Posts tagged ‘East China Sea’

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09/01/2014

Japan wants India’s support on disputes with China – The Hindu

Engaged in a territorial dispute with China, Japan on Thursday sought to rope in India’s support over “the recent Chinese provocative actions” saying a message needs to be sent to it collectively that status quo cannot be changed by force.

Union Defence Minister A.K. Antony with his Japanese counterpart Itsunori Onodera in New Delhi. File photo

Japanese Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera said dialogue is the only way to resolve the row created by imposition of restrictions by China in the East China Sea and other areas.

“For both India and Japan, China is an important neighbouring country. Both countries have important economic linkages with China. However, after the recent Chinese provocative actions, entire international community will have to send a message to China,” he told PTI in an interview in New Delhi.

“Both Japan and India should ask for a dialogue with Chinese side and tell China not to change status quo by force. These issues should be solved through dialogue and following international rules,” the Minister said.

He was responding when asked whether India and Japan could come together on issues with China as both the countries have territorial disputes with it.

The security situation in the region against the backdrop of recent tensions between Japan and China triggered by imposition of ‘Air Defence Identification Zone’ (ADIZ) over East China Sea and other areas by China came up during talks between Mr. Onodera and his Indian counterpart A.K. Antony on Monday.

During the meeting, Mr. Antony is understood to have told Onodera that India stands for freedom of navigation in international waters and application of global conventions.

After the ADIZ started creating tensions in the South East Asian region, India had stated that the issue should be resolved between the concerned parties through dialogue in a peaceful way and it was against use of force to resolve the matters.

Asked about an earlier proposal by Tokyo for forming a trilateral grouping of India, Japan and the U.S. to deal with challenges from China, Mr. Onodera said, “India and Japan have good ties with the U.S. Economically and internationally and in terms of military forces, these are big countries.”

He said that, “If India, Japan and the U.S. are in cooperation and send a common message

via Japan wants India’s support on disputes with China – The Hindu.

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20/12/2013

Power and patriotism: Reaching for the Moon | The Economist

IT WAS, as a Chinese newspaper put it, “a new beginning for the Chinese dream”. On December 15th the imprint left by Neil Armstrong’s boot on the moon in 1969 found its near-equivalent in the minds of China’s media commentators: the “Chinese footprint” gouged in the lunar dust by Yutu, a Chinese rover, after its mother ship made the first soft landing on the moon by a spacecraft since 1976. President Xi Jinping, watching from ground control, clapped as the image appeared on the screen. For the promoter-in-chief of the Chinese dream it was a moment to cherish.

Mr Xi launched the “Chinese dream” slogan within days of taking power in November 2012. It has since swept the nation, appearing everywhere on billboards and propaganda posters. It featured twice in a resolution adopted by the Communist Party’s Central Committee at a plenum last month that marked the tightening of Mr Xi’s grip. He has said the Chinese dream includes a “dream of a strong nation” and a “dream of a strong army” and, especially since the plenum, he has been playing up the strongman image.

Some Chinese actions in the region have appeared more assertive, too. On December 5th a Chinese naval ship had a tense encounter with an American cruiser in the South China Sea. Both sides kept quiet about it until more than a week later when American officials revealed that their vessel, USS Cowpens, had been forced to manoeuvre to avoid hitting the Chinese ship, which had passed in front.

The incident occurred while the American cruiser was watching China’s new and only aircraft-carrier, the Liaoning, as it made its first foray into the area, which is riven with competing maritime claims. (The Liaoning features in a special issue of four “Chinese dream” postage stamps issued in September; two others show Chinese spacecraft and one a deep-sea submersible.) America lodged protests with China about the near-miss in international waters. A Chinese newspaper, however, accused the Cowpens of posing a threat to “China’s national security”. The encounter is likely to add to American concerns that China is trying to claim the sea, a vital trading route, as its backyard.

The maritime near-miss came after the announcement on November 23rd of an “Air-Defence Identification Zone” in the East China Sea that would require all aircraft flying through it to report to the Chinese authorities. This enraged Japan, which controls islands within the zone, and was criticised by other countries, including America and South Korea. On December 16th during a visit to Hanoi, America’s secretary of state, John Kerry, said the zone had increased the risk of a “dangerous miscalculation or an accident”. China’s enforcement of it seems to have been scant, but nationalists at home have hailed the move. On the same day as Mr Kerry spoke, China’s defence minister, Chang Wanquan, was in Jakarta, where he said that critics of the zone were causing “a hundred harms and no benefits”.

“Chinese dream” rhetoric has suffused China’s coverage of the moon landing by the Chang’e-3 spaceship, and the Yutu (Jade Rabbit) rover’s successful deployment from it, sporting the Chinese flag on its side. In a televised call to three Chinese astronauts orbiting Earth in June, Mr Xi had said: “The space dream is an important part of the dream of a strong nation.” Despite some mutterings on Chinese microblogs about the pointlessness of replicating feats performed so long ago by the Soviet Union and America, Mr Xi appears as fixated on the moon as his predecessors were. The army’s main mouthpiece, the People’s Liberation Army Daily, said it was hard to say exactly when a Chinese person would land on the moon, but that Chinese spacemen were “heading towards this goal with unprecedented speed”.

via Power and patriotism: Reaching for the Moon | The Economist.

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16/12/2013

U.S. offers new assistance to Vietnam to patrol seas | Reuters

Sounds to me like “pouring oil on troubled waters”!

“The United States on Monday offered fresh financial assistance to Vietnam to boost maritime security on its borders, which comes as regional tension grows with China over territorial claims in the South China Sea.

A Vietnamese naval soldier stands quard at Thuyen Chai island in the Spratly archipelago January 17, 2013. REUTERS/Quang Le

On his first visit to Vietnam as secretary of state, John Kerry denied the new assistance had anything to do with China although he called for \”intensified negotiations and diplomatic initiatives\” between China and Japan on resolving differences in the East China Sea.

He repeated that the United States did not recognize a new air defense zone announced by China this month over the East China Sea.

via U.S. offers new assistance to Vietnam to patrol seas | Reuters.

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14/12/2013

U.S., Chinese warships narrowly avoid collision in South China Sea | Reuters

A U.S. guided missile cruiser operating in international waters in the South China Sea was forced to take evasive action last week to avoid a collision with a Chinese warship maneuvering nearby, the U.S. Pacific Fleet said in a statement on Friday.

A helicopter hovers over the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Cowpens in the northern Gulf March 12, 2003. REUTERS/Paul Hanna

The incident came as the USS Cowpens was operating near China\’s only aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, and at a time of heightened tensions in the region following Beijing\’s declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone farther north in the East China Sea, a U.S. defense official said.

Another Chinese warship maneuvered near the Cowpens in the incident on December 5, and the Cowpens was forced to take evasive action to avoid a collision, the Pacific Fleet said in its statement.

via U.S., Chinese warships narrowly avoid collision in South China Sea | Reuters.

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14/12/2013

Call Made to Congress for China War Plan | DoD Buzz

The U.S. military needs a more focused war plan specific to China, especially after China’s recent declaration of an air defense zone over the East China Sea, a group of defense analysts told a prominent House subcommittee Wednesday.

Call Made to Congress for China War Plan

As part of the Pentagon’s overall defense strategy to pivot to the Pacific, the U.S. should buy more Virginia-class attack submarines, prioritizing long-range anti-ship missiles, carrier-based drones, and missile defense technology, the analysts told the House Armed Services’ Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee.

Seth Cropsey, a senior fellow at The Hudson Institute, told the subcommittee that the U.S needs a detailed war plan for China in the event that conflict arises.

“Chinese leaders are ambitious and they are moving toward great power status. The U.S. is not taking this possibility as seriously as it should,” said

Much of the hearing was focused on how the U.S. can counter-balance Chinese strategic moves to deny access to certain areas in the region through the use of long-range missiles, guided missile destroyers and submarines. In particular, the analysts said China have sought to control waterways, choke points and restrict access to key islands and territories in the region.

China has already provoked tensions in the region by declaring an air-defense zone in the East China Sea. U.S. leaders flew two unarmed B-52s through the area shortly after the announcement. However, the White House has also asked civilian U.S. airliners to alert China when their aircraft fly through the zone.

“While Naval modernization is a natural development for any sea-faring nation such as China, it is clear the modernization is emboldening the Chinese government to exert their interests by bullying their neighbors and pushing back the United States in the Asia Pacific region,” said Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., chairman of the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee.

If China succeeds in restricting access to or controlling its near seas, that would present “major implications for U.S. strategy and constitute a major challenge to the post World War II international order,” said Ronald O’Rourke, specialist in Naval Affairs, Congressional Research Service.

Chinese defense spending has increased from an estimated $45 to $60-billion annually in 2003 to $115 to $200 billion today, said Jim Thomas, vice president and director of studies, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

This includes investments in ships, long-range missiles, fighter jets and submarines, he explained. Unlike the U.S. which maintains a global posture, the Chinese military can spend all of its funds on regional counter-intervention, Thomas said.

The Chinese military has as many as 100 land-based strike fighters equipped with sophisticated avionics, sensors and advanced air-to-air missiles, he testified. Thomas also mentioned China’s DF-21D long-range ballistic missile, a weapon with a maneuverable warhead able to attack large surface combatants at ranges up to 930 miles.

“A decade ago China was reliant upon Russian assistance in its armaments, but is now increasingly shifted toward indigenous design and production. It is rapidly building up a modernized submarine force and its advanced guided missile destroyers represent a major improvement in fleet air defenses,” he told the Subcommittee.

These defenses are designed to protect aircraft carriers and help China push its Naval perimeter further off the coast, Thomas added. China also has an armada of small, armed fast-attack craft which could make it difficult for foreign forces to approach to within 200 nautical miles of the Chinese coast, Thomas testified.

Being able to thwart or spoof command and control and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance networks needs to be a key part of a counter-China defense strategy, Thomas emphasized as well.

via Call Made to Congress for China War Plan | DoD Buzz.

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01/12/2013

U.S. airlines give China flight plans for defense zone | Reuters

U.S. airlines United, American and Delta, have notified Chinese authorities of flight plans when traveling through an air defense zone Beijing has declared over the East China Sea, following U.S. government advice.

A group of disputed islands, Uotsuri island (top), Minamikojima (bottom) and Kitakojima, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China is seen in the East China Sea, in this photo taken by Kyodo September 2012. REUTERS/Kyodo

The zone has raised tensions, particularly with Japan and South Korea, and is likely to dominate the agenda of a visit to Asia this week of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. He will travel to Japan, China, and South Korea and try to ease tensions, senior American officials said.

However, China\’s declaration of the zone also represents a historic challenge by the emerging world power to the United States, which has dominated the region for decades.

China published co-ordinates for the zone last weekend. The area, about two-thirds the size of the United Kingdom, covers most of the East China Sea and the skies over a group of uninhabited islands at the center of a bitter territorial dispute between Beijing and Tokyo.

Beijing wants all foreign aircraft passing through the zone, including passenger planes, to identify themselves to Chinese authorities.

On Friday, the United States said it expected U.S. carriers to operate in line with so-called notices to airmen issued by foreign countries, although it added that the decision did \”not indicate U.S. government acceptance of China\’s requirements.

A spokesman for Delta Airlines said it had been complying with the Chinese requests for flight plans for the past week. American and United said separately that they were complying, but did not say for how long they had been doing so.

Airline industry officials said the U.S. government generally expected U.S. carriers operating internationally to comply with notices issued by foreign countries.

In contrast, Japanese carriers ANA Holdings and Japan Airlines have flown through the zone without informing China, under an agreement with the Tokyo government. Neither airline has experienced problems.

The airlines said they were sticking with the policy even after Washington\’s advice to its carriers.

Any sign that the United States was even tacitly giving a nod to China\’s air defense zone would disturb Tokyo, which is hoping for a display of solidarity when Biden visits Japan starting on Monday.

via U.S. airlines give China flight plans for defense zone | Reuters.

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01/12/2013

China, Japan and America: Face-off | The Economist

China’s new air-defence zone suggests a worrying new approach in the region

THE announcement by a Chinese military spokesman on November 23rd sounded bureaucratic: any aircraft flying through the newly designated Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea must notify Chinese authorities in advance and follow instructions from its air-traffic controllers. America’s response was rapid. On November 26th Barack Obama sent two B-52 bombers to fly through the new zone without notifying China (see article). This face-off marks the most worrying strategic escalation between the two countries since 1996, when China’s then president, Jiang Zemin, ordered a number of exclusion zones for missile tests in the Taiwan Strait, leading America to send two aircraft-carriers there.

Plenty of countries establish zones in which they require aircraft to identify themselves, but they tend not to be over other countries’ territory. The Chinese ADIZ overlaps with Japan’s own air-defence zone (see map). It also includes some specks of rock that Japan administers and calls the Senkaku islands (and which China claims and calls the Diaoyus), as well as a South Korean reef, known as Ieodo. The move is clearly designed to bolster China’s claims (see article). On November 28th Japan and South Korea sent aircraft into the zone.

Teenage testosterone

Growing economic power is bound to go hand-in-hand with growing regional assertiveness. That is fine, so long as the behaviour of the rising power remains within international norms. In this case, however, China’s does not; and America, which has guaranteed free navigation of the seas and skies of East Asia for 60 years, is right to make that clear.

How worrying China’s move is depends partly on the thinking behind it. It may be that, like a teenager on a growth spurt who doesn’t know his own strength, China has underestimated the impact of its actions. The claim that America’s bombers had skirted the edge of the ADIZ was gawkily embarrassing. But teenagers who do not realise the consequences of their actions often cause trouble: China has set up a casus belli with its neighbours and America for generations to come.

It would thus be much more worrying if the provocation was deliberate. The “Chinese dream” of Xi Jinping, the new president, is a mixture of economic reform and strident nationalism. The announcement of the ADIZ came shortly after a party plenum at which Mr Xi announced a string of commendably radical domestic reforms. The new zone will appeal to the nationalist camp, which wields huge power, particularly in the armed forces. It also helps defend Mr Xi against any suggestions that he is a westernising liberal.

If this is Mr Xi’s game, it is a dangerous one. East Asia has never before had a strong China and a strong Japan at the same time. China dominated the region from the mists of history until the 1850s, when the West’s arrival spurred Japan to modernise while China tried to resist the foreigners’ influence. China is eager to re-establish dominance over the region. Bitterness at the memory of the barbaric Japanese occupation in the second world war sharpens this desire. It is this possibility of a clash between a rising and an established power that lies behind the oft-used parallel between contemporary East Asia and early 20th-century Europe, in which the Senkakus play the role of Sarajevo.

via China, Japan and America: Face-off | The Economist.

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08/11/2013

Chinese Back to Buying Japanese Cars as Territorial Tensions Ease – Businessweek

A year ago, Honda Motor (HMC) salesman Liu Hao had one of China’s most hopeless jobs: persuading local consumers to purchase Japanese cars. After a territorial dispute over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea flared up in late summer of 2012, Chinese protesters took to the streets to denounce their Asian neighbor, overturning Japanese autos and attacking Japanese factories and restaurants. The unrest had a chilling effect on Japanese auto sales in China. Amid angry talk of boycotts, Honda sales fell more than 50 percent in October of last year and continued to drop well into 2013.

Burned cars at a Toyota dealership after they were set on fire by anti-Japan protesters in Qingdao, China, in November 2012

Today the two nations are still arguing about the islands, controlled by Japan and claimed by China, but tensions have eased, and customers are in the mood to buy Japanese products again. On a recent November afternoon, about 20 people crowded into a Honda showroom in central Beijing, checking out the new Jade sedan, launched in September for the Chinese market. Local buyers “trust the good reputation and engine of Honda,” says salesman Liu, 31. Besides, he says, fighting between China and Japan “would destroy the world, so there won’t actually be a war.”

Honda’s sales in China jumped 212 percent in October from the same period the year before, following a 118 percent increase in September. One potential customer is Mr. Song, a 28-year-old banker who won’t give his full name. He’s buying a Honda Civic and isn’t worried that a revival of anti-Japanese sentiment might endanger his vehicle. Given public revulsion at official corruption reported by the state media, he says, drivers of cars with government license tags “should be more worried about citizen anger and the danger of having cars smashed” than Honda drivers in Beijing.

via Chinese Back to Buying Japanese Cars as Territorial Tensions Ease – Businessweek.

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06/11/2013

Japan targets China as islands dispute threatens to boil over

Oh dear, brinkmanship often turns out to trigger real conflict. Hope this one doesn’t.

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25/08/2013

Japan tourist visits to Beijing halved amid tensions over islands row

SCMP: The number of Japanese tourists visiting Beijing fell by more than half in the first seven months of the year amid a spike in tensions between the countries, the city’s statistical bureau said Sunday.

tourism.jpg

Japanese tourist arrivals this year fell to 136,000 up to the end of July, down 53.7 per cent from the same period last year, the bureau said.

The drop follows violent anti-Japanese protests in Beijing and several other Chinese cities in September in response to complaints from the government over Japan’s move to nationalise uninhabited East China Sea islands claimed by China.

Japanese businesses were torched and Japanese-brand cars, most of which are made by Chinese joint venture firms, were smashed and their drivers assaulted.

There were also scattered reports of assaults on Japanese citizens, although none of the attacks were serious.

Tensions remain high between the sides, with their ships conducting regular patrols in waters surrounding the islands, called the Senkakus by Japan and Diaoyu by China. Taiwan also claims the islands and has negotiated an agreement with Tokyo to permit fishing in the area.

The decline in Japanese visitors was part of an overall 13.9 per cent decline in tourist arrivals blamed on the sluggish global economy, as well as a spike in Beijing’s notoriously bad air pollution.

Numbers of tourists from Asian countries fell 25.4 per cent, including a 19.9 per cent fall in visitors from South Korea. Visitors from the Americas fell by just 3.4 per cent.

via Japan tourist visits to Beijing halved amid tensions over islands row | South China Morning Post.

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