dozens of warships, submarines and aircraft from the U.S. Navy's 7th fleet and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF).
The aim? 

To provide a stern test of their ability to effectively and mutually respond to the defense of Japan or to a regional crisis or contingency situation in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region, according to the U.S. Navy.
But this year's war games have taken on an added dimension given the high-pressure atmosphere in the region at present -- they take place in the shadow of a controversial new Air Defense Identification Zone announced by the Chinese last weekend.
Map showing the controversial air defense identification zone in the East China Sea.

This zone, which incorporates among other areas an East China Sea island chain at the center of an acrimonious tug of war between Tokyo and Beijing, requires that all military aircraft in the area must report their flight plans to China, maintain two-way radio and clearly mark their nationalities on the aircraft. 

China has warned it will take "defensive measures" if their orders are ignored.
The commander of the U.S. 7th fleet, Vice Admiral Robert L. Thomas, appeared relaxed about the situation while addressing a group of reporters aboard the USS George Washington. 

He said while China's air defense zone did not appear to be "well thought out" given the overlap with both Japanese and South Korean territorial claims, he did not think U.S. military activity in the region would be negatively affected.
"We are going to continue with our operations in international airspace as we always have," he said.

"It's about international norms, standards, rules and laws. When anybody makes an extreme claim it is really an imperative that the international community can continue to operate in accordance with international law and not be distracted.

"So for us it's 'steady as you go.' Our operations in the East China Sea will continue as they always have."

Japan, which administers the largely uninhabited Senkaku island chain, has described China's move as "a profoundly dangerous act that may cause unintended consequences in the area," while U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said "this unilateral action constitutes an attempt to change the status quo in the East China Sea. Escalatory action will only increase tensions in the region and create risks of an incident."

In recent months, both sides have been involved in a dangerous game of "cat and mouse," prompting fears that any miscalculation could set the two Asian powers on a collision course -- with the United States likely to be dragged into such a conflict to defend its Japanese ally. 

Tokyo says it has twice scrambled fighter jets this month after Chinese aircraft appeared on course to enter its airspace. 

For its part, China lodged a complaint after it said a Japanese warship recently entered waters where the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy was holding live-fire drills, noting "the provocative move may have led to unexpected emergencies."
Meanwhile, China's first aircraft carrier, the "Liaoning," set sail this week from its home port of Qingdao in eastern China. 

According to the PLA Navy's website, it will head for the South China Sea to "conduct scientific experiments and military training." 

This course would take it through the East China Sea accompanied by four other warships.
Yet with so many potential flashpoints in the region, Thomas is optimistic that conflict will be avoided. 

He pointed to the professionalism shown by the armed forces on all sides in the region as the basis for this confidence.
"The South Koreans have shown great restraint with regard to North Korea and those severe provocations, while the Japanese Self Defense Force has also been very measured," he said. 

Significantly, he pointed to China's development of a "world class" navy, with a level of professionalism that matches its improving infrastructure.
"The more confident they become in their own capabilities, then this will actually 'depressurize' the situation," he said. 

With F-18 fighters taking off and landing almost every few minutes, it was easy to forget the role the carrier played in the Leyte Gulf more than a week ago.

Many of its fighter jets were flown back to Japan to make room for more helicopters able to ferry in supplies to remote areas of the Philippines in the wake of Super Typhoon Haiyan.
"The ship became a 'lily pad' for relief operations," said the carrier's commander, Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery. 

"This is something we'll train more for," he added, citing the need for a modern navy to be able to adapt to an increasingly diverse range of challenges and missions within its theater of operations.
"It was humbling to be able to take part in the extraordinary humanitarian effort in the Philippines."
Yet the sight of dozens of warships in tight formation in high seas off Japan was another reminder of how serious the U.S. and Japan are taking the threat to regional security -- undeniably their biggest challenge.

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China, Australia spat over Air Defence Identification Zone highlights 'troubled relations' in region

China's decision to establish an ADIZ is unhelpful, disturbing and cannot be ignored.

By Catherine McGrath
Japanese Maritime Defence Force Murasame Class destroyer JMSDF Murasame (left) and US Navy Arleigh Burke Class destroyer USS Preble sail in company with HMAS Sydney as the three warships participate in officer of the watch manoeuvres in the Pacific Ocean during the lead-up to Exercise Pacific Bond 2013

There is no doubting this is an important week in the rocky history of relations in north Asia and tensions over the disputed islands in the East China Sea.
The turning point came last week when China announced it was establishing an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ), with Japan and the United States quick to react.
Then came Australia. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop called in the Chinese Ambassador for a dressing down and Beijing responded by calling Australia's behaviour irresponsible and mistaken.
Australia's language on China is getting tougher under this Government but arguably so are the strategic circumstances it is dealing with.
From Australia's perspective, China's decision to establish an ADIZ is unhelpful, disturbing and cannot be ignored.

The spat comes at a crucial time because tensions in the East China Sea are as high as any moment in the post-cold war era.
"China is not pleased," Professor Jingdong Yuan, a pro-China activist from the University of Sydney, said.
Professor Yuan believes Australia's decision to call in the Chinese Ambassador was a step too far and that by taking this position Australia can no longer be seen as impartial.
But as far as Australia is concerned China should understand that the timing of its decision is going to be questioned.
Australian Strategic Policy Institute executive director Peter Jennings believes Australia had to say something.
"The application of the ADIZ has not been helpful and is a diplomatic misstep on the part of Chinese," he said. 

"They should not be surprised that countries like Japan, US and Australia have made comments that they are going too far.
"It doesn't mean Australia is taking sides.
"Saying nothing would not be conducive to managing a set of troubled relations in the region," Mr Jennings said.
"The move by China was unhelpful and came at the wrong time. It has created a new tension which no one needs right now. Lower key strategies would have been more useful to adopt at this time." 

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop talked of the need to invigorate the Australian-Japan relationship

China watching Australia's relationship with 'closest friend' Japan
China is also concerned about Australia's growing closeness to Japan under the leadership of Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
While Labor was in power, relations with Japan took a back seat to a focus on growing ties with China, even though Japan and Australia share a very close strategic and defence relationship.
The Abbott Government has made it clear it wants to strengthen ties with Japan it believes have been left behind in recent years.
It is a delicate repositioning because of existing regional tensions and the Abbott Government emphasises the move will no be at the expense of China.
At the East Asia Summit meeting in Brunei in October, Mr Abbott, after his meeting with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, described Japan as Australia's "closest friend in Asia".
Immediately China started to take notice.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop is due shortly to travel to China. 

She has already been to Tokyo.
In a Canberra speech in early November, Ms Bishop talked of the need to invigorate the Australian-Japan relationship but emphasized that would not take anything from the relationship with China.
"The relationship with Japan has not had sufficient recognition in recent years as much of the rest of the world shifted focus to China and the extraordinary size and speed of its growth," Ms Bishop said.
"Of course China's rise must be and will be embraced; it is in every nation's interest for China to become even more than it is today.
"However, Australia's friendship with a rising China does not come at the expense of close and longstanding friendships."
There is nothing in these statements for China to complain about, but it is watching Australia to see how this develops.
Australia meantime hopes China understands reinvigorating ties with Japan should not be seen as threatening.

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Japan ready to be more assertive against China

Japan Prime Minister Abe envisions a resurgent Japan taking a more assertive leadership role in Asia to counter China's power.
By Gerard Baker, George Nishiyama

TOKYO—Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he envisions a resurgent Japan taking a more assertive leadership role in Asia to counter China’s power, seeking to place Tokyo at the helm of countries in the region nervous about Beijing’s military buildup amid fears of an American pullback.
In an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Abe also defended his program of economic reforms against growing criticism that the package lacks substance—though he offered few details of new programs, or a timetable, that anxious foreign investors have been seeking.
“I’ve realized that Japan is expected to exert leadership not just on the economic front, but also in the field of security in the Asia-Pacific,” Mr. Abe said, referring to his meetings with the region’s leaders at a series of summits this month.
In his continuing attempt to juggle his desire to enact economic-stimulus policies with the need to pay down Japan’s massive debt, the prime minister said he was open to reviewing the second stage of a planned increase in the sales tax in 2015 if the economy weakens after the first increase is implemented in the spring.
Less than a year after taking office, Mr. Abe has already emerged as one of Japan’s most influential prime ministers in decades.

He has shaken up the country’s economic policy in an attempt to pull Japan out of a two-decade-long slump, and plotted a more active diplomacy for a country whose global leadership has been crimped by a rapid turnover of weak prime ministers.
In the interview, Mr. Abe made a direct link between his quest for a prosperous Japan, and a country wielding greater influence in the region and the world.
“Japan shrank too much in the last 15 years,” the leader said, explaining how people have become “inward-looking” with students shunning opportunities to study abroad and the public increasingly becoming critical of Tokyo providing aid to other countries.
“By regaining a strong economy, Japan will regain confidence as well, and we’d like to contribute more to making the world a better place.”
Mr. Abe’s views expressed in the interview reflect his broader, long-standing nationalistic vision of a more assertive Japan, one he has argued should break free of constraints imposed on Japan’s military by a postwar pacifist constitution written by the U.S.—and that has also been hampered by economic decline.
Mr. Abe made clear that one important way that Japan would “contribute” would be countering China in Asia. 

“There are concerns that China is attempting to change the status quo by force, rather than by rule of law. But if China opts to take that path, then it won’t be able to emerge peacefully,” Mr. Abe said. 

“So it shouldn’t take that path, and many nations expect Japan to strongly express that view. And they hope that as a result, China will take responsible action in the international community.”
China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately respond to requests to comment on Mr. Abe’s assertions. 

In the past, the Chinese government has said that Mr. Abe’s government was in danger of leading Japan toward a revival of right-wing militarism.
Mr. Abe’s comments come amid a period of heightened tensions between the two Asian giants, as high-level diplomatic contact has virtually dried up amid a territorial dispute in the East China Sea. 

While the conflict preceded Mr. Abe becoming prime minister in December 2012, Beijing has accused him of aggravating ties with assertive rhetoric defending Japan’s claims and ramping up Coast Guard defense of the Senkaku islands.
His remarks also follow months of active diplomacy that has taken him to summit meetings with heads of state in virtually every country in the region—with the notable exceptions of China and South Korea—which has its own strained ties with Tokyo.
In December, he intends to host in Japan the leaders of the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. 

The event is intended to mark 40 years of Japan’s ties with the bloc that includes countries from Thailand to Indonesia to the Philippines to Myanmar, but also to further elevate Japan’s role as a leader in a region where China has also sought influence.
Mr. Abe’s pursuit of a more expansive role was on full display at a pair of summits in Southeast Asia this month, where he openly took sides in public comments with the Philippines in a South China Sea territorial dispute between Manila and Beijing. 

Mr. Abe’s role in those meetings was amplified by the absence of President Barack Obama, who canceled his participation in the Indonesia and Brunei summits amid budget paralysis back in Washington.

Some leaders expressed concern that Mr. Obama’s absence symbolized a pullback in U.S. participation, and influence, in the region, as domestic political divisions undermine the American leader. 

Mr. Abe declined to answer directly a question about whether he was concerned about a decline in the clout of Japan’s close ally. 

“In the world today, there are many things which only the U.S. can take care of. And in this context, the U.S. takes leadership and we expect the U.S. to do so going forward.”
Mr. Abe has accumulated unusual power for a Japanese leader, steering his party this year to unified control of parliament, riding the popularity of his economic program, dubbed Abenomics. 

A quick dose of stimulus—easy money from the Bank of Japan, and new public-works spending—has given Japan the fastest-growing economy and stock market of the advanced economies this year.
But now Mr. Abe’s economic program is at a turning point. 

The next phase involves debating politically difficult economic reforms and deregulation measures, like making it easier for companies to shed workers, or reducing farmers’ protections. 

He is facing increasing criticism from local media, economists and global investors that these “pro-growth” plans are too vague.
Mr. Abe said the government had submitted related bills to the parliament, stressing that what mattered were the results.
“I am aware of the various criticism over my growth strategy. It may lack the flashy sort of features, but I think what is important is the outcome.”

He said he expected the economy to be dragged down by the tax increase effect from April to June, and the key would be how it recovers afterward.

“I would like to watch carefully how much it can recover in July, August and September. And then I’ll make an appropriate decision.”
But Mr. Abe stopped short of shedding light on whether he would proceed with some key measures seen vital for growth.
On whether to review a 40-year-old system providing income support for rice farmers, long blamed for their low productivity, the prime minister said he would let experts discuss the issue first.
And on slashing the corporate-tax rate, one of the highest among advanced economies, which critics blame for the low foreign investment in Japan, Mr. Abe said his ruling party is the one in charge of setting tax policy.
Asked about whether he would proceed with a plan to raise the sales tax again to 10% in October 2015, Mr. Abe said he would first review the impact of the increase to 8% in April from the current 5%.

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