Re: US incursion in new Chinese ADIZ: no reaction from China
...Everyone knows this is probably related to the Iran nuclear deal right? Japan has been pretty uneasy with the US's long term commitments to its allies for the last several years, and especially after the Syria debacle those concerns became somewhat inflamed. This was just further exacerbated by the recent reporting that the US kept Israel and Saudi Arabia in the dark about their backdoor dealings with Iran. Sending B-52s over China's newly declared ADIZ is a way for the US to show Japan that their security commitments to Japan can be taken seriously.
I'm a little surprised that we didn't even get an angry statement from China's MoFA, but not by the overall lack of a substantive response. If I had to venture a guess, China probably read the political tea leaves and figured it's much better for the US to reinforce its credibility with Japan so that they have greater leverage to rein Japan in when things get really tense. In fact, allowing the US to assert a superficial posture over the islands could even give Abe room to step back or slow down his escalation and save face domestically, if that's something Abe is ready to pursue (though I think not). They probably saw something like this coming a mile away. It's even possible they got a backdoor cue about this happening as the negotiations with Iran were wrapping up.
...Everyone knows this is probably related to the Iran nuclear deal right? Japan has been pretty uneasy with the US's long term commitments to its allies for the last several years, and especially after the Syria debacle those concerns became somewhat inflamed. This was just further exacerbated by the recent reporting that the US kept Israel and Saudi Arabia in the dark about their backdoor dealings with Iran. Sending B-52s over China's newly declared ADIZ is a way for the US to show Japan that their security commitments to Japan can be taken seriously.
I'm a little surprised that we didn't even get an angry statement from China's MoFA, but not by the overall lack of a substantive response. If I had to venture a guess, China probably read the political tea leaves and figured it's much better for the US to reinforce its credibility with Japan so that they have greater leverage to rein Japan in when things get really tense. In fact, allowing the US to assert a superficial posture over the islands could even give Abe room to step back or slow down his escalation and save face domestically, if that's something Abe is ready to pursue (though I think not). They probably saw something like this coming a mile away. It's even possible they got a backdoor cue about this happening as the negotiations with Iran were wrapping up.
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