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Version 4 Version 5
China Sends Jets Into ‘Air Defense’ Zone After Flights by Japan and South Korea China Patrols Air Zone Over Disputed Islands
(about 5 hours later)
TOKYO — China sent fighter jets into its newly declared air defense zone Thursday on what state media called the country’s first air patrol since it declared control of the airspace. The announcement came hours after Japan and South Korea sent their own military planes into the airspace over the East China Sea, testing China’s resolve to enforce its declaration. BEIJING — China sent fighter jets on the first patrols of its new air defense zone over disputed islands in the East China Sea on Thursday, the state news agency, Xinhua, said.
The announcement of the flights came just days after unarmed American B-52 bombers flew through the same zone in defiance of China. Beijing later said that it had monitored the American bombers but had chosen not to take action even though the planes did not tell the Chinese they were coming, as the government now demands. The patrols followed announcements by Japan and South Korea that their military planes had flown through the zone unhindered by China.
On Thursday, the top Japanese government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, said that the Chinese had not been notified of the Japanese flights, and reported that China did not scramble its fighter jets to intercept the planes. The tit-for-tat flights between China on one side and South Korea and Japan on the other heightened the tensions over the East China Sea where China and Japan are at loggerheads over islands they both claim.
The South Korean government announced that it, too, had flown aircraft through the zone, on Wednesday, without alerting Beijing, a flight Chinese officials said they had monitored. The South Korean plane was a surveillance aircraft, the South Korean government said. The airspace in the new zone announced by China last week overlaps a similar zone declared by Japan more than 40 years ago. Both zones are over the islands known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan.
Like Japan, South Korea claims sovereignty over territory in the zone, but enjoys warmer ties with Beijing than Japan does. China has said that noncommercial aircraft entering the zone without prior notification would face “defensive emergency measures.”
Japan did not specify how many patrols had flown through the zone or when the flights were made. China would take “relevant measures according to different air threats” to defend the country’s airspace, Xinhua reported.
Japan, the United States and South Korea have all refused to recognize the air zone, which includes the airspace above disputed islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in Chinese. The islands are administered by Japan, but also claimed by China. In a direct challenge to earlier threats by China that it could take military action against foreign aircraft entering the zone, the United States sent two unarmed B-52 bombers to fly through the airspace for more than two hours overnight Monday.
When China declared the zone on Saturday, it said that it would police the airspace with military aircraft, a move that raised the specter of Japanese and Chinese fighter jets intercepting each other. The move drew immediate criticism from both Japan and the United States, which is obligated by treaty to defend Japan from attack. The Chinese military said it had monitored the flight path of the American planes, and China appeared to backpedal from its initial threats of action.
China’s failure so far to enforce the zone appears to support the view of some Japanese officials that the declaration of control was part of a broader, long-term strategy to try to pry the islands out of Japan’s grip. China has been doing this by sending coast guard ships around the islands, dispatching patrol aircraft and now claiming the airspace above all steps, Japanese officials say, aimed at proving that China has just as much legal basis as Japan to claim that it administers the islands. In an editorial, Global Times, a populist newspaper that often strikes a nationalist tone, said Japan, not the United States, was the target of the new zone.
“If the U.S. does not go too far, we will not target it in safeguarding our air defense zone,” the newspaper wrote. “What we should do at present is to firmly counter provocative actions from Japan.”
Responding to the situation, the State Department said, “We have urged the Chinese to exercise caution and restraint, and we are consulting with Japan and other affected parties throughout the region.”
Analysts have said that China’s declaration of the new zone is meant to whittle away at Japan’s hold on the islands. But the unexpected move is also seen as another attempt by an increasingly assertive China to establish itself as the dominant regional power, displacing the United States.
China has seemed to be stepping back this week from its original harsh tone, when it said aircraft entering the airspace needed to file flight plans in advance or face the possibility of military action. On Wednesday, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said China would decide on a case-by-case basis how strongly to respond to those who break its rules.
In a further clarification of its original stance, the People’s Liberation Army said Thursday that the new air zone was “not a territorial airspace” and did not mean that China would take immediate military action against aircraft that entered the zone.
At a monthly briefing for Chinese reporters, a spokesman, Yang Yujun, said it was “incorrect” to suggest China would shoot down planes in the zone. On Thursday, Japan’s top government spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, said the Chinese had not been notified of the Japanese flights, and reported that China had not scrambled its fighter jets to intercept them.
The South Korean government announced that it, too, had flown aircraft through the zone without alerting Beijing. Chinese officials said they had monitored the flight by what the South Koreans described as a surveillance aircraft. Like Japan, South Korea claims sovereignty over some territory in seas beneath the airspace, but Seoul enjoys warmer ties with Beijing than Tokyo does.
During a previously scheduled defense meeting on Thursday, South Korea asked China to change the boundaries of the new zone, according to the South Korean Yonhap news agency. But China rejected the request, said a spokesman for South Korea’s Defense Ministry, Kim Min-seok, according to the Yonhap report.

Jane Perlez reported from Beijing, and Martin Fackler from Tokyo. Gerry Mullany contributed reporting from Hong Kong, and Robert Pear from Washington.