High noon on the East China Sea

Some say it's "about time" the world had another world war. Let's hope not.

The Japanese media are in a frenzy, anticipating war by next month over the Senkaku Island/ADIZ dispute. China's provocative act of establishing a new air defense zone will only serve to undermine its foreign policy interests.

Sample article: Impending Japan-China war has the makings of a Clancy classic

article link

Ultimately Beijing may not want war, it probably views the ADIZ move as a bargaining tool against the Japanese over the Senkakus.

But in a worrying sign, China is showing it's willingness to risk conflict.  Someone said "war is politics by other means".

I only hope Barack Obama is up to the challenge, rather than him being distracted by his health care shambles.

Which one is the faker? (Watch funny video on fake sign language guy.)

China has in recent decades enjoyed "most favored nation" trading status with the US, which I guess is a euphemism for "friend we trade with but overlook the human rights abuses of". Well, with actions like this, China shouldn't be regarded as a "trusted friend" of the West anymore.

China wouldn't have made this move unless it thought it could deal militarily with any contingency that arose, particularly with regard to Japan.  China has been building its military for decades, ostensibly for defensive purposes. But it's using its new military powers for aggressive purposes, as it addresses grievances it perceives. 

When South Korea objected to the zone, China said it wasn't directed at them but at Japan. (As though that somehow makes it better for the Koreans, who are allied with Japan?!) The Koreans have now expanded their own zone tit-for-tat style.

With this move China is saying "we are ready" and "we are willing to take on all comers".

Of course China is nothing like on a par militarily with America. But with a huge standing army it would be impossible to defeat on home territory.

Any escalation to conflict risks not only the obvious negative consequences of any military conflict but, due to the World-China and US-China economic relationship, a total global depression perhaps greater than the 1930's one.

The air defense zones of other countries were set up under peaceful circumstances for rather more pragmatic purposes. There's no controversy over the North American zones, for example, because there are no other rival countries nearby.

And, the air defense zones of other nations, such as Japan and the US, are only for aircraft landing in those countries. More importantly, they do not overlap. For example, America has no extended air defense zone over Cuba.

Regarding ownership of the Senkakus: it's arguable as to who owns it, China or Japan. Even Taiwan's in on the mix. You can argue that China really owns them, but then you could also argue Manchuria should still be part of the Japanese Empire. Where you draw the line is subjective.

At present the arbiter of such disputes is called "the status quo". By defying the status quo, China is defying the entire US-led post-WW2 world order.   

By the way, where is the UN in this dispute?! What a useless bunch of do nothing pen-pushing parasites they prove to be time and time again.

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The international order is more fragile than it seems. We have been lucky to experience such stability in the post-WW2 period. But a broader view of history shows that borders are temporary, stability illusory. 

In history might makes right. Empires rise and fall; borders are redrawn. After all, being fair is for chumps when you can just steal land.

This can only serve to have a destabilizing effect on China's relation with the Western allies, and could see the US becoming more prominent in the dispute, rather than less prominent, as apparently anticipated by Beijing. 

Beijing had hoped the move would drive a wedge between Japan and the US. It had hoped that the US would be preoccupied elsewhere in the world such as the Middle East. 

And perhaps China believed the hype that the US's superpower status is waning. Instead it has had the opposite effect -- of renewing and revitalizing the alliance between South Korea, Japan and the United States.

Since WW2 America has had a binding defense pact with Japan, where Japan would take on a pacifist constitution and, in theory, have a passive defense force. Another requirement was that Japan would not develop nuclear weapons, and in exchange the US would provide the nuclear umbrella needed for Japan's defense.

China's move tests this pact. In my opinion, this is no time for the US-led West to back down, even if means total thermonuclear conflict. If it means war, then so be it. Perhaps the only peaceful way out is for true political reform in China.

But how likely is such reform in the near term given the brutality of the oppressive Chinese regime, as exemplified in things like the Tiananmen Massacre?

 Axl Rose had the right idea about China

If Japan cannot call on the US for the favour it's been saving up for 65 years since the second world war, it may have to reconsider its pacifist constitution, expand its military and develop nuclear weapons of its own.

My guess is Japan has enough weapons grade plutonium to make a number of working A-bombs in a few months or even weeks. Either way, whether Japan develops nuclear weapons or not, the prospect of conflict, including nuclear conflict, between China and the West, looms.

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Update: Article says US should be deploying for war and mobilizing now. This could be thermonuclear Armageddon -- WW3. I hope Obama is not asleep at the wheel.

http://www.darkpolitricks.com/2013/12/defense-analysts-u-s-should-plan-for-war-with-china/