East China Sea Air Defense ID Zone

[Blitzo]

Re: US incursion in new Chinese ADIZ: no reaction from China

there is a comment on reddit on a thread about this which I think sums the scenario up quite nicely up to this point.

[In response to the western media championing the B-52 as an act of defiance against the ADIZ]

First, the NYT/BBC confuses an Air Defense Zone and an Air Defense Identification Zone. An ADZ implies control of the territory or sea underneath it, and comes with shoot-down rights if the counterparty does not comply. An ADIZ is does not obligate other parties to do anything - it simply obligates the originating party (here, the Chinese Air Force) to patrol the zone, track flying objects, and identify them by communicative, electronic, or visual means.

Second, the US response is actually a non-response. Any country can send whatever it wants into an ADIZ. What China can then do is track and intercept said objects - if it so chooses to do so. To make everyone's lives easier, China has asked civilian airliners to submit flight plans through the ADIZ in advance, so that 777s full of tourists and businesspeople don't get welcomed by J-11s sporting a full complement of A2A missiles.

The real 'battle' here is at this civilian level, and it's one in which China has already mostly won. Other than Japan, every other nation's airlines are notifying China of their flight plans in advance. A friend of mine who used to be stationed at Kadena has told me that on any given day, 80-100% of the air traffic (e.g. radar signatures) in what is now China's ADIZ is civilian traffic. This means that China's job of sifting through air-defense radar returns just got cut by 4/5ths - which means China has already gotten what it wants.

Now, the US could certainly try to arm-twist South Korea, Singapore, Australia, and Taiwan into removing their airlines off the list, but that would be a legitimately unfriendly act towards China since China has already put its own airlines on the ADIZ lists of all those countries.

The final piece of this puzzle is that China has built 280 airports in the past 10 years. China is the fastest growing civil aviation market on Earth. If any Asian carrier doesn't play ball on the ADIZ, it can expect to lose out on the market, since the profitability of an airline is notoriously sensitive to government regulation - even extremely 'soft'/'invisible'/'reasonable' regulations governing noise levels and flight patterns. Given that most of these Asian carriers need that growth to stay alive (due to rising fuel costs), China has essentially leveraged its internal strengths to hand the US and Japan a Hobbesian choice - force your allies to impose economic losses on their own airlines or let China get air control parity in the East China Sea (remember, Japan has held the advantage there for a long time since it was the only state with a huge ADIZ).

Of course, it ignores the political aspect of the ADIZ in terms of the disputed islands (which I've expounded on in previous posts WRT negotiation), but basically the crux of it is this:
1: China doesn't need to intercept every single military aircraft in its ADIZ, it merely gives them the ability to exercise an option.
2: Most civilian airlines are providing China their flight paths when they enter the ADIZ (which is both expected in terms of company decency, but also necessary if they want to retain the marketshare in China for without flight plan filing they could simply be denied landing).


---


Lol oh damn Engineer posted one of the reddit comments before me. Well, I'll leave it there unchanged.

 

[FarkTypeSoldier]

Re: US incursion in new Chinese ADIZ: no reaction from China

This thing is very bizarre at this stage. There's no any kind of reaction from the Chinese side. Usually even if China does want to back down, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will still say something. This time, nothing.

Even if there's really no reaction, everything is still too early to judge. The ADIZ is only there for a few days, and not everything is in its optimal state I would say.

It is almost a given however, this kind of incidents will happen more often in the future, be it Japanese aircrafts or American ones. We'll see the real intention and response by the Chinese in the long way to come.

Silence is a form of (powerful) communication. Silence can lead to anybody guessing what is happening and incur worries behind the real intention or sometimes noting to worry about...

It could mean any of the following:
- Happiness;
- Amazed;
- Astonished;
- Anger;
- Protests...etc

So it is anybody's guess now.

 

[raygun]

Re: US incursion in new Chinese ADIZ: no reaction from China

I agree China make a wise move. The most US and Japan can do is fly their planes into the ADIZ, but they cannot deny or make China remove the ADIZ to undermine Japanese territorial claim. President Xi is proving to be a nightmare for PM Abe.

 

[Engineer]

Re: US incursion in new Chinese ADIZ: no reaction from China

Western medias make a lot of noise by reporting this so-called "US incursion". But I believe deep inside they know China make a really good strategic move this time. That's why there were so many news coming out when China announced ADIZ and the fast responses from US and Japan.

The Western medias and those who jumped for joy over the B-52's incursion into Chinese ADIZ merely set up then proceeded to attack a strawman. They need something, anything, to feel better, because of their lack of power over China. So, they set a strawman to misrepresent China's action as limiting others freedoms, then used the B-52's flight to claim China is unsuccessful in order to feel triumphant.

Ironically, these complainers are doing the exact same thing they accused China of doing. Complaints over Chinese ADIZ are no different to attempts at limiting what China can do over international airspace -- to limit China's freedoms. Those actions include intercepting, visual identification, and tailing of foreign aircraft -- those exact things that ADIZ is meant for.

 

[Air Force Brat]

Re: First US incursion in new chinese ADIZ: no reaction from china

Okay, you're a pilot, so can you elaborate on which US ADIZ rules apply to military aircraft and where?

Because your statement is counter to what I've read, that is to say, the US does demand flight plan, two way radio contact, active transponder, position reporting etc, of all aircraft within contiguous ADIZ areas which also protrude out of US territorial airspace.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

I expect the Russians don't provide all the above to the US when it enters alaskan ADIZ, and Chinese aircraft definitely don't when they enter Japanese ADIZ (which probably has similar rules), so therefore it will follow that this isn't a loss of face.

So I suppose the question is whether US (and other nation's) ADIZ demands within its ADIZ are similar to China's.

We can break it down into two sub sections:
How large/where is the US ADIZ? (I'm basing this off the maps I've posted)

And,

In what parts of the ADIZ does the US impose various ADIZ demands?





Practically it means only military aircraft, not civil (as China has made it relatively clear on), but let's continue.


In the US, the ADIZ is used to separate civilian air traffic from military/diplomatic zones, US military aircraft often intercept civilian air traffic that violates an ADIZ, these intercepts carry the distinct possibility of a shoot-down. Had flight 93 not been brought down by the passengers, and the hi-jackers thwarted, it is very possible that you would have witnessed what to most of us is unthinkable, thankfully for all of us, that did not happen. The results were the same, and tragic beyond measure, so Chuck has a valid point, but most of what you have written I agree with.

In response to another post, China did not blunder into this declaration, they played a hand from their strength, where will this lead us, well China has obviously declared their previous assertion that the islands belong to them, and raised the stakes, a calculated move to eventually regain control of the islands, knowing this will raise tensions, but putting everyone on notice????? so who knows, it is a game, but a deadly serious game, perhaps to entice a reaction from someone?????

More likely to tease the BHO team, why do you think Putin fired up those old decrepit Tu-95s, just the old game of cat.... and.....mouse??? brat

 

[xiabonan]

Re: US incursion in new Chinese ADIZ: no reaction from China

Chinese Ministry of Defense has spoken about this. I'm using my phone now so I can't post the link. You can do a search and see what they've said. MoD claimed that the B52s were flying 'at the edge of the ADIZ back and forth' and are 'over 200km away from Diaoyu islands'. And MoD kept an eye on them since the start. Well maybe someone can find the full thing and post it here.

 

[cn_habs]

Re: US incursion in new Chinese ADIZ: no reaction from China

Chinese Ministry of Defense has spoken about this. I'm using my phone now so I can't post the link. You can do a search and see what they've said. MoD claimed that the B52s were flying 'at the edge of the ADIZ back and forth' and are 'over 200km away from Diaoyu islands'. And MoD kept an eye on them since the start. Well maybe someone can find the full thing and post it here.

Yup so the Minister of Defense responds:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[Blitzo]

Re: US incursion in new Chinese ADIZ: no reaction from China

Anyone have details about the actual MoD interview/press statement?


--

Anyway I find it interesting how various media outlets (not BBC in this case) are shortening the Air Defense Identification Zone to simply Air Defense Zone. Funny how omission of a single word can change the entire meaning of a name.

Maybe they should shorten it to Air Identification Zone instead.


---

Edit: here we go:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

China Says Monitored Defiant US Bomber Flights
BEIJING November 26, 2013 (AP)
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN Associated Press

China says it monitored two unarmed U.S. bombers that flew over the East China Sea just days after Beijing declared it was asserting greater military control over the area.

Tuesday's flight of the two B-52 bombers underscored that the U.S. will not comply with China's demand that aircraft flying through its newly declared maritime air defense zone identify themselves and accept Chinese instructions.

A Chinese Defense Ministry statement released Wednesday said the planes were detected and monitored as they flew through the zone for two hours and 22 minutes. It said all aircraft flying through the zone would be monitored and asserted that China had the ability to control the airspace.

It didn't mention its threat to take action against noncompliant aircraft included in Saturday's announcement.


So the precise time meant they were clearly detected and tracked. Now we just need proof of the bombers distance from the disputed islands and the claim of their skipping in and out of the ADIZ to confirm what I had hypothesized a few pages back: that the US may have sent the bombers not very far into the ADIZ and could skip back out of the islands as well.

 

[aquauant]

Re: US incursion in new Chinese ADIZ: no reaction from China

To us, US's action was a sign of weakness more than strength, because it was all they can do.

 

[latenlazy]

Re: US incursion in new Chinese ADIZ: no reaction from China

(Really think everyone's looking at this wrong if they think this is about US vs China...)