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Curzon
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Curzon

Date

November 9th, 2005

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Hostile Maneuvers

Japanese fighter jets scrambled 30 times to turn away Chinese planes in last 7 months

Japanese fighter jets have been scrambled 30 times to turn away Chinese planes approaching Japan’s airspace in the last seven months, more than twice the 13 times in the same period last year, officials said Wednesday. The increased defensive posture reflects the growing tensions between Japan and China, which are squabbling over interpretations of their wartime past, undersea gas deposits, and ownership of East China Sea islands. An Air Self Defense Force spokesman said Japan’s fighter jets had scrambled 30 times in response to what were believed to be Chinese military planes in the seven months from April to October.

Nation of “peaceful development”? On a similar note, Sun Bin says China’s bargaining position on the East China gas field is “very strong”—delete the word “bargaining” and he’s right on the money.

Comments to this entry

Saru
November 9, 2005
2:16 pm
Checking the rest of the article, I see that they scrambled 72 times for Russians during the same period, but no one's worried about Russo-Japan II. They also scrambled 30 times for Chinese planes in 1998, which means that if tensions go up, they can also come down.

So what?
Jing
November 9, 2005
2:25 pm
I'd hazard to venture that the aircraft were maritime surveillance planes or perhaps Elint aircraft that were either passing near Japanese airspace or probeing for a response.

Actually what I find amusing about the article is this sentence.

"A national daily newspaper said Wednesday that Chinese surveillance planes were flying over natural gas sites in the East China Sea that are claimed by both Tokyo and Beijing."

Mainichi didn't name the newspaper, but I've read this report already and the daily in question is actually the Sankei. (Guess theres no need to name competitors)
Jing
November 9, 2005
2:31 pm
One minor quibbel Saru, but it would be Russo-Japan III to be precise. Every seems to forget that the Soviet Union had declared war on Japan before the war ended and if the technicality is not enough, Soviet and Japanese forces had clashed years earlier in 1939 at Khalkhin Gol.
Kushibo
November 9, 2005
2:50 pm
Curzon, I'm going to say it was a bit disingenuous to not include this paragraph (that Jing mentions): A national daily newspaper said Wednesday that Chinese surveillance planes were flying over natural gas sites in the East China Sea that are claimed by both Tokyo and Beijing.

I'm not saying that isn't a tense situation, but Chinese planes flying over unoccupied (?) islands that they themselves claim is a very different matter from them flying over undisputed Japanese territory, something North Korea might do and which your presentation seemed to suggest.

Also from the article:
Another 72 scramblings were triggered by Russian planes during the April-October period this year, according to the first official. He did not provide any other details. Japan and Russia both claim islands off Japan's northern main island of Hokkaido that were seized by Moscow near the end of World War II.

And Russia occupies those islands. I'd like to know more about this. Were Japanese planes scrambling toward Russian planes that were flying over Russia-occupied territory?

One thing I was thinking that as funny the other day was that a lot of people (apologists for right-wing Japanese politicians, to a large extent) like to point out that the war has been over for sixty years, when in fact, it is not over officially, not as far as the Russians and the Japanese are concerned.
Saru
November 9, 2005
3:10 pm
Jing - no one refers to either of those conflicts as "Russo-Japanese" anything.
Mutantfrog
November 9, 2005
4:41 pm
The USSR declared war on Japan in WW2, but they never actually fought.
Kushibo
November 9, 2005
4:50 pm
That all depends on what timeline you're talking, Mutantfrog. If you mean that there was no fighting after they declared war in 1945, then that might be an arguable position.

But if you mean that there was no Russian-Japanese fighting in World War II, it would appear you're wrong: I have read that almost 9000 Soviets and 18,000 Japanese were killed in Khalkhin Gol.
Kushibo
November 9, 2005
5:09 pm
Curzon, I never really got around to asking this, but this is related to another thread I can't find now:

When did Korea and Japan become allies?
sun bin
November 9, 2005
6:11 pm
I don't understand the international law about these events.

US claimed it can fly its EP-3 within 12 nautical miles to the land border of any country (Hainan).

But China cannot fly its plane into a disputed areas?

Based on int'l law alone, isn't China entilted to fly into 12 miles from Tokyo and Japan 12 miles from Ningbo?
Pavlov3
November 10, 2005
1:04 am
Mutant Frog, the battle of Nomohan (sic?) was fought between the Soviets and Japan at the end of WWII. The Russians were doing their big land grab after the first nuke went off. As I recall General Zhukov (sic?) was scrambled out of Germany on a fast transport to lead the attack.
---
Sun Bin, you are correct 12 miles is the international limit, although both China and Japan are very creative in how they define it, and I believe China holds to a much larger limit that actually overlaps several other nations borders. Since the gas fields are disputed, both China and Japan claim them as their territory, so the flights may not actually be anything more than posturing.
sun bin
November 10, 2005
1:34 am
I know about the claims, EEZ(fishing) and seabed rights(mining), which are actually different claims.
There are supposed to be no implication on air traffic.
By Dawn's Early Light
November 10, 2005
8:18 am
China vs. Japan in the Air over East China Sea

China and Japan in military maneuvering over energy.
sun bin
November 11, 2005
1:09 am
Diametrically opposite intellectuals in the top 100 public intellectuals

Coming Anarchy questioned my earlier post on China's "peaceful development", after Japan sent out its fighter jet 30 times in 7 months into the disputed water. Maybe we have another indicator here.
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April 24, 2006
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