Golez: Fair warning NATIONAL Japanese official warns that South China Sea activities may be precursor to ADIZ KYODO

Golez: Fair warning

NATIONAL

Japanese official warns that South China Sea activities may be precursor to ADIZ

KYODO

• DEC 15, 2015
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WASHINGTON – A top Japanese defense official warned Monday that China may be creating artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea as a forerunner to declaring an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) over the waters.

“China is building islands in the South China Sea on which to put radar and air defense missiles,” Masanori Nishi, policy adviser to Defense Minister Gen Nakatani, said in an article contributed to Defense News, a U.S. weekly paper.

The initiative “might be for a future ADIZ announcement in the South China Sea,” said Nishi, who took up his current post in October after resigning as vice defense minister, the top bureaucrat in the Defense Ministry.

Nishi also suggested China would seek to learn “lessons” from its establishment of an ADIZ over the East China Sea in 2013. That zone overlaps with Japanese airspace over the Senkaku Islands, which are administered by Japan but claimed by China and Taiwan. Beijing recently failed to spot a U.S. bomber flying through a blind spot in the zone, Nishi said.

What China will do next is “beyond our imagination” as it continues to test boundaries, Nishi said.

“In this escalating game, we must be vigilant,” he said, referring to the importance of cooperation by Tokyo, Washington and other allies over the South China Sea issue.

Japan, the U.S. and other nations have blasted China for constructing various large-scale facilities on the reclaimed islands, including at least two airstrips in the disputed Spratly islets while ignoring objections by other claimants.

China’s November 2013 declaration of an ADIZ over the East China Sea drew sharp criticism from Japan and the U.S. The zone’s demarcation overlaps those declared by Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, and came without any prior consultation with relevant countries.

Any nation can set up an ADIZ outside its territorial airspace as a defense perimeter to give the country more time to respond to incursions by potentially hostile aircraft.

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