China’s military sent several fighter jets and an early warning aircraft on patrol into disputed air space over the East
China
Sea
yesterday, the Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported, quoting a spokesman for the People’s Liberation Army Air Force.
The move raises the stakes in a standoff with the United States, Japan and South Korea over the zone. Aircraft from Japan and South Korea breached China's new air defence zone yesterday, the latest acts of international defiance of Beijing's rules that its neighbours are refusing to recognise.
The Chinese patrol mission was “a defensive measure and in line with international common practices,” said Shen Jinke, a spokesman for China’s air force, in the Xinhua article.
Beijing published co-ordinates for the maritime air defence zone last weekend, which covers an uninhabited archipelago at the centre of a spat with Japan, but China’s neighbours have largely ignored the move.
The Chinese had threatened “defensive emergency measures” against any aircraft that flew through the zone without identifying themselves and following instructions. However, they failed to follow up on this when two US B-52 bombers flew over the area this week.
South Korea’s military said yesterday that its aircraft flew through the zone this week without informing China and with no apparent interference.
Japan also said its aircraft had continued to fly through it after the Chinese announcement, while the Philippines, locked in an increasingly bitter dispute with Beijing over South China Sea islands, said it was rejecting China's declaration.
Some in China had seen the lack of reaction to the US B-52s as an embarrassing climbdown and the move raised tensions in an already fraught region, centred around the remote islands known as the Diaoyu in China and the Senkakus in Japan.
There was even a joke doing the rounds about the inaction of the Chinese authorities.
“Why didn’t we shoot down the B-52s? According to the news we did, but as the missile approached, the American pilot said – ‘we will now broadcast a link to the bank deposits of Chinese government officials in the United States.’ Before he had finished his sentence, the missile had turned around.”
There are up to 20 air defence identification zones (ADIZs) around the world, which are set by individual countries rather than by international treaties or agreements. This makes enforcing them difficult.
The US, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Norway, Britain and others operate such zones.
An editorial in the Global Times, an offshoot of the Communist Party's official organ, the People's Daily, said the B-52's defiance was "no reason for nervousness".
Unspecified threats
The official language surrounding the establishment of the China zone had been tame, focusing on unspecified threats and on the fact that in setting up the zone, China was just doing what other countries are doing.
Yin Zhuo, a military analyst in the People's Liberation Army Navy, said the zone allows China to identify, monitor, control or dispose of air threats or unidentified objects over the sea. "The Chinese military has the ability to implement effective control and take appropriate measures for the different air threats," he wrote in local media.
Meng Xiangqing, a professor of strategic studies at the National Defence University, emphasised that the zone was based on the principle of reciprocity.
“As long as it doesn’t violate basic principles of international law, doesn’t infringe other countries’ territorial sovereignty and doesn’t affect internationally recognised freedom of flying, there is no need to ask permission from other countries regarding when and how big the air defence identification zone will be.”
However, Prof Meng also warned that China's patience was not bottomless.
"The American B-52 bomber entering the air defence zone in the East China Sea is obviously a provocation and wants to test China's bottom line. If the US and Japan continue to provoke, then a conflict is indeed going to occur." – (Additional reporting by Reuters)
