I’m going to cross post a rather elaborate summary of the ADIZ’s intentions and goals and roadmap which I posted on SDF a few days ago.
Feel free to respond to it.
The end game is simple. I will elaborate.
In my opinion China has two main goals for the ADIZ.
One of them is related to the disputed islands, the second is related to the overall security needs of the country.
Let’s look at the first.
Japan has repeatedly stated in the last couple of years that there is “no” territorial dispute over the islands. The government has maintained that line. It has escalated various acts since 2010, including the arresting of a Chinese fisherman in the waters around the islands, ramping up coast guard patrols, using its own ADIZ as an extension of its alarmist view of Chinese aircraft that near the islands, and threatening to shoot down foreign drones that enter its airspace with a pointed view to the islands.
China until now has only responded with also sending its own coast guard and CMS patrols in the waters of the islands alongside Japanese coast guard vessels, and the single flight account where a CMS Y-12 briefly entered the disputed airspace. More recently they have done more extensive aerial surveillance of the first island chain including the disputed islands, but all in international airspace.
The announcement of the ADIZ encompassing the islands allows China to directly challenge Japan’s claim that there is “no” territorial dispute, because if Japan is so insistent that on its sovereignty over the islands, then if China sends military aircraft over the islands then by association Japan must shoot them down, correct? If they do not shoot down PLAAF or PLANAF aircraft then they’d effectively be conceding there is a dispute and their control is not uncontested.
That is a major victory for China because the strategy these last few years was always to deny Japan’s claims that their sovereignty is uncontested.
Of course this idea may unravel if Japan decides to shoot at Chinese aircraft — but do we think Japan is willing to start a war? I personally doubt it. So the other only option is to not shoot and only observe, possibly engage in aggressive maneuvering with Chinese aircraft. That constitutes a victory.
Now, the other achievement of this ADIZ is security related.
ADIZs are meant to give a nation the right to intercept and ID potentially threatening aircraft in an airspace beyond its borders. In an age of high speed bombers and fighter jets, this is natural. The US, Japan, and a myriad of other nations all have had extensive ADIZs for decades.
In this case, it gives China the right to do more interceptions at longer range.
If China had conducted more interceptions at longer range without the cover of an ADIZ, then there would be even more international “condemnation” and “concern” than there is now.
We should clarify, that China never said they would intercept every single noncompliant aircraft within its ADIZ. Indeed, while the wording of the original ADIZ statement was “we will deal with noncompliant aircraft with emergency military maneuvers” (or something to that effect), it has since been clarified that it’s meaning is more “we reserve the right to deal with noncompliant aircraft with emergency military maneuvers”.
So China doesn’t have to intercept every single noncompliant aircraft or shoot them down.
That would be ridiculous.
However by merely outlining their right to perform such actions, it gives greater pseud-legal scope for the PLAAF and PLANAF to defend China’s security against forward based USAF strike fighters, bombers, and USN carrier based aircraft that operate in the ECS.
Even a neutral observer would understand that China faces a massive air threat from forward based US combat aircraft, and an ADIZ is the least China should have in place to defend the mainland from potential air attacks.
So, if Japan and the US wants China to back down, what can they do?
Well, Japan may be be able to make China agree to rescind part of its ADIZ over the disputed islands if Japan too retracts its ADIZ a couple of hundred kilometers to make the islansd “de militarized” and also if Japan agrees that the islands are indeed under dispute and begins bilateral negotiations. Frankly I believe this was one of the main goals of including the ADIZ over the islands.
But if Japan or the US wants China to abolish its ADIZ completely, they are very much mistaken.
Like I said, China faces massive air threats — perhaps the most any single large nation in the world faces, aside from Iran and North Korea. US carrier battle groups and airbases hold a good fraction of the US war machine’s airstrike capability, and it is flexible, competent and dangerous — and aimed at China. Until such a threat is far from China’s doorstep, China has a need to secure its peripheral airspace with an ADIZ.
Hell, the continental US faces virtually no air threat from any nation, yet its ADIZ is still one of the most massive in the world.
So in that sense, don’t expect China to abolish its ADIZ.
typical sinosentric view. if anything Japan attempted to de-escalate the situation. yes that’s right.
take your choice
Japanese government buys the islands
or
Racist mayor of Tokyo who is blatantly anti-Chinese buys the islands.
The Japanese government did what it had to do to prevent a worse case scenario. It was also done by the left wing, liberal, pro-Asia government, not the current conservative one. duh duh duh
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