China Claims Air Rights Over Disputed Islands

The Chinese government on Saturday claimed the right to identify, monitor and possibly take military action against aircraft that enter a newly declared “air defense identification zone,” which covers sea and islands also claimed by Japan and threatens to escalate an already tense dispute over some of the maritime territory

The move appeared to be another step in China’s efforts to intensify pressure on Japan over Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea that are at the heart of the dispute.

The declaration, from a Chinese Ministry of National Defense spokesman, Col. Yang Yujun, accompanied the ministry’s release of a map, geographic coordinates and rules that Colonel Yang said authorized treating an area alongside the eastern Chinese coast as the air defense identification zone.

“The objective is to defend national sovereignty and territorial and air security, as well as to maintain orderly aviation,” Colonel Yang said in comments issued on the ministry’s website in both Chinese and English.

“China’s armed forces will take defensive emergency measures to respond to aircraft that do not cooperate in identification or refuse to follow orders,” said the rules issued by the ministry, also in Chinese and English.

Later on Saturday, China’s air force said it had dispatched its first planes, including fighter jets, to enforce the rules.

The Chinese announcement follows months of increasing tension over the uninhabited islands as China appeared to be taking moves to establish its claim to them, including more frequent patrols by ships around the islands. Those patrols have led to cat-and-mouse games between Chinese and Japanese ships near the islands, known as the Senkaku by Japan and the Diaoyu in China.

But the claim to the airspace near the islands could prove particularly problematic. Japan has scrambled fighter jets in the past when China has sent a plane, and possibly a drone, to the area, to ensure that they were not entering what Japan considers its airspace.

As the potential for a miscalculation that leads to conflict has increased, the United States has become worried that as an ally of Japan, it could be dragged into any conflict with China.

Colonel Yang said that the declaration of the air zone was not aimed at any particular country, and that it would not impede the freedom of commercial flight over the East China Sea. But his words left little doubt that the move could be used against the Japanese government and military aircraft.

The Japanese Foreign Ministry said the government had lodged a “serious protest” with China over the move. And Tomohiko Taniguchi, a counselor in the office of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, said that the new air defense zone “potentially escalated the danger of accidental collisions between the Chinese military and the U.S. and Japanese counterparts,” according to The Associated Press.

The longstanding dispute between Beijing and Tokyo over the islands flared last year, months before Xi Jinping assumed leadership of the Chinese Communist Party in November. The spark was a decision by the Japanese government to buy some of the islands from a Japanese citizen. Japan said the move was to keep the islands out of the hands of a nationalist politician who would increase tensions, but China saw the purchase as Japan’s effort to strengthen its hold on the islands.

The new Chinese rules left unclear how frequently and thoroughly China intends to enforce them. But Chinese state-run media widely reported the announcement, which could kindle public expectations that the government will take steps to back up its words.

Military experts have said that even if both Japan and China seek to avoid outright confrontation over the islands, there is the risk that an unplanned incident in the seas or air near the islands could spiral into a wider military conflict.