East China Sea Air Defense ID Zone

[chuck731]

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

While I agree that this was more of a media and political exercise by the US that was blown out of all rational and sane proportions by the media, it was still a mistake by the PLA to not intercept the B52s.

This was the very first case of foreign aircraft intruding into China's ADIZ without complying with its rules, and how China responds matters. It does not matter that the B52s only skirted the edges of the zone, all that matters is they entered at all.

As soon as they did that, someone from the PLA air defence monitoring station should have radioed them a warning that they have entered China's ADIZ and asked them to ID themselves and activate transponders etc while at the same time fighters should have been scrambled.

All those fighters had to do was simply to fly to those bombers and keep in formation with them until they left the ADIZ. If the fighters didn't have the fuel to do that, replacements should have been sent to take over without loosing visual of the B52.

That would have been established in no uncertain terms that China means business with its ADIZ, but also assure the US somewhat that China would not interfere with freedom of navigation in its declared ADIZ even if you don't follow the rules. It would also have been good training for the PLAAF pilots and C&C operators.

I don't imagine now is a good time to risk a repeat of the 2000 Hainan incident.

Keep in mind just as Abe has incentive to keep confrontation with China on the front burner, so too Obama has incentive to be seen standing strong against China after the monumental administrative fiasco that has beset the signature accomplishment of his fading administration.

 

[Blitzo]

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

Well I think this little B-52 shenanigans can be written down as a propaganda victory for the US an Japan. Also the media is spinning the ADIZ as some kind of territory grab which is also a small victory, wen if it is utterly predictable.


But te fact that Xi's government seems to be acting relatively calmly, and the fact that they surely must have known that the US and Japan wouldn't take this ADIZ sitting down (...hypocrisy much?) means they probably have a few cards left to play or everything is mostly going in the expected direction.


So what is Xi's end game? Well I mentioned the idea of brining Japan to the negotiating table. That's definitely a primary concern. Also a primary goal is to have the right to intercept and ID aircraft at longer ranges. So the first goal can be terminated and achieved upon a Japanese agreement to negotiate, the second will be ongoing.

There are of course military risks which I'm sure I do not need to mention. However propaganda wise, the government should continue calmly pointing out that Japan and the US has their own ADIZ and that chinas rules are actually based on those. Maybe even do a special CCTV show and a press conference to elaborate ok the details of an ADIZ to give western media less room to maneuver and contort the truth.
I think the ADIZ is here to stay. I hope it is. The US and Japan may see military planes to "challenge" the zone, and good for them. But sending a few B-52s skirting the edge is hardly a determined response and doesn't demonstrate a PRC unwillingness to patrol the zone no matter what the western media spin it as. In fact, an ADIZ is mostly words, action can be selectively implemented because an ADIZ is more of a "reserving the right" to do XYZ, there is no expectation of "you must intercept X number of aircraft per day for your ADIZ to remain valid".
So long as china still days the ADIZ is in place, there's not that much the US or Japan can do to break it. Apart from creating a false flag incident.

So basically if Xi keeps a calm head like he's been doing and can predict what the US may do, the ADIZ should be in a good spot.

 

[chuck731]

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

Well I think this little B-52 shenanigans can be written down as a propaganda victory for the US an Japan. Also the media is spinning the ADIZ as some kind of territory grab which is also a small victory, wen if it is utterly predictable.


But te fact that Xi's government seems to be acting relatively calmly, and the fact that they surely must have known that the US and Japan wouldn't take this ADIZ sitting down (...hypocrisy much?) means they probably have a few cards left to play or everything is mostly going in the expected direction.


So what is Xi's end game? Well I mentioned the idea of brining Japan to the negotiating table. That's definitely a primary concern. Also a primary goal is to have the right to intercept and ID aircraft at longer ranges. So the first goal can be terminated and achieved upon a Japanese agreement to negotiate, the second will be ongoing.

There are of course military risks which I'm sure I do not need to mention. However propaganda wise, the government should continue calmly pointing out that Japan and the US has their own ADIZ and that chinas rules are actually based on those. Maybe even do a special CCTV show and a press conference to elaborate ok the details of an ADIZ to give western media less room to maneuver and contort the truth.
I think the ADIZ is here to stay. I hope it is. The US and Japan may see military planes to "challenge" the zone, and good for them. But sending a few B-52s skirting the edge is hardly a determined response and doesn't demonstrate a PRC unwillingness to patrol the zone no matter what the western media spin it as. In fact, an ADIZ is mostly words, action can be selectively implemented because an ADIZ is more of a "reserving the right" to do XYZ, there is no expectation of "you must intercept X number of aircraft per day for your ADIZ to remain valid".
So long as china still days the ADIZ is in place, there's not that much the US or Japan can do to break it. Apart from creating a false flag incident.

So basically if Xi keeps a calm head like he's been doing and can predict what the US may do, the ADIZ should be in a good spot.

One possible end game might be to count on the fact that Chinese economy grows faster than Japans, so diminution of Sino-Japanese trade will become ever more costly to Japan than to China. Japan will eventually, after a number of years, reach her pain threshold before China would. It would be a game of who can hold his hand over a fire longer, and in the long run, Japan will prove to have more tender hands.

Of course Japan will be trying hard to change the game from this to something else.

 

[plawolf]

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

I don't imagine now is a good time to risk a repeat of the 2000 Hainan incident.

Keep in mind just as Abe has incentive to keep confrontation with China on the front burner, so too Obama has incentive to be seen standing strong against China after the monumental administrative fiasco that has beset the signature accomplishment of his fading administration.

Flying in formation with the B52s would have been a zero risk move. Unlike the Hainan incident, the PLAAF planes won't be trying to intimidate the Americans, but merely flying close enough to establish a visual on the B52s and maintaining it so long as they were flying in China's ADIZ. A collision would have been unlikely even if the B52s were actively trying to ram the PLAAF fighters.

 

[Blackstone]

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

I don't imagine now is a good time to risk a repeat of the 2000 Hainan incident.

Neocons are no longer in power, so the US is less confrontational towards strategic rivals like China. Also, the 2001 Hainan incident ushered in greater caution by militaries of both countries, while in proximity of the other. Given China's mild response to the two B-52s, it's clear her leaders think the flight was meant to placate Japan and to give Shinzo Abe maneuvering room with the Japanese public.

Keep in mind just as Abe has incentive to keep confrontation with China on the front burner, so too Obama has incentive to be seen standing strong against China after the monumental administrative fiasco that has beset the signature accomplishment of his fading administration.

The whole world understands US-China is the most important bilateral relations in the 21st Century, and the success or failure of that relationship will greatly affect people everywhere. Politically, President Obama would look better building cooperative relations with China than the other way around. The bottom line is chances of the tail wagging the dog is low.

 

[chuck731]

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

Neocons are no longer in power, so the US is less confrontational towards strategic rivals like China. Also, the 2001 Hainan incident ushered in greater caution by militaries of both countries, while in proximity of the other. Given China's mild response to the two B-52s, it's clear her leaders think the flight was meant to placate Japan and to give Shinzo Abe maneuvering room with the Japanese public..

At the time of Hainan incident, prior to 9/11, Neocons have not gained opportunistic ascendacy and the Bush Administration's operating principle had been to avoid foreign entanglements like the ones Clinton had liberally involved the US in during his second term. Hainan incident might have raised diplomatic word games to a high pitch, but probably had low potential for long term impact on US strategic outlook toward China under the conditions at the time.

Obama, on the other hand, defined his geopolitical legacy to be the pivot of American power from its legacy cold war disposition to focus on containment of China. Obama is therefore, IMHO, more incentivized to to protect this legacy and avoid soiling it with wiffs of "soft on China" in response to incidents with Chinese military than Bush administration in 2000.

 

[vincent]

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

I believe the purpose of the ADID zone is to establish a legal basis for sending military planes to Diaoyu airspace if the Japanese do it first. At the moment both sides are sending only civilian planes and ships to the areas. However, if Japan ever tried to change that by sending in military planes or ships, China can use the ADID as an excuse to do the same

 

[latenlazy]

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

I think a lot of people are letting the media haze block them from reading the political maneuvering. Jeff made a really good point earlier on about how after the US tested China's response, Japan would be doing the same, but I cannot imagine the US wanting to embolden and enable Japan and worsen the tensions over Diaoyutai. When we fit this together with China's rather tepid response as well as the US's need to signal a commitment to its security promises after the Iran negotiations, I simply cannot conclude that this incident with the B-52s was an instance of competition between China and the US.

China's goal with this ADIZ is meant to rebuff Japan, not the US, and I don't think China believes the US would seriously go to war in support of Japan over these islands. Following that assertion, the US using this instance to signal its commitment to Japan is a relatively harmless input so long as it doesn't increase tensions, which can only be true if the US testing this ADIZ also means that Japan isn't encourage to test it. If Beijing thought that it might encourage Japan or thought it indicated the US was signaling its entry into Diaoyutai dispute on the side of Japan, I thoroughly would have expected an angrier response. Given that we don't see this, that could mean that both sides understood neither of those things were going to happen. Given China's preference for demilitarizing the dispute, I think it can be concluded that for China it's okay if the US asserts its commitment to Japan and superficially check China's power if that means the US will also attempt to pull back Japan in between the lines.

The media on either side is not wrong about the conclusions they're drawing. China can't really do anything about the USAF not complying to their ADIZ, just like the US can't make China revoke its ADIZ. Given these facts and the unusually passive response from China I think much deeper forms of statecraft are at play. I know the argument I'm making is pretty roundabout and requires a lot of backwards induction and assumptions that there is both a deeper interaction and that the China and the US acted in an ideal manner, but so far I haven't been satisfied with the other interpretations of this event. This was not the usual China and US aerial encounter story we've gotten used to over the years.

 

[kroko]

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

Chinese MoD explains the B-52. It mentions "200km east of the islands", but doesnt mention anything else about the flighpath.

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[Blackstone]

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

At the time of Hainan incident, prior to 9/11, Neocons have not gained opportunistic ascendacy and the Bush Administration's operating principle had been to avoid foreign entanglements like the ones Clinton had liberally involved the US in during his second term. Hainan incident might have raised diplomatic word games to a high pitch, but probably had low potential for long term impact on US strategic outlook toward China under the conditions at the time.

Obama, on the other hand, defined his geopolitical legacy to be the pivot of American power from its legacy cold war disposition to focus on containment of China. Obama is therefore, IMHO, more incentivized to to protect this legacy and avoid soiling it with wiffs of "soft on China" in response to incidents with Chinese military than Bush administration in 2000.

The notion the United States is trying to "contain" China is wrong. China is the second largest economy in the world, and will likely be the largest in about decade. She overtook the US in 2012 as the largest trading nation in the world, with more than 120 nations counting her as their largest single trading partner, including most countries in Asia. There's no way to contain such a force, and the US isn't trying to do so. The US military received the most attention in the rebalance, because China’s neighbors run to us for security, but it's actually not the most important part of the "pivot;" economics and geopolitics are more important. The military is merely a hedge in case things go seriously wrong.