China looks to redraw Asian airspace

      

By Demetri Sevastopulo in Hong Kong

When China created a controversial “air defence identification zone” last Saturday, it sparked alarm about the rising risk of Sino-Japanese conflict over the Senkaku Islands.
But while the focus has been on the Japanese chain, China also said in the same statement it “will establish other air defence identification zones at the right moment after necessary preparations are completed”, raising the spectre of tensions spreading across the region.

The Senkaku spat has attracted much attention over the past year because of the potential for war between Asia’s two biggest economies.
But China is engaged in a number of equally contentious territorial disputes with Southeast Asian nations – particularly the Philippines and Vietnam – over the resource-rich South China Sea.
Ian Storey, a security expert at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, said the most obvious candidates for any new Chinese air defence zones were the northern part of the South China Sea and the Yellow Sea.
Chinese maps often include a controversial “nine-dash line” that loops the South China Sea, running close to the coasts of Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia, and stretching south to Indonesia.
It first emerged in a 1947 Republic of China map that was later used by the Communist government of Mao Zedong when it came to power in 1949.
While some Chinese scholars say China does not claim the entire South China Sea, the use of the map has sparked concern among Southeast Asian nations.

China last year started issuing passports that included an image of the “nine-dash line”, provoking angry responses from Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Mr Storey said China would probably not create an ADIZ for the whole South China Sea, saying it would be “absolutely outrageous” if they included the whole area inside the “nine-dash line”.
Instead, he said China was more likely to establish a zone in the northern part of the sea, and particularly surrounding Hainan Island.
Hainan hosts the Chinese navy’s South Sea fleet – one of its three naval fleets – and also a new generation of nuclear submarines that are an increasingly important part of China’s naval capabilities in the South China Sea.
But Mr Storey added that creating an ADIZ over even some of the South China Sea would be “unnecessarily provocative” at a time when China is trying to reduce tensions with its Southeast Asian neighbours.

In October, Chinese President Xi Jinping took advantage of the absence of US President Barack Obama at the Apec summit in Indonesia to launch a charm offensive with Southeast Asian countries, including by floating the idea of creating an “Asian infrastructure bank” to promote development in the region.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang then embarked on a tour of Southeast Asia that was widely seen as an effort to repair relations.
The creation of an ADIZ over the South China Sea would be unlikely to generate the same kind of military response that occurred this week when the US flew B-52 bombers near the Senkaku without alerting China – mainly because, with the exception of Singapore, most Southeast Asian nations have limited air power.
But Gary Li, a senior analyst at IHS maritime, said a Chinese ADIZ in the northern South China Sea would be “very, very sensitive”.
He said it would almost certainly overlap with Vietnam’s ADIZ, which reaches north to about 100km from Hainan Island, and includes the disputed Paracel Islands.
Mr Li said the Yellow Sea was also a contender for a new Chinese ADIZ.
China has repeatedly criticised the US and South Korea for holding joint military exercises in the Yellow Sea, which lies between east China and the Korean peninsula, and particularly so when the US sails its aircraft carriers through the area.
Wu Shicun, president of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies in Hainan, a think-tank that advises the Chinese foreign ministry, said that while China had the right to create new zones, it would take its time.
“We cannot rule out the possibility of setting up new ADIZs, but not in the short term,” said Mr Wu.
“Given the strong reaction from the international community to the East China Sea ADIZ, China will further evaluate when and how to set up new ADIZs. But it will happen sooner or later, since it is related to its national security.”
Shi Yinhong, an international relations expert at Renmin University, agreed that China was unlikely to create a zone in the South China Sea anytime soon, mainly because Beijing does not see the same urgency, but he said that could change if “confrontations in the South China Sea escalate”.
China and Japan had for decades put the Senkaku dispute to the side.
But Beijing reacted angrily last year when Japan bought three of the islands from their private owner, in a move that sparked anti-Japan protests across China.
Mr Li said China probably decided to create an ADIZ – which other countries such as Japan and the US did long ago – because Tokyo has routinely pointed to the number of Chinese incursions into Japan’s zone as a way to rally public support.
“That caused the Chinese side to say we need to get one too. There is a huge PR war here,” said Mr Li.

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U.S. Directly Challenges China's Air Defense Zone

Pair of American B-52 Bombers Fly Over Disputed Island Chain
By JULIAN E. BARNES in Washington and JEREMY PAGE in Beijing

WASHINGTON—A pair of American B-52 bombers flew over a disputed island chain in the East China Sea without informing Beijing, U.S. officials said Tuesday, in a direct challenge to China and its establishment of an expanded air-defense zone.
The planes flew out of Guam and entered the new Chinese Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) at about 7 p.m. Washington time Monday, according to a U.S. official.
Over the weekend, Beijing said it was establishing an air-defense zone covering Japanese Senkaku islands.

U.S. defense officials earlier had promised that the U.S. would challenge the zone and wouldn't comply with Chinese requirements to file a flight plan, radio frequency or transponder information.
The flight of the B-52s, based at Anderson Air Force Base in Guam, were part of a long-planned exercise called Coral Lightning. 

The bombers weren't armed and weren't accompanied by escort planes.
But the routine flight took on new significance with China's weekend announcement, and it counters Beijing's attempts to strengthen its influence over the region. 

China had warned that aircraft that don't comply could be subject to a military response.
The establishment of the new zone was certain to have been approved by Xi Jinping, China's new leader, who became military chief at the same time as taking over as head of the Communist Party in November last year, analysts and diplomats said.
They see the move as part of a long-term strategy to try to gradually change the status quo in the East China Sea, and make it increasingly costly for Japan to enforce its claims, without ever crossing the red lines that might provoke an actual military conflict.
But some analysts now believe that China might have overplayed its hand by angering not just Japan and the U.S., but South Korea and Taiwan—both of which have air-defense zones that overlap China's—and several other countries that have territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea.
The U.S. official said that China didn't make contact with the B-52s as they flew over the islands. 

The planes returned to Guam after the exercise.
"The planes flew a pattern that included passing through the ADIZ," the official said. 

"The flight was without incident."
Calls to China's foreign and defense ministries went unanswered.
U.S. officials said they believe they had to challenge the ADIZ to make clear they don't consider the Chinese move to be appropriate. 

But they said they don't believe U.S. flights over the island will create a military conflict.
The White House said the territorial dispute between China and Japan should be solved diplomatically. 

"The policy announced by the Chinese over the weekend is unnecessarily inflammatory," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters in California, where President Barack Obama was traveling.
"These are the kinds of differences that should not be addressed with threats or inflammatory language," he said.
China is now requiring aircraft flying in the region to register their flight path with the Foreign Ministry, identify their transponder and their radio frequency. 

Col. Steve Warren, the Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. wouldn't comply with those requirements.
"The United States military will continue conducting flight operations in the region, including with our allies and partners," said Col. Warren on Monday, prior to the B-52 flight. 

"We will not in any way change how we conduct our operations as a result of the Chinese policy of establishing an ADIZ, an Air Defense Identification Zone."
Col. Warren said the U.S. didn't agree with China's decision to establish the zone, and the U.S. wouldn't comply with it while flying over the disputed islands. 

"We see it as a destabilizing attempt to alter the status quo in the region," Col. Warren said.
Qin Gang, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, told a regular news briefing earlier in the day Tuesday that China's new zone wouldn't affect regular international civilian flights, according to a transcript on the Foreign Ministry web site.
Asked if China would take military action against aircraft that didn't comply with its demands in the zone, Mr. Qin said: "It was written very clearly in the announcement. With regard to the question you've asked, the Chinese side will make an appropriate response according to the different circumstances and the threat level that it might face."
China's Defense Ministry said Saturday that the Chinese military would take "defensive emergency measures" against aircraft that didn't obey the rules in the new zone. 

It didn't specify what those measures would be.
China's official Xinhua news agency announced earlier Tuesday that the country's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, was making its maiden voyage to the South China Sea, where China is also embroiled in territorial disputes with its neighbors.
The Liaoning left its homeport of Qingdao in eastern China on Tuesday and was being escorted by two destroyers and two frigates to the South China Sea where it would conduct training exercises, Xinhua said.
A Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman said Saturday that China was planning to establish more ADIZs, and many analysts expect one of them to be over the South China Sea, where China's claims overlap with those of Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei.
China had made some progress in easing tensions over the South China Sea in recent months with a charm offensive in Southeast Asia that was helped by President Obama's failure to attend a regional summit in Brunei in October because of the U.S. government shutdown.
That was seen by many Asian governments as a sign of declining U.S. influence, despite its pledge to refocus military and other resources on the region as part of a so-called "pivot" toward Asia.
Beijing's progress was undermined in the eyes of many, however, when it initially announced a donation of just $100,000 to help victims of a devastating typhoon in the Philippines, while the U.S. sent an aircraft carrier to spearhead the relief effort.

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Europe's role in East Asian islands dispute

China has snubbed Japan by setting up its new 'air defense zone' near disputed islands in the East China Sea. The situation also affects the EU. What can Europe do?

http://www.dw.de

Japan's Senkaku Islands

Beijing recently announced the establishment of an "air defense identification zone," a new measure that could deepen the territorial dispute with Tokyo over an island chain in the East China Sea.
Chinese fighter jets may now intercept Japanese aircraft flying over the disputed territory. 

Japan has reacted angrily. 

A senior Japanese foreign ministry official lodged a protest with the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo saying that Japan could "never accept the zone set up by China."
Similar air defense zones, set up by Japan, South Korea and Taiwan on the East China Sea, also exist. These zones overlap in several places.

Liu Jiangyong, professor of international relations at Tsinghua University, says that China is only catching up other countries in this area: "I am of the opinion that China has set up the air defense zone too late," the Chinese expert told DW.

Small islands, big consequences
The Senkaku islands have a total area of about seven square kilometers. 

The dispute is primarily about who has sovereignty over the islands. 

However, it's also about rich fishing grounds, mineral resources and access to key international sea lanes passing through the archipelago.
The conflict is also fueled by rising nationalism on both sides. 

A study by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) states: "Mutual resentment limits the ability of both Chinese and the Japanese governments to make compromises to resolve the dispute over the island chain."

Since there is no institutionalized system for dealing with maritime incidents, there is a big risk of the conflict escalating.

And this would have global consequences. 

Because of its security deal with Japan, the United States would have to intervene. 

US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel confirmed this: "We remain steadfast in our commitments to our allies and partners."

It's difficult to measure the impact an escalation of the conflict might have on the world economy, as three of the world's largest economies -- the United States, China and Japan -- are involved in it. 

But "also German and European economic interests would be affected," according to a report published by the SWP. 

The report states that trade with East Asia accounted for more than a quarter of total EU trade in 2012. 

The EU would therefore have good reasons for defending its interests in the East China Sea.

Europe as a mediator?
But the EU has followed a restrained approach. 

According to the SWP report, "the EU has restricted itself to calling on both sides to settle the dispute peacefully." 

However, the SWP experts believe the EU could do more, as it is not directly involved in the conflict, unlike the United States and East Asian countries.
The institute, which also advises Germany's parliament and federal government suggests: "For these reasons, it is important for the EU to act preemptively. This requires that the Union intensifies its political ties with East Asia." 

A strategy for East Asia must be drafted in the interest of the EU, the document adds.

Arbitration could first take place on a low level, starting with, for instance, scientists, former political decision-makers, members of civil society or between government officials and non-official representatives.
The SWP report ends with the following sentence: "This way, the EU could make a name for itself as an independent player in the region -- between the USA and China."

Skepticism about EU's role
Edward Schwark, Asia expert at the London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) agrees that there's a lot at stake for the EU. 

But Schwark is skeptical about a potential European involvement.

"There are already too many players involved in the dispute in the East China Sea. I don't see what the EU will be able to contribute. Furthermore, it will be difficult to justify such a move vis-a-vis the states in the region, particularly China."
Schwark explains that Beijing has always insisted on bilateral negotiations and pronounced itself against international solutions. 

The expert therefore believes that "the EU would cause more problems than it would solve." 

Instead, he argues, the EU should speak out in favor of freedom of navigation and against unilateral attacks on the sovereignty of any nation.

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