As dispute over islands escalates, Japan and China send fighter jets to scene

The action in the skies over the East China Sea started simply enough. Last week, the Chinese government sent a civilian surveillance plane, a twin propeller aircraft, to fly near the uninhabited islands at the heart of a growing feud between China and Japan.

Tokyo, in response, ordered F-15 fighter jets to take a look at what it considered Chinese meddling. The Chinese then sent their own fighters.

It was the first time that supersonic Chinese and Japanese military fighters were in the air together since the dispute over the islands erupted last year, significantly increasing the risk of a mistake that could lead to armed conflict at a time when both countries, despite their mutual economic interests, are going through a period of heightened nationalism that recalls their longstanding regional rivalry.

The escalation comes amid a blast of belligerent discourse in China and as the Obama administration has delayed a visit to Washington requested by Shinzo Abe, the new prime minister of Japan, the United States’ main ally in Asia. After the rebuff, Abe announced that he would embark on a tour of Southeast Asia intended to counter China’s influence in the region. On Friday, as Abe cut short his trip to return to Tokyo to deal with the hostage crisis in Algeria, secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton said in Washington that Abe would meet with President Obama in the second half of February.

For Japan and China, what began as a seemingly minor dispute is quickly turning into a gathering storm, military analysts and western diplomatic officials warn, as each country appears determined to force the other to give ground.

“What is really driving things is raw nationalism and fragmented political systems, both on the Japanese and even more so the Chinese sides, that is preventing smart people from making rational decisions,” said Thomas Berger, an associate professor of international relations at Boston University. “No Chinese or Japanese leader wants or can afford to be accused of selling out their country.”

The backdrop for the dispute is the changing military and economic dynamic in the region. In Japan, which rose from utter defeat in World War II to become a prosperous global economic power, many experts talk of a nation preparing for an “elegant” decline. But Abe has made clear that he does not subscribe to that idea and hopes to stake out a tough posture on the islands as a way of engineering a Japanese comeback.

In contrast, Beijing brims with confidence, reveling in the belief that the 21st century belongs to China — with the return of the islands the Chinese call the Diaoyu and the Japanese refer to as the Senkaku as a starting point.

Though Japan is far richer than China on a per-person basis, its economy has been stagnant for years and contracted once again in the second half of 2012. It was hit hard by a slowdown in exports to China after the island dispute erupted in August; Chinese protesters disrupted Japanese plants in China and boycotted Japanese products during the autumn. The value of Japanese exports to China fell by 17 per cent between June and November, the World Bank said this week.

China’s fast-growing military still lags behind the Japanese self-defence forces in sophistication of weaponry and training, but Japan’s edge is diminishing, according to Dr Berger, an expert on the Japanese military, and other western defence analysts.

For now the Chinese military wants to avoid armed conflict over the islands, Dr Berger said, but its longer-term goal is to pressure Japan to give up its administration of the islands. That would give China a break in what is known in China as the “first island chain,” a string including the Diaoyu, that prevents China’s growing ballistic submarine fleet from having unobserved access to the Pacific Ocean. Taiwan is part of the “first island chain,” as are smaller islands controlled by Vietnam and the Philippines.

“The Chinese leadership seems to think that the cards are in their favor, and if they push long and hard enough, the Japanese have to cave,” Dr Berger said.

A senior American military official said that Washington considered China’s decision to send its fighter jets in response to Japan’s to be “imprudent” but not a violation of international law. The Chinese jets had entered what is known as Japan’s air defence identity zone, but had not infringed Japan’s airspace, the official said.

The United States was watching closely and advising restraint on both sides, because there is no established method of communication — or hot line — between Japan and China that can be used in the event of a confrontation. With jet fighters from both countries aloft last week, “the potential for mistakes that could have broader consequences” was vastly increased, the official said.

The Chinese state-run news media have stepped up their hawkish tone since the episode. On Abe’s trip to Southeast Asia, which the Chinese say is intended to create a pro-Japan alliance, the overseas edition of People’s Daily newspaper said, “Even the United States, the world’s sole superpower, acknowledged that it cannot encircle and contain China, so why should Japan?”

Chinese experts express similar views. In an interview, Hu Lingyuan, the deputy director of the Center for Japanese Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, described Abe as a Japanese nationalist who was trying to overextend Japan’s reach. “The Diaoyu conflict keeps escalating,” he said. “A solution is not possible.” And as the commentary became harsher, the Chinese news media stressed reports of training by the military’s East China Sea units. Dozens of J-10 fighter jets participated in a live ammunition drill with the navy’s East China Sea fleet, the state run news agency, Xinhua, reported Thursday.

Before returning to Japan, Abe spoke to reporters in Jakarta, Indonesia. He said he opposed “changing the status quo by force,” and called on China to behave in a responsible manner.

“The seas is a public asset that should not be governed by force but by rule of law that keeps it freely open to all,” he said. “We will work with Asean nations to do our utmost to defend this.”

With a top United States diplomat, Kurt M Campbell, in Tokyo this week, Washington is urging both sides to open a dialogue.

But the initial signs are not particularly promising. On Thursday, a former Japanese prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama of the opposition Democratic Party, met in Beijing with Jia Qinglin, the chairman of the national committee of the Chinese People’s political consultative conference.

The setting looked conciliatory. China, however, used the occasion to make a point that was immediately rejected in Tokyo. Jia called for talks with Japan over the disputed islands, an idea that Japan has always said was unacceptable. Japanese governments have consistently maintained that the islands rightfully belong to Japan and that there is nothing to discuss.

Times of India