“Both militaries have been very, very careful about not going into each others’ air or sea space” since the dispute broke out in September last year, deploying civilian proxies such as Coast Guard vessels instead, he points out.īut with both sides claiming the right to monitor aircraft in an overlapping zone, and to scramble fighters to deal with unidentified craft, accidents are more likely. “Both sides want to avoid an incident around the Senkakus,” he says. That is a view shared by a senior Japanese military analyst, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. “China’s intention is not to show its military strength or to spark a conflict, but to underline its sovereignty” over the disputed islands, known as the Diaoyu in China and the Senkaku in Japan. “Real clashes are possible.”īut a clash isn’t likely, he adds. “Irrational actions in the ADIZ could lead to conflict,” says Wang Jinling, a former Chinese military officer who now heads San Lue, an independent think tank on security affairs in Beijing. Japan has said it will ignore the Chinese demand, which Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida called a “one sided action” that “cannot be allowed.” That heightened fears of a military clash in the contested area. The United States, Japan, South Korea and Taiwanhave all rejected, condemned or regretted Beijing’s announcement Saturday that all foreign aircraft must file flight plans before entering its newly declared zone, which includes Japanese-administered islands that China also claims. Now the question is whether Beijing will aggressively enforce its self-declared rights – and whether they are capable of doing so. China has ruffled a lot of international feathers with its weekend declaration of an “air defense identification zone” over airspace already claimed by Japan.
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