By Richard Fernandez
A world without America is a dangerous world. The BBC reports
that China has declared an ADIZ over the Senkaku islands that are disputed with
Japan.
China has demarcated an “air-defence identification zone” over an
area of the East China Sea, covering islands that are also claimed by Japan.
China’s Defence Ministry said aircraft entering the zone must obey its
rules or face “emergency defensive measures”. The zone came into effect
from 10:00 local time (02:00GMT) on Saturday.
The islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, are a
source of rising tension between the countries.
Steve Harman, Voice of America correspondent, tweets “many eyes in
#Japan will be on Washington’s reaction today to #China’s declaration of
ADIZ…Hoping for clear push back.”
Washington may surprise us, but it has been unable to push back
anywhere lately, a situation so obvious it provoked Hillary Clinton to warn
that if the US didn’t get it act together the world would “de-Americanize”. The
Chinese challenge seems a case in point.
She laid the blame for America’s decline on those who opposed
raising the debt limit saying: “all the business leaders wanted to talk to me
about was, ‘was the United States going to default on its debt?’ And I kept
saying, ‘Oh, of course not. We would never do that.’ And just hoping and
praying that I was right.” As for praying, Obama beat her to it.
Obama seeking guidance from the spirit of JFK
He ought to keep on praying and maybe he’ll eventually get
something right. His sole skill set appears to be blaming anyone but himself
for failure. The apprehension that America has fallen from its former
hegemonic state is being echoed with increasing frequency. Caroline Glick at the Jerusalem Post
describes how the Kurds, Arab, Turks and Israelis are all realigining, driving
the peregrinations of Benjamin Netanyahu.
Although Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s meeting Wednesday
with Russian President Vladimir Putin did not bring about a realignment of
Russian interests with the Franco- Sunni-Israeli anti-Iran consortium, the very
fact that Netanyahu went to Moscow sent a clear message to the world community
that in its dealings with outside powers, Israel no longer feels itself
constrained by its alliance with the US.
And that was really the main purpose of the visit. Netanyahu
didn’t care that Putin rejected his position on Iran. Israel didn’t need Russia
to block Jarrett’s deal. Iran is no longer interested in even feigning interest
in a nuclear deal. It was able to neutralize US power in the region, and cast
the US’s regional allies into strategic disarray just by convincing Obama and
Jarrett that a deal was in the offing. This is why Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei again threatened to annihilate Israel this week. He doesn’t think he
needs to sugar coat his intentions any longer.
And as with the Middle East, so with Asia. The president’s
unbroken record of failure has weakened America to the point where overt challenges
are not only possible, but actually occurring. The Chinese and Japanese now
have overlapping ADIZ’s.
First, aircraft flying in the East China Sea Air Defense
Identification Zone must abide by these rules.
Second, aircraft flying in the East China Sea Air Defense
Identification Zone must provide the following means of identification:
1. Flight plan identification. Aircraft flying in the East China
Sea Air Defense Identification Zone should report the flight plans to the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China or the Civil
Aviation Administration of China.
2. Radio identification. Aircraft flying in the East China Sea Air
Defense Identification Zone must maintain the two-way radio communications, and
respond in a timely and accurate manner to the identification inquiries from
the administrative organ of the East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone
or the unit authorized by the organ.
3. Transponder identification. Aircraft flying in the East China
Sea Air Defense Identification Zone, if equipped with the secondary radar
transponder, should keep the transponder working throughout the entire course.
4. Logo identification. Aircraft flying in the East China Sea Air
Defense Identification Zone must clearly mark their nationalities and the logo
of their registration identification in accordance with related international
treaties.
Third, aircraft flying in the East China Sea Air Defense
Identification Zone should follow the instructions of the administrative organ
of the East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone or the unit authorized by
the organ. China’s armed forces will adopt defensive emergency measures to respond
to aircraft that do not cooperate in the identification or refuse to follow the
instructions.
Fourth, the Ministry of National Defense of the People’s Republic
of China is the administrative organ of the East China Sea Air Defense
Identification Zone.
Fifth, the Ministry of National Defense of the People’s Republic
of China is responsible for the explanation of these rules.
Sixth, these rules will come into force at 10 a.m. November 23,
2013.
This may of course be a tempest in a teapot. But the air is rife
with challenge. North Korea has kidnapped an elderly American veteran to use
as a bargaining chip to extort more money from the US taxpayer.
(CNN) — It was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime for Merrill
Newman, a Korean War veteran who had long wanted to go to North Korea.
It ended, according to his family, with the detention of Newman,
85, when he was pulled off a plane at Pyongyang’s Sunan International Airport
five minutes before it was to depart.
Newman, of Palo Alto, California, has not been seen nor heard from
since October 26, the day he and a traveling companion wrapped up a 10-day
organized tour of North Korea, his son, Jeff Newman, told CNN.
The U.S. State Department declined Thursday to confirm Newman’s
identity or whether he had been detained, citing privacy issues. North Korea
has not publicly acknowledged that it is holding Newman….
The timing raises questions about whether North Korea plans to use
Newman as a bargaining chip in the negotiations, a move the West has previously
accused it of doing to try to gain concessions.
Glyn Davies, the U.S. special representative to North Korea,
declined to link the two, but said the detention of American citizens “is an
indication that North Korea seems not to be seeking a better relationship with
the United States.”
North Korea has seen the obvious. Mr. Shakedown can be shook down.
The only people the president can overawe are those who are law-abiding; who
follow the signage, abide by the rules. He can only bully those who decency is
greater than his. But in the lawless world without nobody seems to care about
his lightworking edicts. The president may “reach out” to North Korea —
and “reach in” to the taxpayer’s wallet to acquire the coin with which to
redeem poor Mr. Newman.
The fundamental problem is that nobody — except the tame media and
toadies on the progressive Left — believe in Barack Obama any more, aka
President Error 404. Foreign enemies have
taken his measure and found nothing but a hollow man. Hillary Clinton may
choose to blame anyone but herself and the administration for the debacles that
are unreeling, not just domestically, but overseas. While her explanations
might be swallowed hook, line and sinker by the compliant media they will cut
no ice where it really counts: in the power centers and capitals of the world.
The administration is losing America’s pants to save its face.
That’s not going to change until it rediscovers competence. Where it has
mislaid this article, only they can say. What happens if China challenges
a JSDF flight? Should we worry? We have it on good authority that
it’s no big deal. “What difference, at this point, does it make?”
Unarmed USAF B-52s flew into China’s Senakaku
ADIZ from Guam, according to the BBC. The NYT and the Washington Post
report the same thing.
“We have conducted operations in the area of the Senkakus,” said
US Colonel Steve Warren.
“We have continued to follow our normal procedures, which include
not filing flight plans, not radioing ahead and not registering our
frequencies.”
He added that so far there had been no response from China.
The aircraft, which were unarmed, had taken off from Guam on
Monday and the flight was part of a regular exercise in the area, a US defense
official said.
The US – which has more than 70,000 troops in Japan and South
Korea – had previously said it would not abide by the “destabilising” Chinese-imposed
zone.
These developments have an eerie resemblance to the Cuban Missile
crisis, which readers will recall, was precipitated by Krushchev’s perception
of JFK’s weakness at the Vienna
Summit of 1961.
Kennedy later said of Khrushchev, “He beat the hell out of me” and
told New York Times reporter James ‘Scotty’ Reston it was the “worst thing in
my life. He savaged me”. Kennedy’s performance at the summit encouraged
Khrushchev to think afterwards that the United States leader was politically
lightweight, a perception that may have caused the subsequent Cuban missile
crisis.
The Soviet leader had backed Kennedy into a corner and did not
anticipate the response. In a reverse mirror image of the Senkaku crisis,
Kennedy imposed a naval blockade on Cuba. Today, 50
years later, it is the US which is insisting on freedom of navigation.
While the tense negotiations were taking place, several Soviet
ships attempted to run the blockade, increasing tensions to the point that
orders were sent out to US Navy ships to fire warning shots and then open fire.
On October 27, a U-2 plane was shot down by a Soviet missile crew, an action
that could have resulted in immediate retaliation from the Kennedy crisis
cabinet, according to Secretary of Defense McNamara’s later testimony. Kennedy
stayed his hand and the negotiations continued.
The confrontation ended on October 28, 1962, when Kennedy and
United Nations Secretary-General U Thant reached an agreement with Khrushchev.
Publicly, the Soviets would dismantle their offensive weapons in Cuba and
return them to the Soviet Union, subject to United Nations verification, in
exchange for a US public declaration and agreement never to invade Cuba.
Secretly, the US also agreed that it would dismantle all US-built Jupiter
IRBMs, armed with nuclear warheads, which were deployed in Turkey and Italy
against the Soviet Union.
Nor is the US alone. Japan announced that it is sending airline flights through Beijing’s
ADIZ. “ANA Holdings Inc. (9202) and Japan Airlines Co. (9201), the country’s
two biggest carriers, said they would stop reporting flight plans for planes
traveling through a new Chinese air-defense zone that Japan rejects.”
ANA and JAL said they would halt the sharing of the flight-plan
data starting today, spokesmen said by phone. The carriers shifted their stance
on instructions from Japan’s airline trade group, which acted as an
intermediary between the airlines and Japan’s Civil Aviation Bureau, Maho Ito,
an ANA spokeswoman, said by telephone.
China’s action may escalate the situation and lead to unforeseen
events, Abe told a parliamentary committee, saying that he was very concerned.
“We urge China to revoke this measure, which is in no way binding on Japan.”
Australia has chimed in, summoning the Chinese
ambassador to convey its opinion that “the timing and the manner of China’s
announcement are unhelpful in light of current regional tensions, and will not
contribute to regional stability.”
The ball is now in Beijing’s court. Japan and the US may
privately extend a conciliatory hand in order to mitigate the public challenge
to China. Perhaps diplomats will negotiate some concession to Beijing to
sugar-coat this challenge. But the pushback had to come; the only question is
when that would happen. In claiming the right to intercept aircraft over the
Senkakus China had thrown down a challenge that the other Pacific powers could
not ignore.
There maybe other implicit messages whose subtext we cannot know.
Interception is one of the most time critical missions an airforce can
face. For the Chinese to successflly intercept aircraft over the Senkakus there
had to be PLA aircraft sufficiently near enough to do the job. Even ordinarily
they would have been hard pressed to meet a fleeting target.
But the B-52 transit of the ADIZ may have demonstrated the extent
of American situational awareness; the real-time awareness of the location of
China’s air assets. If the US can see temporal holes in China’s
defense architecture, then it can slip bombers or anything else through
those gaps like a boxer in Matrix-like Bullet Time who can strike through his opponents
blocks.
The Black Box may be mighter than the steel, at
least for now. Or maybe Obama sent the unarmed B-52s trusting to luck. At
present the Chinese can’t know which and that at least will give them pause.
The Senkaku incident reminds everyone of something that is often
forgotten. If something cannot continue indefinitely then it won’t.
Authoritarians emboldened by their success must always remember reality is out
there. China may be powerful, but it still lives on the planet earth. It cannot
at present successfully impose its will on Japan, the US, Korea and Australia
while joined in concert. At least, not without grave risk.
The Senkaku incident should also serve as a warning to the West. A
crisis is best avoided by never giving the appearance of weakness in the first
place. The Cuban Missile crisis could have led to a nuclear war. The door the
Vienna summit opened could have led anywhere. We won’t always be that lucky.
Richard Fernandez was born
in the Philippines, got a Masters Degree at Harvard, and is presently a
software fellow working in Australia. He publishes the Belmont Club blog, which
is often carried in PJ Media, also. He is a well read and smart fellow who
travels and speaks a lot for that reason, too.
Keep in mind the Chinese on
Taiwan (ROC) are players in this "game", too. This is seldom discussed
in the USA media these days.
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