While Washington and the world furiously debated the interim agreement between Iran and the United States over the weekend, Nov. 24, 2013, may go down in history as the day America lost Asia.
Starting this past Sunday, China began air patrols over its newly designated “air defense identification zone” over the East China Sea—home to a chain of islands disputed with Japan—and within 24 hours Beijing turned 80 years of free aerial navigation on its head. China’s move is no less dramatic than Iran’s potential victory in gaining the right to enrich uranium: Absent an effective U.S. response, China has successfully begun changing the rules of international security in East Asia. And with a whimper, not a bang, Washington may begin losing its influence in Asia, despite its still-preponderant strength.
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Here are four things the world should note about China’s bold move.
First, let’s call it what it is. Beijing has declared an air control zone, not a defense zone. Normally, in air defense zones countries seek to identify aircraft in that are close to or approaching national territory. Think of the analogue with territorial waters. Obviously, airplanes that fly over national territory, such as commercial airliners, must identify themselves. But they are also presumed to be engaging in innocent passage, just like cargo or passenger ships on the seas.
What China has done is very different. In claiming most of the East China Sea as a control zone—within 80 miles of Japanese territory at its closest point—the country is demanding that airplanes flying hundreds of miles from China’s actual territory must now identify themselves and declare their flight paths, even if they are not going to China. This is not defense: It is a not-so-subtle form of much wider control. While Chinese spokespersons say the move does not affect the freedom of international flights, the reality is much different. There is no basis for such a wide zone, other than to get foreign countries to accept that they are passing through what are, in essence, Chinese-controlled skies. And if a foreign plane doesn’t provide Chinese authorities the information they demand? China will then take “ defensive emergency measures,” according to the government—in other words, shadow, threaten or shoot down foreign planes.
Second, Beijing’s announcement is a direct challenge to Japan and Korea, since China’s new control zone overlaps those of both Tokyo and Seoul. This, of course, is the whole idea, at least with respect to Japan: to chip away further at Japanese control of the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands, the chain of islands located in the East China Sea to the northeast of Taiwan that Japan and China both claim as theirs. In recent years, Tokyo has grown increasingly concerned about China probing in the waters off the islands, which Japan has administered since 1972 and over which it has claimed ownership since 1895. In an inept move last year, the Japanese government bought three of the disputed islands from their private owner, sparking the most serious crisis in Sino-Japanese relations in decades. In addition to a diplomatic freeze between the two countries and anti-Japanese demonstrations in China, Chinese paramilitary patrol ships have repeatedly entered into the contested waters, and Beijing has started flying patrol planes near their airspace, as well. Each time, the Chinese have been met by Japanese Coast Guard vessels and Air Self-Defense Force planes. Tensions are at a fever pitch, and one accident in the sky or waters could plunge the two into a crisis that nobody really wants.
The move over the weekend to make a legally accepted claim over the airspace of the Senkaku Islands is designed to force the issue. If Japan decides to contest China’s claim, then Asia’s two most powerful air forces will soon be playing games of aerial chicken at 600 miles per hour. If Japan retreats, then China will have made a huge step forward in getting its claims over the Senkakus and the East China Sea accepted.
Korea, too, is concerned with the overlap of its western air defense zone with China’s new claim, but Beijing is wooing Seoul, giving it prior notification and playing on Korean President Park Geun-hye’s deep distrust of Japan and desire to build closer relations with China. While Seoul should be just as worried about ceding China the authority to control the skies over the East China Sea, South Korean domestic politics is already giving Beijing a win by default.