Careful handling better than knee-jerks
The debate following China’s Nov 23 announcement of its East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone is a solemn reminder that major countries, such as China and the United States, must improve how they handle their differences.
Soon after China’s announcement, the US took drastic action by sending two “unarmed” B-52 bombers from Guam into China’s new ADIZ to show its defiance, although Pentagon officials also stressed that it was a routine flight arranged a long time ago.
Japan and the Republic of Korea also sent flights into the zone without reporting to the Chinese authorities. Such defiance is also meant to provoke and therefore is not conducive to solving problems.
Japan reacted because China’s ADIZ overlaps with Japan’s ADIZ over the disputed Diaoyu Islands. But such overlapping should not come as a surprise since most countries — including Japan — know that the islands are disputed territories claimed by both countries.
Japan has overreacted by demanding China retract the ADIZ, and led by right-wing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the Japanese government forced two Japanese airlines, JAL and ANA, to reverse their original intention to file flight plans with the Chinese authorities, a move that shows it is willing to gamble with the lives of passengers.
China’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday, 55 airlines from 19 countries and three regions have reported their flight plans to China. There is no doubt that more airlines will follow suit in order to reduce the risk of any misunderstanding and miscalculation in the airspace. Filing flight plans does no harm; it has only benefits.
After all, the announcement of China’s ADIZ is not a declaration of sovereign airspace. So there really should not be so much fuss about it. Japan, the US and many other countries proclaimed theirs decades ago and some have expanded their zones over the years.
The initial response in some countries was so exaggerated you would think China was going to shoot down any plane flying into the ADIZ, something that China has never said it would do, and, of course, has no intention of doing.
It’s just like when US President Barack Obama talked about not taking any option off the table in dealing with Iran, Syria and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, no one should see it as US’ willingness to use nuclear weapons against these nations. But many people seem to harbor such thinking when explaining China’s ADIZ announcement.
The US is in a dilemma, being caught between Japan, which it considers a key ally and is eager to reassure, and China, whose relationship with the US is often described as most consequential in the world.
Right after China’s ADIZ announcement, the US Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, described China’s move as “a destabilizing attempt to alter the status quo in the region”.
However, on Wednesday, Hagel and other US officials softened their tone and started to say that China’s mistake was not consulting with other countries before the announcement.
The US continues to say that it does not recognize China’s ADIZ and hopes China will not implement it, but the US has advised its international carriers to file their flight plans with the Chinese authorities.
US Vice-President Joe Biden also has tried to strike a balance between Japan and China. He rejected a joint statement with Japan over the ADIZ and did not call on China to retract it. Biden has tried not to let his longplanned visit to Asia be hijacked by ADIZ.
All these indicate that the US has tried to be more reasonable after its initial response of dispatching bombers, something that was bound to escalate tensions.
The row over the ADIZ provides both China and the US with an opportunity to learn how to better manage their differences, which will no doubt continue to surface for a long time to come.
Better management of the differences is the key in building the proposed new type of relations between major countries. The author, based in Washington, is deputy editor of China Daily USA. chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com