East China Sea: Q&A on what is at stake

TOKYO (AFP) - The East China Sea has become the theatre for an increasingly bitter dispute between Beijing and Tokyo that is threatening to degenerate and drag the United States in.

The disagreements are ostensibly territorial, but are heavily coloured by historical grievances and nationalism.

China's declaration last weekend of an Air Defence Identification Zone that covers much of the sea was seen in foreign capitals as ramping up the dispute.

Here are a few key facts about the sea and what is at stake.

Where is it and what is there?

The East China Sea is bounded by Taiwan, a stretch of China's coast, South Korea and Japan's southern islands, significantly, the string that makes up Okinawa. The sea is largely empty, except for a few uninhabited islands and rocks.

What is China's Air Defence Identification Zone?

At its furthest point, the zone goes as close as 130 kilometres (80 miles) to China's neighbours. Chinese state-run media say that is the same distance that Japan's own ADIZ stretches from China's coast. The two countries' air zones overlap. And, crucially, they both cover contested islands known as the Senkakus in Japanese and the Diaoyus in Chinese. Part of the Chinese ADIZ also overlaps South Korea's own air defence area and incorporates a disputed South Koreancontrolled rock -- known as Ieodo in Korean and Suyan in Chinese -- that has long been a sore point with Beijing. The Chinese ADIZ requires aircraft to provide their flight plan, declare their nationality and maintain two-way radio communication -- or face unspecified "defensive emergency measures". Japan, South Korea and the US have all exercises. The U.S. and other major powers routinely chastise China for a lack of transparency surrounding its three-decade military build-up. But it is difficult to accuse Beijing of secrecy when it comes to recent naval operations near Japan. The state-run media and a stable of specialist military newspapers, journals, web-sites and television channels devote blanket coverage to the deployment of warships, submarines, aircraft and patrol vessels on missions near China's neighbor.

Some military commentators say Japan shouldn't overreact to these messages, as they are primarily aimed at a domestic Chinese audience.

"The PLAN is a relatively young organisation building up their capabilities and certainly not the 'senior service' in China," says Alessio Patalano, a specialist on the Japanese military at King's College in London. "It's important for its leadership and its members to establish their credentials and increase their profile."

For exercise Manoeuvre 5, the Chinese navy followed the U.S. practice of embedding journalists. Regular television reports from the Type-052 guided missile destroyer Guangzhou showed the 6,500 ton warship ploughing through heavy seas on route to the exercises. Officers and sailors were interviewed at battle stations while they tracked targets and prepared missile launches.

Tokyo is keeping careful score. In its latest Defence White Paper, published in July, the Japanese military charted steadily expanding PLA deployments near Japan since 2008, documenting bigger visiting fleets, more powerful warships and increasingly complex exercises involving helicopters, support vessels and landbased aircraft.

Encirclement

flown planes through the zone this week, flouting these rules. There have been no aerial confrontations.

Why are the countries at odds over islets?

Ownership of islands confers the right to exploit the resources in the nearby seabed -- which are thought to be rich in the case of the Senkakus/Diaoyus -- and local fisheries stocks. The tip of Ieodo/Suyan lies nearly five metres (15 feet) below the ocean surface and can only be glimpsed during extreme weather, but it sits in a sector where the two countries' exclusive economic zones overlap. In addition to the economic benefits, control of islands in the sea offers staging posts and support for a navy.

Is the Chinese ADIZ aimed at getting control of these islands?

Asserting certain rights in the airspace

After decades confined to its coastal seas, the PLAN began regular voyages from the East China Sea into the Pacific above disputed islands helps China to point to a track record of "effective control" over them, strengthening its hand in any future negotiations. But some observers say the real target of the ADIZ is the United States, which has been the dominant naval power in the western Pacific since World War II.

It maintains its reach partly through arrangements with Japan and South Korea that together see around 70,000 of its troops stationed in the two countries, along with a great deal of the American military's impressive hardware.

Observers say that China wants to match its own growing economic heft with military influence, and would like to start by being the dominant power in the waters around it.

This means effectively turfing out the United States, and de facto rights over the East China Sea are an important step. early last decade. At first, Chinese warships mostly used the wide Miyako Strait between Okinawa and Miyako Island, according to statements from the Chinese and Japanese militaries. Since then, in a series of firsts, they have transited all the other important channels between the Japanese islands, according to Japan's White Paper.

Then came encirclement.

In July, five PLA warships steamed out of the Sea of Japan through the Soya Strait, known as the La Perouse Strait in Russia, which divides the Russian island of Sakhalin and Hokkaido. The Chinese fleet continued on around the Japanese islands and back to China.

"The move marks the first trip by the Chinese navy circumnavigating the Japanese archipelago," said a report on China's official military website.

Some Chinese strategists reject fears that deploying a powerful navy increases the odds of conflict. "I am more confident than many outside observers that China will behave out of the nation's fundamental interests, namely, to take a path of peaceful development," says Ren. "There is no reason to change this option."

For Japan, there might even be an upside. Chinese warships used to be mostly confined to home waters, and thus hidden. Now, they can now be monitored.

"The more exercises the PLAN conducts on the high seas around Japan, the better for the JMSDF to judge and collect the PLAN's warfare capabilities and intents," says Koda, the retired Japanese admiral. "The PLAN cannot intimidate Japan by these types of exercises."