Japan scrambles F-15s after China flies over disputed islands

The Chinese plane had already left the islands – known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan – by the time the Japanese F-15s arrived.

|
Japan Coast Guard 11th Regional Coast Guard/AP
In this photo, a Chinese airplane flies in Japanese airspace above the islands known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese in southwestern Japan Thursday, Dec. 13.

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

The territorial standoff between China and Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea further escalated today after a Chinese plane was spotted in what Tokyo considers its airspace.

Though the Chinese plane was not a military aircraft, its presence is the latest provocation in a dispute that has affected economic relations between the two countries and comes just three days before Japanese elections.

The Chinese state maritime agency said that the marine surveillance plane was sent to patrol the disputed islands – known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan – along with four boats, according to China’s Global Times. Japanese boats also patrolling the disputed area were asked to leave immediately, in line with the Chinese government’s stance, the Global Times reports.

Japan’s defense agency dispatched eight F-15 jets in response, but the Chinese plane had already left the area by the time they arrived, according to the Associated Press. The Japanese government also issued an official complaint, however China responded that it was “carrying out a normal operation,” reports AP.

“I want to stress that these activities are completely normal. The Diaoyu and its affiliated islands are China’s inherent territory since ancient times,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said of the plane. “China requires the Japanese side stop illegal activities in the waters and airspace of the Diaoyu islands.”

Osamu Fujimura, Japan's chief cabinet secretary, called the Chinese move “extremely regrettable.”

According to the Wall Street Journalan airspace violation could take the dispute to the next level.

International law forbids entering another nation's airspace without permission and gives countries the right to expel unauthorized aircraft with force immediately. In contrast, foreign ships are able sail through a nation's territorial waters as long as it is considered "innocent passage."

The incident also puts further pressure on [Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda], whose ruling Democratic Party of Japan is likely to face a decisive defeat in Sunday's elections, according to various national polls. Shinzo Abe, who's likely to take his job away, has criticized Mr. Noda for his handling of the territorial issues, and called for a confrontational approach focused on the use of "physical power," rather than diplomacy.

Mr. Abe is expected to invest more money into the Japanese coast guard and defense, Reuters reports. The coast guard has gained popularity since the confrontation reignited earlier this year, with the most recent escalation taking place after Japan purchased the islands from a private Japanese investor in September. The move inspired anti-Japanese rallies across China, “with people looting and torching Japanese-owned businesses,” according to The Christian Science Monitor.

The New York Times reports that today’s incident was an “embarrassment for the current administration” in Japan because its radar system failed to register the Chinese plane. The alert came from Japanese ships near the islands.

The Japan Daily Press notes that the coast guard has earned fame from the action surrounding the charged island dispute, “causing a surge in job applications and even inspiring a local box-office hit film.” However, the civilian-staffed guard is “being stressed and tested to its limits.”

[I]n order not to escalate the situation, the government isn’t using the military Self Defense Forces. Instead, it has tasked the Coast Guard, composed of civilians and run by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism. Although somewhat on par with their Chinese counterparts, the Coast Guard is being stretched thin. Its crew, used to shifts of at most two weeks, are on duty without time off for months. They are also forced to skip crucial training, in a time when they are expected to be able to ward off and restrain offenders both on sea and on remote islands. Ships also receive only temporary repairs instead of much-needed overhauls.

… The situation has become a rallying and unifying point of many of the political parties and candidates running for election in a few days, with promises of allocating funds and beefing up the Coast Guard to empower it to respond to situations and emergencies that the pacifist nation hasn’t faced in decades.

Today was the first time both countries have used planes in the dispute. Reuters reports that Japanese analysts are concerned over the use of aircraft.

"This is serious ... intrusion into Japan's airspace is a very important step to erode Japan's effective control over the area," said Kazuya Sakamoto, a professor at Osaka University.

"If China sends a military plane as a next step, that would really make Japan's control precarious."

Toshiyuki Shikata, a Teikyo University professor and a retired general, said the use of aircraft by both sides was significant.

"Something accidental is more likely to happen with planes than with ships," he said.

The uptick in interest in the islands is likely linked to the potential for oil and gas in surrounding waters, but “For most of human history,” The Christian Science Monitor’s China bureau chief Peter Ford wrote this fall, “the five rocky islets in the eye of the current diplomatic storm between China and Japan have sat in remote and irrelevant obscurity, lapped by the tropical waters of the East China Sea.”

Japan bases its claim to the islands, which it calls the Senkaku, on a cabinet decision in January 1895 whereby because there was no trace of anyone else controlling them they were deemed "terra nullius," nobody else's, and Tokyo incorporated them into its territory.

China disputes that claim, pointing to 15th-century accounts of sea voyages by Chinese envoys and a 17th-century map of China's sea defenses, among other documents, to show that "the Diaoyu islands were first discovered, named, and exploited by the Chinese," in the words of a Foreign Ministry statement.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Japan scrambles F-15s after China flies over disputed islands
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/terrorism-security/2012/1213/Japan-scrambles-F-15s-after-China-flies-over-disputed-islands
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe