Posted on 05/27/2014 2:24:39 PM PDT by Parmenio
On Monday, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters that his government had lodged a protest with Beijing for Chinese jets closing within meters of Japanese reconnaissance planes over the East China Sea. Tokyo has every right to be upset. Beijing, from all indications, looks like it was trying to create incidents by flying too close for safety.
On Saturday, Chinese Su-27 jets flew within 50 meters of a Japanese OP-3C and within 30 meters of a Japanese YS-11EB, both propeller-driven reconnaissance craft. “This is a close encounter that is outright over the top,” said Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera on Sunday. At no other time since World War II have Chinese and Japanese military planes come into such close proximity.
Beijing justified its provocative actions by saying it had declared a no-fly zone over joint naval maneuvers with Russia in the East China Sea—the first ever between the two countries in that body of water—and that the Japanese craft had flown into the area. “Japanese military planes intruded without permission on the exercise’s airspace and carried out dangerous maneuvers, in a serious violation of international law and standards, and this could have easily caused a misunderstanding and even a mid-air accident,” declared a statement issued by China’s Ministry of National Defense on Sunday.
Tokyo denies that the incidents in the air took place near the exercise, but even if they had, the Japanese had every right to fly there. China, on the other hand, had no authority to close off international airspace.
Moreover, China’s ministry in the same statement made another provocative claim: “Chinese military aircraft have the right to maintain safety in the air and to employ necessary identification and prevention procedures against foreign aircraft entering China’s air defense identification zone over the East China Sea.” Beijing, in other words, is beginning to enforce the expansive ADIZ that it declared in November without consultation with affected nations.
Yes, every country with a coast can declare an air zone, but China’s zone includes what is considered the sovereign airspace of Japan, the air over the disputed Senkaku Islands. The People’s Republic of China claims those islands too—asserting sovereignty in 1971 after essentially acknowledging they were Japanese—but Japan in fact has controlled them for more than a century. So, the inclusion of the airspace over the islets in China’s air zone is a provocative move.
Saturday’s incidents inevitably recall the one in April 2001 when a Chinese jet clipped a US Navy EP-3 in international airspace over the South China Sea. The reckless Chinese pilot tumbled into the sea and was never found, and the American plane limped to a base on China’s Hainan Island, where it made an emergency landing. Beijing imprisoned the 24 crew members for 11 days and stripped the craft of its electronic gear. The Bush administration issued a statement akin to an apology to the Chinese and paid $34,000—essentially a ransom—for the release of the aviators. America’s response was a disgrace.
Bush defenders say the White House was able to move beyond the crisis, but the White House taught the Chinese that there was no price to be paid for aggressive conduct in the skies and what was an act of war on the ground. And today we can see that the Chinese are once again engaging in dangerous flying. Feeble foreign policies always have a cost, even if the price is not immediately apparent.
Wong Way’s nephew.
Maybe this is how WW3 starts?
Near miss? So they collided?
Or Chun Wang.
Another Chinese pilot flying the Wang Wei.
http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2001/July%202001/0701china.aspx
I always wondered about that. Why would you call a “miss” a “near miss”?
Who knows, the world is freaking nutz right now. It wouldn't surprise me if China wanted some kind of limited engagement to thin their herd a little bit. They are sure acting more belligerent than usual.
Wang Wei’s return? He’s been quiet since the US incident.
They do have multiple millions of single men who have no chance at a woman, due to their one child only policy for so many years, so they may be seeking to thin out the herd. As a new world military power, how else do they investigate their newly developed arms under fire? Look at all the proxy wars the USSR and US fought. Many new weapons were tested under combat conditions in these proxy wars. I am surprised though, that the Chinese have not found a country to test these weapons in a real war.
It sounds better than ‘near hit’? (George Carlin)
We let them do it to us several years ago - why would they not try it again?
I LOL’ed the first time that was posted and still do. That’s funny.
George Carlin: Here’s one they just made up: “near miss”. When two planes almost collide, they call it a near miss. It’s a near hit. A collision is a near miss.
“This business will get out of control”
Thanks Parmenio.
Hi.
If I were keeping score in baseball, I would prefer a “near miss.”
5.56mm
I would hit a near miss, if she had a pleasing personality.
This is positioning for taking one more more of the Senkaku Islands. In itself that’s not such a huge deal, but China would probably not be able to hold them unless they ALSO took one or probably all of the little-known, uncontested Yaeyama Islands, which feature 7 airfields even closer to Taiwan and which are home to 50,000 Japanese people.
Some (not many) thinkers believe not ANY of this could be done without China ALSO taking Okinawa, which is a very, very huge deal, obviously.
The basic goal of China is to dominate the East and South China seas:
Basically to expel the US Navy out to the Phillipines, or Wake or whatever.
One time they even point-blank posited, “How bout u guys get the East Pacifica and then We, China, simply take the West Pacific? How bout that?”
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