The America on Monday joined ally Japan in vowing to not recognize China’s declaration of an air defense zone over much of the East China Sea, a move that has sharply escalated tensions.
China and Japan each summoned the other’s ambassador after Beijing said Saturday it had established an Air Defense Identification Zone — which might require aircraft to obey its orders — over a local featuring islands administered by Japan.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has vowed no compromise on sovereignty issues, called on China to “restrain itself” over the move, which put Tokyo’s conservative government in rare unison with South Korea and Taiwan.
“I am strongly concerned because it is a profoundly dangerous act that can cause unintended consequences,” Abe told parliament.
US President Barack Obama’s administration has vowed to defend Japan and said that the islands — often called the Senkakus in Japanese and the Diaoyus in Chinese — fall under the usa security treaty with its ally, which was officially pacifist since World War II.
“This announcement from the Chinese government was unnecessarily inflammatory,” White House deputy spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One.
“There are regional disputes in that portion of the sector and people disputes must be resolved diplomatically,” he said.
The US military, which stations greater than 70,000 troops in Japan and South Korea, said it might not abide by the “destabilizing” Chinese-imposed zone.
“When we fly into this aerial zone, we won’t register a flight plan, we can’t identify our transponder, our radio frequency and our logo. Those are the four things the Chinese have publicly said are a demand,” Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren told reporters.
“We won’t in anyway change how we conduct our operations because this new policy,” he said.
Japan also said that it’ll not respect the Chinese demarcation, with a foreign ministry statement saying the move had “no validity whatsoever in Japan.”
But an official at Japan Airlines said that the carrier received a notice and would start submitting flight plans to Chinese authorities.
All Nippon Airways, which like its rival considers Asian flights a core component to its business, is following suit, the Jiji Press news agency reported.
Strong words from all corners
The East China Sea dispute has simmered for many years but heated up in September 2012 when Japan nationalized three of the islands, in what it billed as an try to avoid a more inflammatory step by a nationalist politician.
Asia’s two largest economies now play a nearly permanent game of cat and mouse within the area, with official ships and aircraft shadowing one another.
Newspapers in China, where Japan is usually portrayed because the villain as a consequence of its occupation within the early 20th century, rejected Tokyo’s outrage.
“Tokyo is hypocritical and impudent in its complaint with Beijing,” said an article inside the Global Times newspaper, that’s near China’s ruling Communist Party.
“If Japan sends warplanes to ‘intercept’ China’s jet fighters, Beijing’s military can be certain to adopt defensive emergency measures,” it said.
Patrick Cronin, a professional on Asia on the Center for a brand new American Security, said that China hoped to trigger off the “natural proclivities” of both the conservative Abe and the left-leaning Obama.
“China is taunting Japan to behave in an incendiary manner while pressing the us to exercise caution and restrain its ally,” Cronin wrote in an essay.
China, which has rapidly expanded its military as its economy soared during the last twenty years, also has territorial feuds with other neighbors including the Philippines and Vietnam.
China’s declaration of the air zone angered South Korea, which has tense relations with Japan associated with historical memories and just days ago had upset Tokyo by cooperating with China to erect a statue of a Korean activist who assassinated a Japanese governor in 1909.
Part of the air zone overlaps South Korea’s own air defense area and contains a disputed, submerged South Korean-controlled rock — called Ieodo — that has long been a sore point with Beijing.
Taiwan, that is claimed by China but was reconciling some time past few years, also complained and vowed to “defend its sovereignty” over the islands.
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