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China’s ADIZ is a strategic move to control First Island   Chain Posted on December 25, 2013 by StMA | 6 comments

On Nov. 23, 2013, China unilaterally announced an East China Sea Air Defense

Identification Zone (ADIZ) which includes the Japan-held Senkaku Islands,

which Chinese call Diaoyutai and over which China also claims ownership.

Since that declaration, Japan and South Korea have refused to accept China’s ADIZ,

while the Obama administration has sent mixed signals — at first seemingly challenging

the ADIZ by flying two unarmed B-52 bombers over the East China Sea   (and the

disputed Senkaku islands), then seemingly accepting the ADIZ   so long as China not

require all aircraft, commercial and military, to check with Beijing before flying through

the ADIZ.

It turns out that China’s ADIZ isn’t solely motivated by Beijing’s irredentist

claim over the Senkakus, but reaches beyond those disputed islets to include

none other than the First Island Chain.

What is the First Island Chain? From Maria Hsia Chang, Return of the Dragon: China’s

Wounded Nationalism (Westview, 2001), p. 220:

The PRC [People's Republic of China] now conceives oceans to be its “second national

territory (dier guotu). … China’s “second national territory” includes 12 territorial seas

…, 24 “maritime adjacent zones”…, 200 maritime exclusive economic zones and

continental shelves — totaling more than 3 million square kilometers or one-third of

China’s total land mass.

Defense of its “maritime national territory” requires Beijing to shift its defense strategy

from one of “coastal defense” … to “offshore defense”…. National Defense maintains

that since “the frontline of maritime national defense lies beyond China’s territorial

waters … there will be times” when China’s defense of its seas “may require doing

battle in farther maritime regions” including “international waters and seabeds.”

China’s perimeter of “offshore defense” is conceived to include two “island chains.” The

first chain stretches from the Aleutians to the Kurils, the Japanese

archipelago, the Ryukyus, Taiwan, the Philippine archipelago, and the Greater

Sunda Islands. The “second island chain” comprises the Bonins, the Marianas, Guam

[a U.S. territory], and the Palau archipelago.

First and Second

Island Chains (click map to enlarge)

Below is an excerpt from a commentary by Li Xuejiang (李学江) in the Chinese-

language People’s Network (Renmin wang   人民网 )  of Dec. 3, 2013, titled “Why China’s

ADIZ is like a fishbone stuck in the throats of Japan and the U.S.”:

China’s announcement of an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) caused an uproar in

Japan, the United States, Australia, Canada and other Western countries. Japan and the

U.S. even sent military planes as an act of provocation. Their media also rallied together

to attack China. Some people laughed at China, saying that the ADIZ is a “disgrace,”

“useless,” “a paper tiger.” But in truth, their reaction proves that China’s ADIZ is like a

fishbone that’s stuck in the throats of Japan and the U.S.

One of the accusations against China is that China’s military modernization is

“disrupting the balance of power in the region.” The United States, therefore, should

“return to Asia” to restore the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific. Some U.S. allies in

Southeast Asia also expect the United States to counterbalance China. It should be

noted, however, that the Asia-Pacific has never had a military balance to restore. Not

only has the United States never left Asia, it has had military dominance in East Asia. …

In recent years China’s military modernization has been more in the interest of  defense

— an interest that is necessary and legitimate in order to rectify the “imbalance” of

power so as to achieve a “rebalance.” This is what worries the United States and Japan.

But that should not deter China — China cannot stop cultivating crops because of a

“fear of locusts.”

China’s establishment of the ADIZ is not only a matter of the sovereignty of our core

national interests and of economic importance; it also has great strategic significance.

The United States not only has never accused Japan for its ADIZ, but strongly supports

it. Why do these two countries cooperate so seamlessly? Their purpose is, through

Japan’s ADIZ, to achieve a blockage of China’s sea and air passages in the first island

chain.

Japan’s attempt in so doing is not just “unacceptable,” China must break through the

blockage. Ironically, the United States and Japan have shown us how to break that

blockage. Now that American and Japanese military airplanes have trespassed into

China’s ADIZ without notice, China can also do so vis-a-vis Japan’s ADIZ and without

notification. In effect, the U.S.-Japan’s first island chain has become a “useless paper

tiger.”