Japan strategy a threat to peace

As one of the first countries to establish an ADIZ (in 1969), Japan incorporated three-fourths of the airspace over the East China Sea into its ADIZ, which is just 130 kilometers from the Chinese mainland's coastline. And in 1972, Japan widened the scope of its ADIZ to include the Diaoyu Islands, which has been an integral part of Chinese territory since ancient times.

In recent years, it has become typical of Tokyo to accuse Beijing of intruding into its ADIZ and to dispatch warplanes to monitor China's routine exercise and patrol activities. Those, in the words of Abe, are exactly what could "invite an unexpected situation". Abe got the wording right but the usage wrong; Japan, not China, might "invite an unexpected situation".

Despite the huffing and puffing, Tokyo has failed to make ASEAN back it against China at the Tokyo special summit. Even the US, which sent a pair of B-52 bombers to fly over the zone without informing China in an act of defiance last month, has come to its senses and asked its airlines to comply with the Chinese ADIZ regulations. Since the establishment of the ADIZ, more than 50 foreign airlines have submitted their flight plans to China. Therefore, Japan's adamant stance - advising its airlines not to comply with Chinese regulations - can be seen as an unwarranted provocation.

Although Beijing hopes Tokyo would stop playing dirty politics and serve the larger interest of regional stability, Japan's recent attempts at military buildup and its defiance of the post-war order strike a discordant note at a time when the world is celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Cairo Declaration.

For a glimpse into Abe's militarist streak, one just has to recall a scene from earlier this year when he put on military uniform and posed inside a training jet numbered 731, a reminder of the notorious Unit 731 that undertook lethal human experimentation before and during World War II. This is shocking, more so because Japan's gaffe-prone Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso has said that Japan could learn from Nazi Germany to revise its pacifist constitution on another occasion.

Such militarist rhetoric and posture should set the alarm bells ringing in the region and beyond. And Japan's national security strategy, although seemingly targeted at China, should be viewed by one and all as a threat to world peace.

The author is a Beijing-based military expert.

(China Daily 12/17/2013 page9)