Asian Airlines to Give Flight Plans to China After Airspace Zone Created

[Publicus]

Xi Jinping Overreaches in the East China Sea

The Communist Party summit that recast Xi Jinping as a reformer extraordinaire has produced its first foreign-policy initiative: poking Japan in the eye.

That seems to be the point of China’s declaration of a vast “air defense identification zone,” in which Beijing has essentially claimed the airspace around disputed islands administered by Japan.

The provocation came just two weeks after the party called for a new national security council to coordinate military, domestic and intelligence operations in China. Political analysts who worried that the body might herald a deepening Asian Cold War weren’t being entirely paranoid.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-28/xi-jinping-overreaches-in-the-east-china-sea.html

The CCP-PRC is isolating itself from its neighbors throughout the Indo-Pacific strategic region by making outlandish territorial claims of sovereignty that range from islands controlled by Japan, to islands within the Philippines Exclusive Economic Zone under international law, to claiming most of India's northernmost state at the Tibetan border.

At the heart of it is the recent assertion from out of the blue that the CCP-PRC has sovereignty over virtually all of the South China Sea, 130,000 km of which have shoreline on South East Asian countries while only 1300 km touch the shores of the CCP-PRC.

The CCP dictators in Beijing have announced an Air Defense Identification Zone in the Air Defense Identification Zone that Japan has - and has had - over the Senkaku Islands since 1969, and which the United States had had from 1945 to 1969. It's now reported that the CCP dictators in Beijing will soon proclaim an Air Defense Identification Zone over virtually all of the South China Sea which is a vital shipping route from the Middle East to East and Southeast Asia, respectively.

The CCP dictators' unilateral and summary grabbiness against the clearly sovereign territories of its neighbors, and of the international waters of the SCS, is causing great concern in capitals throughout the Indo-Pacific strategic region of the world. The CCP dictatorship in Beijing is causing and creating dischord, antagonisms, anxieties, trepidation, friction and harsh words to become the daily and weekly norm.

For all its bellicosity throughout the region in recent years, the CCP dictators in Beijing have now stepped over the line. Grabby policies initiated by the CCP-PRC have escalated quickly from fishermen jousting for position in the China Seas to coast guard vessels of different countries banging against one another on the high seas to now military Air Defense Identification Zones.

The fact is that the CCP dictators' Air Defense Identification Zones are PRChinese nationalist aggression attack zones against whomever is targeted at a particular time as the CCP dictatorship pursues its Grand Plan to become the dominant power of the region.

So I'm concerned the governments and the elites throughout the region are going to shrink from the challenge of a CCP-PRC that is territorially aggressive, belligerent, bellicose, to instead leave the whole of it to a new Asia Cold War between the United States and the CCP-PRC.

Edited November 29, 2013 by Publicus

[ToddWeston]

Why all the fuss ? China isn't the only nation that demands flight information and passenger name lists from neighbouring countries are they .......

[Publicus]

After the US sent two unarmed B-52 bombers into the zone to invalidate it, the CCP dictators in Beijing:

1. Did not respond;

2. Said that, well, the requirements and restrictions on the Zone really after all didn't include civilian commercial aircraft;

3. Said they would send out PRChinese military jets anytime Japanese planes entered the Zone;

4. Did send out PRChinese military jets after the Japanese and South Korean unarmed planes had entered and left the Zone;

5. Said the "timely countermeasures without hesitation" it would take against intruder aircraft that did not identify themselves really doesn't sound as serious as it sounded when the Zone was proclaimed by the CCP dictators in Beijing.

And so Friday there was this:

China sends fighters to ID flights by US and Japan

Beijing, Associated Press—China launched two fighter planes Friday to investigate flights by a dozen US and Japanese reconnaissance and military planes in its new maritime air defense zone over the East China Sea, state media said.

It was the first time since proclaiming the zone on November 23 that China said it sent planes there on the same day as foreign military flights, although it said it merely identified the foreign planes and took no further action.

June Teufel Dreyer, who specializes in security issues at the University of Miami, said the Chinese government—while backing down from strictly enforcing the zone to keep a lid on tensions—is walking a delicate line because it is faced with strong public opinion from nationalists at home. Sending up the fighter planes Friday was aimed at the domestic audience, and China is likely to send planes regularly when foreign aircraft enter the zone without notifying Chinese authorities, she said.

http://www.aawsat.net/2013/11/article55323986

Sounds tiring, empty and boring to me, but then again I'm not in the PRChinese air force.

[impulse]

The Chinese look at history in the long haul.

If you look at some of their current territorial issues, their claims lie in archaeological evidence of a transient Chinese presence in the 1500's, obscure sentences from 1898 treaties, thin lines on relatively inconsequential maps from 1956 UN reports, etc.

(I'm making those dates up, BTW. To do otherwise would make it too easy to identify which "issues" I'm referring to).

In 50 years, the ADIZ, and the international airlines' filing of flight plans will be brought up in their (still ongoing in 50 years) claim for the disputed area- as evidence that the area is indisputably Chinese territory. A lot like the Vietnam and Philippine entry and exit stamps on the new PRC passports- with controversial maps- will be held up as those countries' indisputable acceptance of the "9 line" territory in the South China Sea being Chinese territory.

None of which makes much sense to a western mindset, but this isn't the west. As much as I deplore saber rattling, appeasement in this issue isn't an acceptable option for Japan or Korea.

Edited November 30, 2013 by impulse

[canuckoverseas]

This Chinese belligerence is going to do wonders for US military exports with her Asian allies. Great timing too, considering the US economy is improving while also experiencing a domestic energy boom.

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Edited November 30, 2013 by canuckoverseas

[Publicus]

The Chinese look at history in the long haul.

If you look at some of their current territorial issues, their claims lie in archaeological evidence of a transient Chinese presence in the 1500's, obscure sentences from 1898 treaties, thin lines on relatively inconsequential maps from 1956 UN reports, etc.

(I'm making those dates up, BTW. To do otherwise would make it too easy to identify which "issues" I'm referring to).

In 50 years, the ADIZ, and the international airlines' filing of flight plans will be brought up in their (still ongoing in 50 years) claim for the disputed area- as evidence that the area is indisputably Chinese territory. A lot like the Vietnam and Philippine entry and exit stamps on the new PRC passports- with controversial maps- will be held up as those countries' indisputable acceptance of the "9 line" territory in the South China Sea being Chinese territory.

None of which makes much sense to a western mindset, but this isn't the west. As much as I deplore saber rattling, appeasement in this issue isn't an acceptable option for Japan or Korea.

The inside scoop now is that in six days when Jade Rabbit lands on the moon Beijing will announce the probe discovered a Ming dynasty map indisputably showing the moon as Chinese territory.

Then it will be announced that archeological digs in northern China have unearthed a map of the earth with a 9 dash line around it.

The CCP will then declare the stratosphere to be an Air Defense Identification Zone. I've gotten an advance look at the press statement, which says "This necessary decision is taken in line with established internal procedures and is implemented to assure peace and stability without targeting any one country."

Edited December 2, 2013 by Publicus

[impulse]

The CCP will then declare the stratosphere to be an Air Defense Identification Zone. I've gotten an advance look at the press statement, which says "This necessary decision is taken in line with established internal procedures and is implemented to assure peace and stability without targeting any one country."

You forgot to include the word "seriously".

And "indisputably".

[folium]

After the US sent two unarmed B-52 bombers into the zone to invalidate it, the CCP dictators in Beijing:

1. Did not respond;

2. Said that, well, the requirements and restrictions on the Zone really after all didn't include civilian commercial aircraft;

3. Said they would send out PRChinese military jets anytime Japanese planes entered the Zone;

4. Did send out PRChinese military jets after the Japanese and South Korean unarmed planes had entered and left the Zone;

5. Said the "timely countermeasures without hesitation" it would take against intruder aircraft that did not identify themselves really doesn't sound as serious as it sounded when the Zone was proclaimed by the CCP dictators in Beijing.

And so Friday there was this:

Sounds tiring, empty and boring to me, but then again I'm not in the PRChinese air force.

It will be interesting to see how all parties manage this tightrope walk.

Most airlines, with the exception of JAL and ANA have said they will comply and the US State Dept has urged US carriers to do likewise.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25165503

ADIZs have been around for a long time and have been established by many countries (UK, USA, Japan, Vietnam, S. Korea etc, but have no real legal basis though they are also not illegal and any state can put one in place. Most people flying through them abide by the requirements as per NOTAMS. Japan's own ADIZ has been steadily pushed westwards, way beyond its EEZ (See map in link above).

You could argue that China is just doing what many of its neighbours have done long ago, plus it dovetails with nationalist populism and is another move in the Senkaku dispute,

Neat Q&A re ADIZs

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/26cf55ce-58da-11e3-a7cb-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2mJVRayMD

And some different viewpoints:

http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/11/chinas-air-defense-identification-zone-what-happens-next/281921/

Given how busy organizations such as the Black Bats, Black Cat Squadron and other CIA affiliated missions were over China from 1951-74 before satellites took the strain, you could say that China has every right to monitor incoming air traffic.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89377936

And from the CIA's in-house journal, a somewhat flattering account of Chinese responsiveness and unintended consequences:

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-57-no-2/the-growth-of-china2019s-air-defenses-responding-to-covert-overflights-194920131974.html