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U.S. Flies B-52s Into China’s Expanded Air Defense Zone U.S. Sends Two B-52 Bombers Into Air Zone Claimed by China
(about 3 hours later)
WASHINGTON — Two long-range American bombers flew through airspace that China recently declared it has the right to police in what Pentagon officials described as a routine flight but which sent a clear message that the United States rejects the Chinese claims. WASHINGTON — Defying China’s attempt to extend its jurisdiction over more of the East China Sea, two long-range American bombers flew through disputed airspace over the sea just days after the Chinese asserted they have the right to police it.
B-52 bombers passed through what is likely to become the most contested area of China’s new “air defense identification zone”: the airspace above islands that are the subject of a tense sovereignty dispute between Japan and China. Pentagon officials said Tuesday that the B-52s were on a routine training mission that had been planned long in advance of the Chinese announcement on Saturday that it was establishing an “air defense identification zone” over contested islands and seas that have been the source of increasing tension with Japan. But the message was clear.
The flights over the East China Sea came a week before Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. is scheduled to visit Beijing as part of a weeklong trip that will include stops in Japan and South Korea amid American attempts to revive its “pivot” to Asia. Administration officials said Mr. Biden would raise American concerns about China’s territorial claims with the leadership in Beijing. A senior Pentagon official said Tuesday that the training mission “was a demonstration of long-established international rights to freedom of navigation and transit through international airspace.” The official said the unilateral Chinese declaration of expanded control “was provocative, and a barrier to dialogue that only increases the risk of miscalculation in the region.”
The American officials said the United States military would continue to assert its right to fly through what it regards as international airspace by continuing a standard cycle of training flights in the area. United States officials said there had been no Chinese response to Tuesday’s bomber run, which was a roundtrip from Guam. There was no immediate Chinese military response to the flights, which were conducted without prior notification as demanded by the new declaration from Beijing, which asserted the right to identify, monitor and possibly take military action against any aircraft that enter the area.
On Saturday, the Chinese government announced, without consultations, that it had the right to identify, monitor and possibly take military action against aircraft that enter the newly designated air defense zone — a move that threatened to create new friction with Japan. The unexpected announcement by China was among its boldest moves yet in a struggle for power in Asia with the United States, and by extension its regional allies including Japan. The United States, long the dominant power in the region, has been scrambling to shore up its influence in the region, promising in what it called a “pivot” to Asia in 2011 to refocus its energies there after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan diverted its time and resources.
The Obama administration has become increasingly worried by the standoff over the islands, which could drag the United States into a conflict. By treaty, the United States is obligated to defend Japan if it is attacked. Having Japan in the mix only adds volatility. The country has its own tangled history with China, which has sped past Japan as an economic power and which retains bitter memories of imperial Japan’s military invasion last century. Under its conservative leader, Shinzo Abe, Japan has refused to back down in the dispute with China over the islands, which Japan has long controlled.
The islands, called the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China, are currently administered by the Japanese, who consider the airspace above that area to be theirs. For the White House, the flare-up could prove a major distraction for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., as he embarks on a weeklong tour of China, Japan, and South Korea. Administration officials are eager to focus on issues like a trans-Pacific trade deal and North Korea.
On Tuesday, Josh Earnest, a deputy White House spokesman, reiterated the administration’s view that the Chinese announcement was “unnecessarily inflammatory” and had a “destabilizing impact on the region.” Officials and analysts have been especially worried that the more planes and boats in the contested area around the islands, the greater the risk of a mistake that spirals out of control. The islands, called the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China, are currently administered by the Japanese, who consider the airspace above the islands to be theirs. American officials have been increasingly worried about the standoff they say should be resolved diplomatically. By treaty the United States is obligated to defend Japan if attacked.
Within hours of the Chinese announcement, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel issued a statement expressing deep concern. But both China and America’s Asian allies know that Washington’s focus has been elsewhere, a reality that become ever more evident when President Obama had to cancel a trip to an Asian summit meeting during his battle with Congress over the budget and his health care plan.
“We view this development as a destabilizing attempt to alter the status quo in the region,” Mr. Hagel said. “This unilateral action increases the risk of misunderstanding and miscalculations.” Pressed on whether the Chinese move represents an overt attempt to fill an American security void in the region, Pentagon officials respond by pointing to the American response to the catastrophic typhoon that struck the Philippines this month. The United States quickly moved in hundreds of Marines, dozens of transport aircraft and an entire aircraft carrier strike group. China’s offer of military assistance was feeble by comparison.
Mr. Hagel noted, “This announcement by the People’s Republic of China will not in any way change how the United States conducts military operations in the region.” However, President Obama is fielding a new national security team with views on Asia that are still coalescing and with relatively little experience in the region.
His statement concluded by noting that the United States is “steadfast in our commitments to our allies and partners. The United States reaffirms its longstanding policy that Article V of the U.S.-Japan Mutual Defense Treaty applies to the Senkaku Islands.” In her first major speech on Asia policy last week, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, did not mention the mutual defense clause in the treaty between the United States and Japan — an omission her colleagues dismissed as irrelevant, since American officials reiterate it religiously, but which troubled some in Japan.
The Defense Department routinely uses transit of combat aircraft and warships to assert the right of free passage in international airspace and international waters — and to demonstrate a willingness to defend American and allied interests against possible aggressors. But Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel wasted no time in responding to the initial Chinese declaration, issuing a statement reiterating that the United States is “steadfast in our commitments to our allies and partners. The United States reaffirms its longstanding policy that Article V of the U.S.-Japan Mutual Defense Treaty applies to the Senkaku Islands.”
The move by China appeared to be another step in its efforts to intensify pressure on Japan over the contested islands. It began with nearly daily entry into or near Japanese-claimed waters by Chinese coast guard and other paramilitary ships. The incursions led to a constant game of cat-and-mouse on the high seas in which Japanese coast guard ships pursue the Chinese ships, with both sides using bull horns and electric sign boards to tell the other to stay out of its territorial waters. American officials said Tuesday that the United States military would continue to stage a standard cycle of training flights in that area.
Though military forces are never far, they have tended to have stay in the background, apparently with an eye on preventing a dangerous escalation. The Chinese began to make stronger claims after Japan purchased some of the islands from a Japanese citizen last year. Japan’s leaders said they did so to keep the islands away from a Japanese ultranationalist, but China saw the purchase as a way for Japan to strengthen its control. China’s declaration on Saturday, from a Ministry of National Defense spokesman, Col. Yang Yujun, accompanied the ministry’s release of a map, geographic coordinates and rules in Chinese and English that said “China’s armed forces will take defensive emergency measures to respond to aircraft that do not cooperate in identification or refuse to follow orders.”
In its announcement of the new air defense zone, the Chinese defense ministry said the country would require flight plans, as well as radio and logo identification of all aircraft operating in the zone. The state-run news agency, Xinhua, said that if an aircraft did not supply its flight plan, “China’s armed forces will adopt emergency defensive measures in response.” After the announcement, several Japanese commercial airlines that fly over the area, including Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airlines, began filing flight plans to China, according to the Japanese government. On Tuesday, a group representing those airlines, Japan’s two largest, issued a statement saying that the airlines would heed their government’s request to stop filing flight plans.
At the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, the spokesman, Qin Gang, said that all foreign aircraft — including those from the United States — would be subject to the new rules without exceptions. “I believe it is important for the public and private sectors to cooperate in showing our firm resolve to China,” said Japan’s foreign minister, Fumio Kishida.
After the announcement Saturday, several Japanese commercial airlines began filing flight plans with China, according to the Japanese government. On Tuesday, Japan’s Transportation Ministry asked them to stop, and a group representing the two largest Japanese airlines — Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airlines — issued a statement later in the day saying that it would heed the request. Just how China would enforce the rules, including prior announcement of flight plans and logo identification for foreign aircraft that entered the zone, may not be clear for a while, experts said. But the severe language that accompanied the announcement, and the fact that the new Chinese air defense zone overlapped with Japan’s long established air defense zone dating from 1969 was alarming, they said.
The group, the Scheduled Airlines Association of Japan, said it had “determined that there was no concern about the safety of flights even if flight plans were not submitted to China.” In describing China’s operation of the new zone, a senior colonel at the National Defense University, Meng Xiangqin, told China’s main television broadcaster, CCTV, that once foreign aircraft entered the area, ground missile forces, including antiaircraft missiles, should be on a state of alert.
Japan’s foreign minister, Fumio Kishida, said the government was in close communication with the airlines.

Mark Landler contributed reporting from Washington, Martin Fackler from Tokyo, and Jane Perlez from Beijing.

“I believe it is important for the public and private sectors to cooperate in showing our firm resolve to China,” Mr. Kishida said.

Jane Perlez contributed reporting from Beijing, and Martin Fackler from Tokyo.