By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN - Nov 26, 2013.
.
Computer screens display a map showing the outline of China's new
air defense zone in the East China on the website of the Chinese
Ministry of Defense, in Beijing Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2013.
Beijing on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2013 issued a map of the zone - which
includes a cluster of islands controlled by Japan but also claimed by
China - and a set of rules that say all aircraft entering the area must
notify Chinese authorities and are subject to emergency military
measures if they do not identify themselves or obey Beijing's orders.
Chinese characters in red in the center of the map at left reads: "Air
Defense Identification Zone in East China Sea." (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
BEIJING (AP) — China's new air defense zone in the East China Sea
further asserts its territorial claims over disputed islands but isn't
expected to immediately spark confrontations with foreign aircraft.
Yet the move fits a pattern of putting teeth behind China's claims
and could potentially lead to dangerous encounters depending on how
vigorously China enforces it — and how cautious it is when intercepting
aircraft from Japan, the U.S. and other countries. While enforcement is
expected to start slowly, Beijing has a record of playing the long game,
and analysts say they anticipate a gradual scaling-up of activity.
Beijing on Saturday issued a map of the zone — which includes a
cluster of islands controlled by Japan but also claimed by China — and a
set of rules that say all aircraft entering the area must notify
Chinese authorities and are subject to emergency military measures if
they do not identify themselves or obey Beijing's orders.
The declaration seems to have flopped as a foreign policy gambit.
Analysts say Beijing may have miscalculated the forcefulness and speed
with which its neighbors rejected its demands.
Washington, which has hundreds of military aircraft based in the
region, says it has zero intention of complying. Japan likewise has
called the zone invalid, unenforceable and dangerous, while Taiwan and
South Korea, both close to the U.S., also rejected it.
At least in the short term, the move undermines Beijing's drive for
regional influence, said Bonnie Glaser, an Asia expert at the Center
for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
"It doesn't serve Chinese interests to have tensions with so many neighbors simultaneously," she said.
Denny Roy, a security expert at the East-West Center in Hawaii,
said China's enforcement will likely be mostly rhetorical at first.
"The Chinese can now start counting and reporting what they call
Japanese violations, while arguing that the Chinese side has shown great
restraint by not exercising what they will call China's right to shoot,
and arguing further that China cannot be so patient indefinitely," Roy
said.
China also faces practical difficulties deriving from gaps in its
air-to-air refueling and early warning and control capabilities,
presenting challenges in both detecting foreign aircraft and keeping its
planes in the air, according to Greg Waldron, Asia Managing Editor at
Flightglobal magazine in Singapore.
Despite that, Beijing has shown no sign of backing down, just as it
has continued to aggressively enforce its island claims in the South
China Sea over the strong protests from its neighbors.
Tensions remain high with Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea
called Senkaku by Japan and Daioyu by China. Beijing was incensed by
Japan's September 2012 move to nationalize the chain, and Diaoyutai by
Taiwan, which also claims them.
Since then, Chinese and Japanese coast guard ships have regularly
confronted each other in surrounding waters. Japan further angered
Beijing last month by threatening to shoot down unmanned Chinese drones
that Beijing says it plans to send on surveillance missions over the
islands.
Beijing's move was greeted rapturously by hardline Chinese
nationalists, underscoring Beijing's need to assuage the most vocal
facet of domestic public opinion. Strategically, it also serves to keep
the island controversy alive in service of Beijing's goal of forcing
Tokyo to accept that the islands are in dispute — a possible first step
to joint administration or unilateral Chinese control over them.
Beijing was also responding in kind to Japan's strict enforcement
of its own air defense zone in the East China Sea, said Dennis Blasko,
an Asia analyst at think tank CNA's China Security Affairs Group and a
former Army attache in Beijing.
The Japanese zone, in place since the 1960s, overlaps extensively
with the newly announced Chinese zone. Japan, which keeps a public
record of all foreign incursions into its zone, actually extended it
westward by 22 kilometers (14 miles) in May.
Blasko and others say much still depends on China's plans for
implementation, but cite as a frightening precedent the 2001 collision
between a U.S. surveillance plane and an overly-aggressive Chinese
fighter over the South China Sea that killed the Chinese pilot and
sparked a major diplomatic crisis.
June Teufel Dreyer, a China expert at the University of Miami, said
she would expect Beijing to pause until overseas criticisms die down,
then engineer a diplomatic incident by warning off Japanese military
aircraft without physically confronting them.
China further complicated matters by not consulting others on the
protocols it expects them to follow, or the rules of engagement for
Chinese pilots, said Ross Babbage, chair of Australia's Kokoda
Foundation, a security think tank.
"This is the kind of situation that clearly has the potential to escalate," Babbage said.
T.S. Bill Laurie, sữ gia chuyển
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