China’s announcement of an air defence identification zone is part of a strategy that would aid in establishing its superiority and leverage in existential territorial and boundary disputes. It would also expand Beijing’s long-term access to the Western Pacific
The strategic turmoil taking place in Asia is in tandem with the growing power of the People’s Republic of China in the backdrop of the power differential that exists between China and other Asian players. In what appears to be a frantic yet brawny attempt to create a fresh status quo in all its territorial disputes, the Chinese Government announced establishing an East China Sea Air Defence Identification Zone on November 23, 2013, at 1000 hours, local time in China. The Ministry of National Defence of the People’s Republic of China issued a statement that the East China Sea Air Defence Identification Zone is established in accordance with the law of the People’s Republic of China on National Defence (March 14, 1997), the law of the People’s Republic of China on Civil Aviation (October 30, 1995) and the Basic Rules on Flight of the People’s Republic of China (July 27, 2001). China’s declaration of this Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) has surely upped the ante in this bitterly contested and explosive zone covering the Senkaku Islands under Japan’s administrative control, in addition to the greater part of the East China Sea, including sections of Taiwan and South Korea — thereby infuriating the region.
To begin with, it needs to be understood as to what does an air defence identification zone denoteIJ Being an early-warning air defence concept used by nations since the 1960s in what is referred to as ‘uncontested airspace’ to enhance air-borne security, an air defence identification zone differs from what we call ‘airspace’. According to the international law, while airspace encompasses the sky above a territory plus 12 nautical miles (22 km) of coastal waterways, an air defence identification zone is a self-regulating means by which a country can identify and monitor aircraft approaching its territory and officially distinct airspace. An air defence identification zone over land or water is one which requires ready identification, location and control of civilian aircraft in what the host nation often cites to be ‘in the interest of national security’. A violation of the same can well be inferred as an incursion, thus eliciting a proverbial military response — presumably interception by Chinese aircraft in this particular case, thus escalating tensions in an already volatile regional setting.
China’s Ministry of National Defence (the administrative organ of the East China Sea Air Defence Identification Zone) announced Aircraft Identification Rules for the zone including; flight plan identification to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or Civil Aviation Administration of China, maintain two-way radio identification and communication, and transponder and logo identification. By announcing the establishing of this new ADIZ, China appears to be putting to test its military modernisation efforts of the past three decades. However, what remains to be seen is how would China undertake patrols and invoke its ADIZ, and more importantly, as far as enforcement is concerned, would China be able to monitor all of the desired airspaceIJ
This mission can only be fulfilled while blending ground-based, naval and airborne systems. There certainly would be concerns pertaining to the Chinese capabilities which are limited primarily because the mainland ground-based systems used to cover the ADIZ are much farther away, thus making Beijing heavily dependent solely on airborne early warning systems. The catchword in this entire chain of events in the East China Sea remains Chinese attempts at force projection. While civilian aircraft flying through the ADIZ might just not be the foremost issue, the real alarm surrounds the trajectory of military flights.
China’s foreign relations with its neighbours perhaps are at their worse with Beijing’s provocative and cantankerous actions especially in East Asian waters and elsewhere and its latest move will only make matters worse. What comes across unambiguously is that the Chinese leadership under Xi Jinping is firmly backing Chinese antagonistic moves in the East China Sea and the South China Sea. The Xi administration seems heavily inclined towards testing the tenacity and credibility of the security alliances in the Asia-Pacific region including the US’s equation with Japan and the Philippines. While Japan has declined backing down, with Japan’s Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida refusing to recognise China’s newly claimed air defence identification zone over the Senkaku Islands, US Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel viewed the Chinese move as a “destabilising attempt to alter the status quo in the region” and reaffirmed Washington’s longstanding policy under Article V of the US-Japan Mutual Defence Treaty which applies to the Senkaku Islands — given that the US acknowledges Japan’s administrative control over the Senkaku Islands.
The new Chinese ADIZ covers wide areas of the East China Sea between South Korea and Taiwan, critically including the Senkaku islets and is a fraught attempt by China to strengthen its claims while strategising offensive posturing vis-à-vis the Senkaku Islands. It is a surreptitious attempt to affirm control by insisting that there, indeed, is a dispute over the Senkaku Islands and providing a platform for long-term Chinese strategy of chipping away at Japanese claims.
The question then would be: What is China’s basis for the said argumentIJ Beijing needs to provide a clear explanation as to why it remained silent on the issue of the Senkakus from 1895 to 1971, since it asserts a “historical claim” that the Ming dynasty and later, the Qing dynasty, founded the Islands. Chinese claims apparently lack legal evidence based on international law, while Japan’s claim to the Senkaku Islands are firmly based on international law, with the Meiji Government in 1885 sending an expedition to the Islands to confirm that they were not placed under the rule of any state. Thereafter, Japan formally integrated the Islands into its territory in 1895, with international treaties acknowledging Japan’s administration and control of the Islands. The Senkakus, thus, became part of the Nansei Shoto Islands (Ryukyu Islands) — today’s Okinawa prefecture.
Numerous commentaries on Chinese claims in the East China Sea and the South China Sea published earlier this year in state-controlled Chinese media have issued repeated veiled warnings that “with increased comprehensive national strength, China will use more effective ways”. This vindicates the argument that has been long-standing that as much as China bawls for what it describes as “peaceful” rise, coupled with incessant banality that China “will never seek hegemony”, it is only verified on the contrary that the Chinese rise, both economically and militarily backed by its political leadership, constantly attempts to create a fresh status quo in all its existing territorial disputes, both on land and at sea.
The Chinese media has underscored that “it requires both China and Japan to act in a wise and rational way, so as to prevent an escalation of conflict after China established the ADIZ” — thereby ascertaining that there is no possibility of a withdrawal by Beijing on the air defence zone. Instead of seeking to strike a balance and assuage the region regarding its robust military offensive, the Chinese leadership’s actions are in sharp contrast as it continues to wrangle with an acerbic attitude and stance on sensitive strategic issues.
Yet another instance is the clash between the Philippines and China echoing since April 2012, when government vessels from both nations faced off for several weeks at the Scarborough Shoal with the Chinese military taking cue from how it seized effective control of the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea in July 2012 from the Philippines without having to resort to war. Having found success in redefining the status quo in the above scenario, the Chinese leadership is heavily inclined towards upstaging the rule-based international order and altering the status quo, this time in case of the Senkaku Islands in its favour.
On another front, the South Korean Defence Ministry regretted that China’s air defence identification zone partly overlaps 20 km wide and 115 km long with the Korean Air Defence Identification Zone to the west of Jeju Island — to cover the Socotra Rock (Ieodo or Parangdo), presently under South Korean control but contested by China. The South Korean-controlled Ieodo, 149 km southwest of Korea’s southernmost island of Marado, is a submerged rock that lies within the overlapping economic zones of Beijing and Seoul. Deductions stemming out of statements from South Korea suggest that Seoul’s jurisdiction over Ieodo shall not be affected by the establishment of the air defence identification zone by China.
China, by virtue of its offensive posturing, has triggered a chain of responses from regional players. Japan has stepped up air surveillance in the East China Sea by stationing E-2C airborne early-warning aircraft at the Naha base in the Okinawa region and intensifying the use of unmanned Global Hawk aircraft. Tensions in the region are certainly rife with responses to declaration of the ADIZ including two US B-52 bombers sent in from the military base in Guam flowing through the Chinese ADIZ over the Senkaku Islands without identifying themselves/notification to Chinese authorities — something that China would have expected under the new regulations. Washington appears to be sending a clear signal to Beijing regarding its treaty commitments to Tokyo. Besides, the US Navy’s first two advanced P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft have already arrived in Japan. Equipped with the latest radar equipment and armed with torpedoes and anti-ship missiles, the P-8A has greater capacity to stay out on a mission for much longer than the lockheed Martin P-3 Orion patrol aircraft. Another batch of four P-8As is expected to arrive in another few days.
It would be known as time flows by whether Chinese declaration of this air defence identification zone hold much ground, or is it mere political and military symbolism to placate rising domestic nationalist responses. Given that this decision comes in soon after the recent conclusion of the Third Plenum of the 18th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing, which set forth a grand agenda for reform including national security, it might just be that Xi Jinping’s administration is pitching for domestic support on its foreign policy agenda.
There can, however, be no denying that the announcement of an air defence identification zone is part of China’s larger anti-access/area-denial strategy that would aid in establishing its superiority and leverage in existential territorial and boundary disputes and simultaneously expand Beijing’s long-term access to the Western Pacific. China’s unbridled politico-strategic assertiveness has been witnessed on multiple fronts simultaneously, including provocations that led to a protracted border standoff with India in the eastern ladakh region. Although China has denied the possibility of establishing an air defence identification zone near the contested areas along India’s borders, it would come in as no surprise that Beijing ultimately decides to set up such an identification zone close to India’s borders, primarily because China has explicitly assured that following the East China Sea ADIZ, it will establish other zones “at the right time after necessary preparations” are completed.
The writer is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for land Warfare Studies, New Delhi, where she heads the China-study programme