indian_foxhound
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As it pursues its territorial ambitions, China is
following an increasingly belligerent course that
could easily tip into war with its neighbours. In the last few days, elements of the Peoples
Liberation Army have aggressively intruded into
the territory of both Japan and India. At the same time, China has ratcheted up its
rhetoric with Vietnam and the Philippines as
those countries attempt to assert their
sovereignty over disputed islands in the South
China Sea. Of the three flashpoints, by far the most
threatening is the increasingly aggressive games
of chicken Beijings military forces are playing
over and around Japans Senkaku Islands,
known in Chinese as the Diaoyutai, in the East
China Sea. Last Tuesday, 40 Chinese military planes, mostly
jet fighters, flew close to the cluster of five
uninhabited islands, prompting Japan to scramble
F-15 fighter planes from an airbase on the
Japanese island of Okinawa. At the same time, eight Chinese maritime
surveillance ships entered the 12-nautical-mile
zone around the islands marking Japans
territorial waters. Japanese newspapers quoted a Tokyo
government official as describing last weeks
actions by the Chinese forces as an
unprecedented threat. If such a show of force
continues, it is feared it could lead to a situation
where the Japanese air defence force may not be able to cope. The incursions are the biggest since China started
this campaign of elbowing the Japanese defence
forces on Dec. 13 last year. That was the anniversary of the 1937 capture of
the Chinese city of Nanking by invading Japanese
forces, which was followed by a massacre of
civilians. One of the most aggressive Chinese moves was
on Jan. 30 when a Chinese frigate locked its
missile-control radar on a Japanese navy
destroyer and later on a Japanese helicopter. Locking radar onto a target is the last step before
firing a missile, and tells an adversary that an
attack could be just seconds away. In such a situation, it is all too easy for
misjudgments to be made and a conflict to start
by accident. But China is evidently prepared to take that risk
in pursuit of its claim to the Senkakus. On Friday, a spokeswomen for Chinas Foreign
Ministry told reporters that the Senkakus are one
of the countrys core interests, a phrase it
usually reserves for issues which Beijing
considers non-negotiable and over which it is
prepared to go to war. The core interests phrase is also applied by
Beijing to its claim to the island nation of Taiwan,
and to almost the entire South China Sea as far
south as the territorial waters of Indonesia. Beijings long-standing border dispute with India
in the Himalayas, which spawned a brief but
intense war in 1962, comes from Chinas
occupation of Indias northern neighbour, Tibet. In recent years, both China and India have beefed
up their military presence on the border, and
although there are mechanisms in place to
minimize conflicts on the ground, these happen
with regularity. On April 15, China sent a platoon of soldiers 20
kilometres inside Indian-controlled territory,
where they have established a camp. The camp is at Ladakh, close to the strategic
Karakoram Pass. India has called on China to remove the soldiers,
but several meetings between local army
commanders and diplomats have failed to resolve
the issue. The incursion by the Chinese has raised a public
storm in India, with many commentators
accusing Beijing of taking advantage of the
weakness of the government of Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh, who is set to retire before next
years elections. There are also demands that India use force if
necessary to get the Chinese to withdraw,
otherwise Beijing will be encouraged to continue
trying to change the reality on the ground. The reality on the ground is also changing rapidly
in the South China Sea, where China is moving
forcefully to establish a presence and thus a
semblance of sovereignty over the Paracel and
Spratly chains of islands, islets and shoals. The Spratly and Paracel groups, whose exclusive
economic zones include bountiful fishing grounds
and large submarine oil and gas deposits, are also
claimed in part by Vietnam, Taiwan, the
Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia. But China is acting with bullish belligerence in
defence of another of its core interests,
confronting Philippines coast guard vessels and
harassing Vietnamese survey ships in contested
waters. Chinas state-controlled media has threatened
both Vietnam and the Philippines with war, and
on Friday, Beijing condemned the Manila
government for taking their dispute to the United
Nations. Vietnam, meanwhile, is strengthening its
relations with the United States as a bulwark
against China. In a highly visible sign of Washingtons support
for the Hanoi government, on Tuesday last week
the U.S. consul-general in Ho Chi Minh City
accompanied Vietnamese officials on a visit to an
island claimed by China in the Paracel group.
http://idrw.org/?p=21466
what's the point
