China re-escalates as Japan , US , Taiwan and South Korea ignores the initial move by China to require any overflights over territory declared by China as part of its Air Defense Identification Zone .... Re-escalation by China has come by way of China deploying its Aircraft Carrier The Liaoning to the South China Sea.....The Aircraft Carrier , apart from its battle group of two missile destroyers and two missile frigates .... And in case the message that China is not bluffing was missed , note China is now deploying aircraft over the Air Defense Zone ! So , does anyone pull on the Dragon's tail ?

US blinks ?

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2013

(OT) Obama Administration Instructs US Commercial Airlines to File Flight Plans with China in Newly Declared Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ)

...leaving Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hung to dry. Nice job, Mr. Obama.

After kindly informing China the other day that its two B52 bombers that flew inside the Air Defense Identification Zone over Senkaku Islands were unarmed, the United States government now says it is requesting the US commercial airlines to adhere to China's new rules and submit flight plans to China, to be safe.

The State Department Office of the Spokesperson (from 11/27/2013 daily press briefing, released on 11/29/2013; emphasis is mine):

China's Declared ADIZ - Guidance for U.S. Air Carriers

Question: Is there any specific guidance or information we are giving to U.S. carriers operating in China's recently declared Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ)?

Answer: Freedom of overflight and other internationally lawful uses of sea and airspace are essential to prosperity, stability, and security in the Pacific. We remain deeply concerned by China's November 23 declaration of an "East China Sea Air Identification Zone."

The U.S. government generally expects that U.S. carriers operating internationally will operate consistent with NOTAMs (Notices to Airmen) issued by foreign countries. Our expectation of operations by U.S. carriers consistent with NOTAMs does not indicate U.S. government acceptance of China's requirements for operating in the newly declared ADIZ.

Well, even NHK News is taking this as "acceptance".

From NHK News (11/30/2013):

これについてアメリカ国務省は、２９日、報道官の談話を発表し「アメリカ政府は、国際的に運航するアメリカの航空会社は外国政府が発表する航空情報に従うべきだと考えている」として、アメリカの航空各社に対し、中国当局へのフライトプラン＝飛行計画書の提出を、事実上求めていく考えを明らかにしました。

[NHK quoting the State Department answer (second paragraph of the answer above), then says that] the US State Department has made it clear that it is the intention of the US government to effectively request the US airlines to file flight plans with the Chinese authority.

NHK also quotes part of the New York Times article on the matter, with the officials in the Obama administration putting safety first.

According to The New York Times article (11/29/2013):

While the United States continued to defy China by sending military planes into the zone unannounced, administration officials said they had made the decision to urge civilian planes to adhere to Beijing’s new rules in part because they worried about an unintended confrontation.

... It was not immediately clear if the Obama administration had notified Japan, a close ally, of its decision.

Well they hadn't. At all.

The clearly irate Ministry of Foreign Affairs official says they haven't heard anything like that from the US counterpart, as reported by Mainichi Shinbun (11/30/2013):

防空識別圏:米国の新方針に外務省「聞いていない」

ADIZ: Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the new US policy "We haven't been informed"

米政府の方針について、外務省幹部は３０日午前、毎日新聞の取材に「全く聞いていない。これまでの米国の行動とは全く異なる対応だ」と語った。

A top official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spoke with Mainichi Shinbun in the morning of November 30 on the US government policy, and said "We haven't been informed at all. It is a completely different response from what the US has been doing."

日本政府は中国の防空識別圏設定について「何ら効力を有するものではなく、これまでのルール通りの運用を行っていく」としており、中国への飛行計画提出は不要との立場。国土交通省を通じ航空各社に、こうした方針を伝えている。政府は今後、米国に詳細を確認する方針だ。

The Japanese government's stance on the Chinese ADIZ is that it does not have any enforceability, the Japanese government will continue to follow the existing rules and that there is no need to submit flight plans to China. The Japanese airlines have been informed of the government stance by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. The Japanese government will ask the US for the details of the new policy.

It was only several days ago the Secretary of State John Kerry and the Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel issued a strong statement condemning China.

But it was also only several days ago that National Security Advisor Susan Rise made a strange speech at Georgetown University which was interpreted in Japan as a sign that the US will form a partnership with China as the two biggest powers in the world, leaving Japan hanging in the air.

Ms. Rice, of lying-through-her-teeth-on-Benghazi fame, indeed said, "When it comes to China, we seek to operationalize a new model of major power relations."

She mentioned China 20 times, Korea 11 times, Japan 7 times. No mention of Senkaku Islands.

(Operationalize? What kind of ugly verb is that? DCSpeak?)

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-29/japan-dispatches-f-15s-e-767s-and-p-3-chinas-air-defense-zone

Japan Dispatches F-15s, E-767s And P-3 Into China's Air Defense Zone, China Scrambles Su-30 In Response

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/29/2013 09:15 -0500

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China's escalation and re-escalation described in detail yesterday, has just been met with a corresponding re-re-escalation by Japan.

• China's Ministry of Defense reports that the nation identified Japanese military planes that entered into Chinese air defense identification zone today.
• 7 batches of 10 Japanese planes consisting of E-767, P-3 and F-15 entered into the zone
• China has also identified 2 batches of 2 U.S. surveillance planes consisting of P-3 and EP-3, without specifying whether the planes entered into the zone
• China scrambled Su-30, J-11 and other aircraft in response.

And now it's China's turn to, once again, respond. And then Japan and the US again, and so on, until someone gets hurt.

Source

http://rt.com/news/china-follow-japan-jets-488/

Chinese jets shadowed US and Japanese planes in new air defense zone

Published time: November 29, 2013 13:42

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Jian-10 fighter jets of China Air Force (Reuters / Petar Kujundzic)

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Chinese fighter jets were scrambled and followed US and Japanese planes that had entered the newly-proclaimed Chinese air defense zone in the disputed area of the East China Sea, Xinhua reports.

Two US surveillance aircraft and 10 Japanese F-15 jets were ‘tailed’ by Chinese pilots on Friday. 

China ordered an urgent dispatch of its Su-30 and J-10 fighter jets to an area in the East China Sea after the foreign aircraft “invaded” the air defense zone, they said. 

The reported intrusions came in defiance of the East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), established by Beijing last week. 

China’s move has triggered outrage from several states in the region and critical rhetoric from the US, as the vast zone covers disputed areas, including the islets claimed by both China and Japan. 

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a daily press briefing that civilian flights have not been impacted, Xinhua news agency reported on Thursday. China has said that all planes flying through the zone should submit flight plans and identify themselves, or their operators would end up facing"defensive emergency measures."

“We expect all sides, including aviation companies, to actively coordinate with us and jointly safeguard flight safety,” Qin said.

Earlier Thursday, Japan and South Korea, key US allies in East Asia, sent their own military aircraft into the zone's airspace in an act of defiance.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-28/china-declares-willing-engage-protracted-confrontation-japan-prime-target

China Declares "Willing To Engage In A Protracted Confrontation" With Japan As "Prime Target"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/28/2013 23:01 -0500

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Following the to-ing and fro-ing of the last 2 days with US and Japan "testing" China's new Air Defense Zone (ADIZ), China has not only escalated (as we noted earlier) but as the day begins in Asia is stepping up the rhetoric significantly. Official media said that Japan is the "prime target" and it is an "urgent task for China to further train its air force to make full preparation for potential conflicts."Japanese lawmakers, meanwhile, are pushing for a bill "demanding an immediate withdrawal of China's ADIZ." While the Western world goes on its merry way buying S&P futures, China's concluding message rings its most defint so far, "We are willing to engage in a protracted confrontation with Japan. Our ultimate goal is to beat its willpower and ambition to instigate strategic confrontation against China."

The Chinese just stepped up the rhetoric notably,

Via Yonhap,

China's official media pointedly said Friday that Japan is the "prime target" of Beijing's newly declared air control zone over the East China Sea, warning that China is willing to engage in "a protracted confrontation with Japan."

China's declaration of its Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), announced last week, has sparked strong resistance from Japan, the United States, South Korea and other neighboring Asian nations. The new zone partly overlaps those of South Korea and Japan.

The U.S. flew two B-52 bombers through the Chinese zone without informing China this week. South Korea and Japan followed suit. In response, China sent several fighter jets and an early warning aircraft on patrol Thursday into the disputed air space.

In an editorial titled "Japan prime target of ADIZ tussle," the official Global Times newspaper said, "We should carry out timely countermeasures without hesitation against Japan when it challenges China's newly declared ADIZ."

"If Tokyo flies its aircraft over the zone, we will be bound to send our planes to its ADIZ," the editorial said.

"If the trend continues, there will likely be friction and confrontations and even tension in the air like in the Cold War era between the U.S. and the Soviet Union," it said.

"It is therefore an urgent task for China to further train its air force to make full preparation for potential conflicts," the editorial said.

"We are willing to engage in a protracted confrontation with Japan. Our ultimate goal is to beat its willpower and ambition to instigate strategic confrontation against China," it said.

Analysts said the Chinese declaration of air control zone is mainly aimed at bolstering its claims to a group of islets in the East China Sea at the center of a bitter territorial dispute with Japan, which are known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan.

The Japanese are not backing down...

Via Kyodo News,

An official of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party is considering asking lawmakers to adopt a bill demanding an immediate withdrawal of China’s air defense zone in East China Sea

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-28/china-deploys-warplanes-air-defense-zone-aircraft-carrier-passes-through-taiwan-stra

China Re-Escalates, Deploys Warplanes To Air Defense Zone

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/28/2013 12:42 -0500

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A few days ago, in the latest escalation over the its territorial dispute with Japan regarding several islands in the East China Sea, China unveiled a so-called "Air Defense Identification" zone, shown on the map below, which includes not only the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands in question, but stretches from South Korea all the way to Taiwan, and which requires that any overflights submit their plans to Beijing in advance.

The response by Japan and the US was immediate, with Japan blasting China's retaliation to its own annexation of the Senkakus a year earlier and demonstratively neither Japan Airlines nor ANA complying with China's demands, while the US, demonstrating its allegiance to Japan, flew B-52 bombers above the Air Defense Zone.

China promptly responded to what it perceived was Western hypocrisy:

China's announcement to establish an Air Defense Identification Zone in East China Sea has drawn criticism from the United States and Japan, yet their blame is wrong.

Their logic is simple: they can do it while China can not, which could be described with a Chinese saying, "the magistrates are free to burn down houses while the common people are forbidden even to light lamps."

It is known to all that the United States is among the first to set up an air defense zone in 1950, and later more than 20 countries have followed suit, which Washington has taken for granted.

However, as soon as China started to do it, Washington immediately voiced various "concerns." U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday voiced concerns over the zone, fearing it might "constitute an attempt to change the status quo in the East China Sea," and a White House spokesman on Monday called the Chinese announcement over the weekend "unnecessarily inflammatory."

...

Japan set up such a zone in the 1960s and it even one-sidedly allowed the zone to cover China's Diaoyu Islands. But when China set up the zone covering the Diaoyu Islands, Tokyo immediately announced it "unacceptable" and Abe even called China's move "dangerous." It is totally absurd and unreasonable.

In one word, both Washington and Tokyo are pursuing double standards.

The latter should not come as a surprise to China, and the reason why such double standards are allowed to exist in a US superpower legacy world is because neither Japan nor the US believe China would actually dare to re-escalate further. However, in a world in which the US is no longer an undisputed superpower (especially in the aftermath of the Syrian debacle in which Putin schooled the Obama administration) that is changing.

The first clear indication that China would not just sit there and do nothing, came overnight when China's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, passed through the Taiwan Strait on Thursday morning on its way to a training mission in the South China Sea.

Naturally, the training mission is just the pretext. China's long-running if dormant feud with Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, is perhaps the best proxy of US interests in the region, where thanks to the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, the US sells arms and provides military training to the Taiwanese armed forces. China considers US involvement disruptive to the stability of the region, and made that quite clear in 2010 when Obama announced the decision to sell $6.4 billion in military hardware to the island leading to threats of economic sanctions from the mainland.

Which is why China crossing the Straits of Taiwan for the first time with its brand new aircraft carrier is nothing short of a message to Obama. From Xinhua:

It took about 10 hours for the carrier and its four escort ships to get through the strait separating the Chinese mainland and Taiwan.

The Liaoning entered the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday afternoon after it left its home port in Qingdao of east China's Shandong Province on Tuesday for the South China Sea on a scientific and training mission.

It was escorted by two missile destroyers, the Shenyang and Shijiazhuang, and two missile frigates, the Yantai and Weifang.

The narrative gets scarier:

"During the voyage, the carrier has kept a high degree of vigilance against approaches from foreign warships and aircraft, according to Liaoning Captain Zhang Zheng.This is the first time the carrier has conducted a cross-sea training voyage and passed through the Taiwan Strait since it was commissioned into the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy in September last year, according to Zhang."

But where it gets worst is that as BBC reported minutes ago, China has not only sent a symbolic message to the US, but a very literal one to Japan and everyone else who thought China would just sit there and do nothing, when it dispatched its own warplanes over the air defense zone.

China has sent warplanes to its newly declared air defence zone in the East China Sea, state media reports.

The vast zone, announced last week, covers territory claimed by China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.

China has said all planes transiting the zone must file flight plans and identify themselves, or face "defensive emergency measures". But Japan, South Korea and the US have all since flown military aircraft through the area.

China's state news agency Xinhua quoted an air force colonel as saying the the warplanes had carried out routine patrols. The zone includes islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, which are claimed by Japan, China and Taiwan.

What happens next: will Japan once again prod the not so sleeping dragon, and continue flying commercial (and military) airplanes over China's expanded zone of control, without pre-clearance with Beijing, and will the US send some more strategic bombers just to prove that Obama didn't win the Nobel peace prize for nothing?

And will then China once again re-escalate, perhaps through an "accidental" engagement with what it "vigilantly" thought was an offensive act by "foreign warships and aircraft?" resulting in a major diplomatic scandal or worse. Or will it simply, and more effectively, launch a salvo of a few hundred billion US Treasuries into the electronic ether, sending the 10 Year yield over 3% and the Fed scrambling to preserve its centrally-planned house of cards?

So, the ball is now in the court of Japan, which lately has been engaging in increasingly more desperate and irrational actions to preserve a sense of control over its imploding economy and the whole "Fukushima thing", and which means that much more entertainment is imminent.

http://www.infowars.com/defiant-flights-japan-s-korea-military-planes-fly-into-chinas-air-defense-zone/

Defiant flights: Japan, S. Korea military planes fly into China’s air defense zone

RT
November 28, 2013

Key American allies in East Asia, Japan and South Korea, have followed US lead by sending military aircraft to fly through disputed airspace, which China unilaterally included last week in its air defense zone.

The area of China’s so-called “Air Defense Zone.”

Tokyo and Seoul sent its aircraft into the disputed areas following a similar flight on Monday by two unarmed American B-52 bombers. Neither country informed the Chinese of their plans beforehand, stressing their defiance of Beijing’s claim over the airspace.

China announced last week that it now considers new airspace as part of its Air Defense Identification Zone and demanded that aircraft passing it notify Chinese authorities of their flight plans and identify themselves as they pass. The claimed zones include those over islands, the sovereignty over which China contests other nations.

Japanese military said Tuesday that it sent surveillance missions over the islands in the South China Sea, which are called the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China.

“They are carrying out surveillance activity as before in the East China Sea, including the zone,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a regular news conference.

The area is routinely patrolled by Japanese naval ships and P-3C aircraft, Suga said.

“We are not going to change this [activity] out of consideration to China,” he stressed.

Meanwhile South Korean forces flew over the Socotra Rock in the Yellow Sea, the northern part of the South China Sea. Both South Korea and China consider it to be within their respective exclusive economic zones and call it Ieodo and Suyan Rock respectively.

The demonstrations of military defiance by the US and its allies so far did not draw any response from Beijing. Chinese military said it monitored the passage of the US bombers, but did not comment on whether they plan to take any action to enforce the new rules.

Some experts and policymakers believe the declaration of the defense zone was rather a symbolic gesture aimed at eroding Japanese and South Korean influence over the disputed territories rather than a practical move.

“China will not implement [the zone] fully because they do not have enough assets … but they will try to scare smaller nations,” told Reuters a source in the Japanese government, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue with the media.

While choosing to ignore China’s claims in practice, its rivals are not hesitating to voice their displeasure on diplomatic level. On Thursday, a resolution approved by PM Abe’s party demanded that China rescinded the new defense zone, calling the move “unreasonable expansionism.” The panel however refrained from using the wording “pre-modern and imperialist,” as was initially suggested.

Beijing rejected on Thursday calls from Tokyo and Seoul to rectify the zone. It also accused Japan of using double standards over the issue, pointing out that it implemented its own zone back in 1969.

“Japan consistently blames others and smears the name of other countries but never examines its own conduct,” China’s Defense Ministry spokesman, Yang Yujun, said in a statement posted on the ministry’s website.

“If they want it revoked, then we would ask that Japan first revoke its own air defense identification zone and China will reconsider it after 44 years,” Yang added.

The conflict gives a chance for the US to reiterate its ties with its Asian allies. In a telephone call on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told his Japanese counterpart Itsunori Onodera that the defense pact covered the disputed islands. He also commended Japan for “for exercising appropriate restraint,” a Pentagon spokesman said.