East China Sea Air Defense ID Zone

[Blitzo]

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

@latenlazy

While there is certainly political maneuvering, one also has to ask -- is the US opposed to the Chinese ADIZ simply as an ADIZ?

That is to say, if for example China's ADIZ had purposefully left out the disputed islands, would the US response still be similar?


Because reading it from Hagel and Kerry, it seems the US is "concerned" at "freedom of navigation" in the airspace. Of course, China's ADIZ is only intended to yield the right to intercept and ID potentially hostile aircraft.

Is that what the US is concerned about? Because it definitely sounds like it. Maybe when Biden heads over to China we'll hear some clarification.
But if the US "concern" is that China's ADIZ may limit the USAF and USN's existing (rather liberal) freedom of navigation (i.e.: freedom to strike at the chinese mainland from its array of permanent FOBs), then I hope Xi gives him the middle finger.

If the US is only concerned that China and Japan's ADIZ overlap over the disputed islands will lead to increased risk, then I bet Xi will be willing to at least talk. But the US seems to have already taken a stance on the islands and see them as rightfully Japan's.
I forget the wording. I think the US says they do not take a stance in the dispute but recognize that the islands are "administered" by Japan. However that statement was followed up by reaffirmation of the US-Japan security treaty (whose name I can't recall), and I believe it states that the US will help Japan if Japan is attacked. The problem is, if they recognize the islands are under dispute, then technically if there is a conflict only limited to the islands then that wouldnt' be an attack on "Japan" rather it would be an attack on "a couple of disputed rocks".

But they mere association of the US's stance on the islands legal sovereignty and re-stating the security pact makes it seem like the US has already taken a side.

 

[Blitzo]

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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Well they mention they flew on the eastern side and back and forth/north and south, 200 km from the disputed islands. We can draw up a fairly decent image of the path, doesn't leave much to imagination does it.

 

[chuck731]

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

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.

I know the word "contain" sounds antagonistic, but the US policy making would be seriously incompetent and deeply negligent if it didn't set as one of its top goals to reduce the ability of China to dethrone it from the historically unique and highly profitable position it has occupied since the end of WWII. Use any other word to describe it you wish. But US will, and can not but, seek to contain China.

 

[Franklin]

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.

When Bush came to power in 2001 he had a lot of the people that help to author the Plan for a New American Century in his cabinet. The document dates back from 1997. The document was a blue print to maintain US preeminence in the 21st century but it was also a blue print to stop potential rivals from emerging. The document recognise that the growth of China and the growth of Islam as the main threat to the future of US preeminence in the world. If you remenber early on in the first Bush term he labeled China from being a "strategic partner" under Clinton to being a "strategic competitor" under Bush. He unilaterally abolished the ABM treaty of 1972 to create a missile defense shield that could neutralize China's small nuclear weapons arsenal. A deputy secretary of state went on a whirlwind tour of Asia but left out China on his trip. Which many saw as a snub towards China. And then came the crash in Hainan in april after a tense few weeks of negotiations the crew of the spyplane was released and some weeks after that the plane was released as well. Then In a interview to American media he unequivocally said that America will defend Taiwan if attacked by China ending about 30 years of ambiguity under his predecessors. In the months after the Hainan incident, it seems that every time you think that US China relations has hit rock bottom a new crisis emerged. He offered Taiwan the biggest arms deal in history a package that included submarines and left out the potential to sell to Taiwan a AEGIS system.

Then came the attacks on 9/11 and the relationship almost normalized overnight as the Bush people turned away from China and turn towards the Islamic World and the Middle East with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. When Bush left office in 2008 US China relations were at their best in decades.

Now its true that a lot of Obama's domestic policies are falling apart and Abe in Japan is doing not much better. Perhabs its because they both follow the same policy of money printing! As far as Obama is concerned i don't know if a legacy of being "tough on China" will be that important for him. As i think his healthcare plan would be much more significant. I think few would judge him on China. I guess that depends in part on how important China is as an issue today in US politics and society. For Abe China is much more important as China is a close neighbor of Japan and China overtaking Japan in 2010 as the world's second largest economy still resignates in parts of the society there, but even then i doubt he would want a full scale confrontation with China nor does the majority of the public in Japan either. But perhabs for all 3 countries the Daiyutou/Senkaku issue is a useful lightning rod for domestic problems.

 

[foxmulder]

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

I wonder whether those b-52s informed Japan when they entered Japan's "ADIZ"? Also, frankly, the flight route shows it was planned not to offend china *that* much.

 

[plawolf]

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

@latenlazy

While there is certainly political maneuvering, one also has to ask -- is the US opposed to the Chinese ADIZ simply as an ADIZ?

That is to say, if for example China's ADIZ had purposefully left out the disputed islands, would the US response still be similar?


Because reading it from Hagel and Kerry, it seems the US is "concerned" at "freedom of navigation" in the airspace. Of course, China's ADIZ is only intended to yield the right to intercept and ID potentially hostile aircraft.

Is that what the US is concerned about? Because it definitely sounds like it. Maybe when Biden heads over to China we'll hear some clarification.
But if the US "concern" is that China's ADIZ may limit the USAF and USN's existing (rather liberal) freedom of navigation (i.e.: freedom to strike at the chinese mainland from its array of permanent FOBs), then I hope Xi gives him the middle finger.

If the US is only concerned that China and Japan's ADIZ overlap over the disputed islands will lead to increased risk, then I bet Xi will be willing to at least talk. But the US seems to have already taken a stance on the islands and see them as rightfully Japan's.
I forget the wording. I think the US says they do not take a stance in the dispute but recognize that the islands are "administered" by Japan. However that statement was followed up by reaffirmation of the US-Japan security treaty (whose name I can't recall), and I believe it states that the US will help Japan if Japan is attacked. The problem is, if they recognize the islands are under dispute, then technically if there is a conflict only limited to the islands then that wouldnt' be an attack on "Japan" rather it would be an attack on "a couple of disputed rocks".

But they mere association of the US's stance on the islands legal sovereignty and re-stating the security pact makes it seem like the US has already taken a side.

I think the US stance is a lot more nuanced than what the idiots in the press likes to think.

The US said they do not take a side on who the islands belong to, but they recognise that they are currently under Japanese administration and that the islands falls under the US defense treaty if they were attacked.

I think the primary reason the US has included the islands under the US defence pact is to try and deter China from taking them by force. Imagine what the interpretation would be if the US explicitly stated that the islands fall outside of their defense commitments, if they did that they might as well have said that they won't lift a finger to help even if China takes them by force.

However, the US saying they will intervene if China takes the Diaoyu Island by force is not the same as the US saying they will get directly involved if a shooting war erupts because of the Diaoyu Islands so long as that was not started by an attempt by China to seize the islands by force.

America's position is that American interests comes first, and a shooting war between China and Japan will be extremely harmful to US interests and in the event of that happening, I believe America's primary objective would be to get the shooting to stop ASAP. Jumping in guns blazing on Japan's side will not make that happen, so I think the Japanese are going to be extremely disappointed if they think they can start a shooting war and then duck behind the US and let the Americans do their fighting and dying for Japan.

In the event of a small conflict between China and Japan, the US will undoubtably take Japan's side, but I seriously doubt they would get directly involved in the fighting unless China crosses some pretty obvious red lines, like trying to take the Diaoyu Islands by force, or targeting civilian population centers on the Japanese main islands etc.

I mean, if you think about it tactically, there is actually very little the US military can do on the ground to stop a shooting war between China and Japan without running a serious risk of getting dragged into the shooting themselves.

I think if a shooting war develops, the US will publically heap all the blame on China and call for both sides to stand down will providing all the back room support they can to the Japanese but will stop short of getting directly involved in the shooting themselves citing the need to reduce tensions and stop the shooting instead of inflaming the conflict.

The US will secretly hope the Japanese can win themselves, but if it looks like the Japanese are loosing, they will tell the Japanese forces to stand down and the Americans will move in to patrol the disputed area and make it look like the Americans are stepping between China and Japan to stop the fight rather than Japan getting beat.

That is the best the US can make of the situation if a shooting war erupts, but even that can have potentially huge negative consequences for US interests and its relationships with other US allies in the region depending on how each decides to interpret the events.

At the end of the day, there is simply no way anyone can predict how various world powers will view a China-Japanese war, even a very limited one, where the US military did not get directly involved in the fighting. They can see it as the Americans showing restraint to avoid a small skirmish from escalating into something far far worse, or they could see it as the Americans leave the Japanese hanging. But what anyone with a basic understanding of economics and the world financial markets is that any military clash between China and Japan is going to deliver a devastating blow to the world economy and financial markets.

That is why the US is not at all keen on seeing a clash, and are kind of caught between a rock and a hard place in that they both need to show public support for an ally, yet also need to rein them in and prevent them from pushing China too far.

 

[latenlazy]

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

@latenlazy

While there is certainly political maneuvering, one also has to ask -- is the US opposed to the Chinese ADIZ simply as an ADIZ?

That is to say, if for example China's ADIZ had purposefully left out the disputed islands, would the US response still be similar?


Because reading it from Hagel and Kerry, it seems the US is "concerned" at "freedom of navigation" in the airspace. Of course, China's ADIZ is only intended to yield the right to intercept and ID potentially hostile aircraft.

Is that what the US is concerned about? Because it definitely sounds like it. Maybe when Biden heads over to China we'll hear some clarification.
But if the US "concern" is that China's ADIZ may limit the USAF and USN's existing (rather liberal) freedom of navigation (i.e.: freedom to strike at the chinese mainland from its array of permanent FOBs), then I hope Xi gives him the middle finger.

If the US is only concerned that China and Japan's ADIZ overlap over the disputed islands will lead to increased risk, then I bet Xi will be willing to at least talk. But the US seems to have already taken a stance on the islands and see them as rightfully Japan's.
I forget the wording. I think the US says they do not take a stance in the dispute but recognize that the islands are "administered" by Japan. However that statement was followed up by reaffirmation of the US-Japan security treaty (whose name I can't recall), and I believe it states that the US will help Japan if Japan is attacked. The problem is, if they recognize the islands are under dispute, then technically if there is a conflict only limited to the islands then that wouldn't' be an attack on "Japan" rather it would be an attack on "a couple of disputed rocks".

But they mere association of the US's stance on the islands legal sovereignty and re-stating the security pact makes it seem like the US has already taken a side.

The answer to your first question is that no, the US would not have responded the same way if the ADIZ had not included disputed territory.

I've learned to not take vague official statements from State and Defence at face value. If you'll trace the history of the US public statements on Diaoyutai, you'll see they tend to meander a little. They never waver in reaffirming their support for Japan, but they more often than not choose the phrase "administered by Japan" as opposed stronger words and phrases such as "belong" or "a territory of", etc. The reason they use this particular phrase is explicitly to avoid taking sides on the sovereignty question. These statements are specifically meant to reassure Japan that the US is committed to Japan's broader security, even if they prefer not to take sides. It also implies that there's no guarantee of US involvement if the dispute, even if it turns into a firefight, is confined and doesn't spill over into something bigger.

That said, the US has recently affirmed that the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the US and Japan covers Diaoyutai on the basis that it is "administered by Japan". However the operative term of the treaty is "assist", which is VERY vague. It's this vagueness which allows the US to say the Treaty covers Diaoyutai without actually committing to any substantial and militarily significant action.

As I mentioned earlier, the US's own preference is much closer to China's than Japan's over the islands, which is that this dispute should be resolved with diplomacy. However, how much influence the US has over Japan on this issue is actually rather limited, especially given Japan's recent concern over the reliability of the US's presence in the Pacific over the long term. The nature of the relationship between Japan and the US is that in exchange for US support Japan doesn't begin developing their own military, which then not only threatens to destabilize the security situation with China, but also North Korea, South Korea, and Southeast Asia. What this means is that if the US ever looks like its reliability or commitment is weakening, there's a greater chance that Japan decides to begin taking care of its security situation by itself. Thus, the US has nearly no room to budge from a position of undeniable support to Japan in public, on the basis that doing so preserves their ability to nudge and temper Japan's security policies through the backdoor.

It should be noted that internally State and Defence are probably NOT happy with Abe's rather aggressive security policy, including this Diaoyutai debacle. However, they also recognize that the credibility of their commitment to Japan has been in a delicate place in the last few years for a lot of different reasons, so they have to massage this relationship over time to try to pull Abe back.

 

[SampanViking]

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

@latenlazy

While there is certainly political maneuvering, one also has to ask -- is the US opposed to the Chinese ADIZ simply as an ADIZ?

That is to say, if for example China's ADIZ had purposefully left out the disputed islands, would the US response still be similar?


Because reading it from Hagel and Kerry, it seems the US is "concerned" at "freedom of navigation" in the airspace. Of course, China's ADIZ is only intended to yield the right to intercept and ID potentially hostile aircraft.

Is that what the US is concerned about? Because it definitely sounds like it. Maybe when Biden heads over to China we'll hear some clarification.
But if the US "concern" is that China's ADIZ may limit the USAF and USN's existing (rather liberal) freedom of navigation (i.e.: freedom to strike at the chinese mainland from its array of permanent FOBs), then I hope Xi gives him the middle finger.

If the US is only concerned that China and Japan's ADIZ overlap over the disputed islands will lead to increased risk, then I bet Xi will be willing to at least talk. But the US seems to have already taken a stance on the islands and see them as rightfully Japan's.
I forget the wording. I think the US says they do not take a stance in the dispute but recognize that the islands are "administered" by Japan. However that statement was followed up by reaffirmation of the US-Japan security treaty (whose name I can't recall), and I believe it states that the US will help Japan if Japan is attacked. The problem is, if they recognize the islands are under dispute, then technically if there is a conflict only limited to the islands then that wouldnt' be an attack on "Japan" rather it would be an attack on "a couple of disputed rocks".

But they mere association of the US's stance on the islands legal sovereignty and re-stating the security pact makes it seem like the US has already taken a side.

Nothing exists in isolation and the ADIZ is just a part of much bigger picture. Again I remind people that the Pacific is the only direct frontier between the worlds two largest and rival powers. While Oceans may appear huge, in Geopolitical terms, they are none existent, because they do not constitute territory and cannot be controlled. In that sense, the border of the balance of firepower between the two nations can only exist in one of two locations. Either it is 12 nautical miles off of the East Coast of China, or it is 12 nautical miles off of the West Coast of the Continental USA. Currently it is 12 nautical miles off the Chinese coast and as long as the 1st Island Chain holds, will stay there. Anything therefore that threatens the integrity of the 1st Island Chain is a serious threat and must be countered in some way.

The ADIZ is a threat as it allows China to normalise and formularise an ever greater degree of control over this area. It also opens the door for the PRC to openly declare the Diayou as Chinese Territory and to declare an Air and Sea exclusion zone around. Of course an ADIZ is not necessary for China to make such a declaration, but it does potentially represent the first of a number of salami slice steps that make doing so easier to achieve.

So why is China doing this. Well it is pushing at the the border that is the most critical to the US and while it has little realistic hope of changing the status quo in the Pacific for the foreseeable future, it does force the US to reinforce its position both politically and militarily and such reinforcements will come at the expense of other deployments in Asia and the Middle East, which are areas that China is far more interested in expanding into across land and where its influence is already becoming marked with the return and creation of Silk Roads old and new.

China is also looking to use the ADIZ to force the US to abandon a significant part of its "Diplomatic Ambiguity". This is where a country pursues a number of different foreign policies in different parts of the world, which together are often contradictory to each other. Some policies are clearly going to be of higher priority than others, while some are likely to be ditched at the first hurdle. Ambiguity confuses the ability of an opponent to be 100% sure of what those priorities are. The US has considerable ambiguity in many foreign policies and China is seeking to use the zone to make the US show its hand (with the expectation that the Pacific border or Repivot will trump all other fronts). A blatant support for Japan and disregard for the ADIZ will have dispelled the current ambiguity. The minor or even non actual incursion by the B52's into the zone do cleverly maintain that ambiguity as all parties can infer from it, what they wish to believe or sell to the domestic audience.

 

[latenlazy]

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

China is also looking to use the ADIZ to force the US to abandon a significant part of its "Diplomatic Ambiguity". This is where a country pursues a number of different foreign policies in different parts of the world, which together are often contradictory to each other. Some policies are clearly going to be of higher priority than others, while some are likely to be ditched at the first hurdle. Ambiguity confuses the ability of an opponent to be 100% sure of what those priorities are. The US has considerable ambiguity in many foreign policies and China is seeking to use the zone to make the US show its hand (with the expectation that the Pacific border or Repivot will trump all other fronts). A blatant support for Japan and disregard for the ADIZ will have dispelled the current ambiguity. The minor or even non actual incursion by the B52's into the zone do cleverly maintain that ambiguity as all parties can infer from it, what they wish to believe or sell to the domestic audience.

It should be pointed out that ambiguity isn't just an intentional strategy on the part of the United States, but a confluence of the natural consequences of interest based politics, uncertainty about the future, and disagreements within the community of foreign policy hands about these two factors.

 

[getready]

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

Lol I have this funny thought you fellas are over analyzing this too much. that the PRC govt simply wants to setup her belated ADIZ like others had done. It's not about macho posturing or political payback or complex diplomatic mind games. The media manage to sweep us all in their hyped up alarm bell ringing narrative lol