BEIJING — A modest-looking twin-propeller Chinese aircraft loaded with radar and other surveillance equipment swooped low over the waters close to disputed islands in the East China Sea on Thursday, the latest move by China to increase the pressure on Japan over who owns the uninhabited island chain.
By itself, the less than 30-minute flight by the nine-year-old plane into what Japan considers its airspace did not amount to much. Japanese F-15 jets were sent in response, but the Chinese plane had left by the time they got to the area.
But the Chinese sortie was part of a steady escalation in the air, on the sea and in public statements by China against Japan, a strategy that analysts say was fixed upon three months ago to take back the islands known as Diaoyu in China and the Senkaku in Japan. The strategy, they say, is being overseen by the new leader, Xi Jinping.
Just days before the Chinese plane ventured into Japanese airspace, four Chinese warships, returning from an exercise elsewhere, entered waters near the islands, cruised along for five hours and then left, Chinese state news media said. Chinese law enforcement boats have been patrolling the waters close to the islands regularly since September, but the appearance of the Chinese Navy near the islands on three occasions, combined with the incursion by the plane, adds new dangers to the dispute, analysts said.
In effect, they say, the Chinese authorities are trying to unilaterally change the status quo of the islands, which have been administered by Japan for decades, attempting to use the air and naval patrols as evidence of their own longstanding claim.
“China is now challenging Japan’s effective control of the islands with ships on the water and planes in the air,” said M. Taylor Fravel, associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The goal was to deter Japan from trying to develop the islands, he said, but there was an inherent risk that an accident at sea or in the air between the two sides could spiral out of control with unforeseen consequences.
Japan, which itself regularly patrols the islands, argues that the Chinese have no case. Japanese officials say the Chinese began claiming the islands were historically theirs only in the early 1970s, after evidence emerged that the seabeds nearby might hold rich oil and natural gas deposits. The latest dispute over the islands began months ago, when the right-wing governor of Tokyo suggested that his city might buy some of them back from a Japanese family to ensure that China did not challenge Japan’s control. The central government then bought the islands, saying it was trying to keep them out of the governor’s hands, but China viewed the purchase as a provocation.
The stepped-up pressure by China has come as the Japanese prepare to go to the polls on Sunday in an election that is likely to return to power the former prime minister, Shinzo Abe, of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party. Although Mr. Abe in the past has tried to improve relations with China, he is also known as a hawk and has campaigned on strengthening Japan’s defense forces against China’s mounting challenges. The Japanese Navy is considered one of the world’s most sophisticated, but China is increasing its naval capacity.
In China, Mr. Xi was appointed as head of a powerful interagency group formed in September at the top of the Chinese government to oversee the country’s maritime disputes. That was two months before he assumed the leadership of the Communist Party and before he became the civilian head of the military at the 18th Party Congress.
That means that for three months now, Mr. Xi has had a critical say in how China conducts its strategy with Japan, Western and Chinese analysts say.
At the same time, China has put greater focus on its growing maritime capacities. The outgoing leader, Hu Jintao, said in a farewell address that China aimed to become a maritime power. A highlight of Mr. Xi’s just-finished tour of southern China was a visit to one of China’s most advanced destroyers, the Haikou, which often patrols the South China Sea, another disputed area off China’s shores.
The dispute with Japan carries great resonance with the Chinese public.
The older generation recalls the history of the 1894 Sino-Japanese war when Japan humiliated China at sea, and Chinese argue that Japan’s annexation of the islands the next year was a first step in empire-building that culminated in its invasion of China in the 1930s.
The younger generation bristles with the themes of a revised 1990s nationalistic school curriculum even as they buy classy Japanese cars, electronics and fashion.
The economic fallout from the dispute has hurt Japan, but may not leave China unscathed, either.
Japanese economists say that Japanese auto sales in China, where top-tier Japanese brands were something of a status symbol, slumped precipitously in September and October. There has been a slight recovery since those lows, they said.
Some Japanese manufacturers in China, including Toyota and Sony, suspended production after anti-Japanese protests related to the islands, and laid off Chinese employees who demanded higher wages when they returned. Some Chinese economists have warned the government that large-scale boycotts of Japanese goods could lead to huge job losses in a softening Chinese economy.
With little prospect of a return to more normal relations anytime soon, some Japanese factories in China are beginning to seek alternative locations in Southeast Asia, such as Myanmar, where wages are lower and employees are less demanding, according to Japanese surveys.
As the dispute drags on, China’s words and actions in international forums have escalated, too. The foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, wrote in an article in The People’s Daily last week that China would “resolutely fight against the Japanese side” over what he called the illegal purchase of the islands.
On Friday, China submitted documents to the United Nations detailing its claims to the continental shelf in the East China Sea, another step toward establishing its legal rights.
In mid-September, as the islands dispute intensified, a vice minister of foreign affairs, Le Yucheng, foreshadowed China’s unfolding game plan. Referring to the claims that would be handed to the United Nations, he said: “All these are proclamations of China’s sovereignty.” China, he said, “will take tit-for-tat measures to protect our territory as the situation develops.”
China Steps Up Pressure On Japan in Island Dispute
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China Steps Up Pressure On Japan in Island Dispute
