The Ghost of Curtis LeMay lives!

[David Guyatt]

China says it monitored US flights through air defence zone

Washington refusing to acknowledge zone and US officials say B-52 bombers entered it without identifying themselves

• Tania Branigan in Beijing and agencies
  
• theguardian.com, Wednesday 27 November 2013 03.06 EST
  
• Jump to comments (88)
  

A US B-52 bomber. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

The open challenge by the US to China's new air defence zone over the East China Sea has met with a muted response in Beijing, as China faced growing resistance to its attempt to extend its authority in the region.
China's defence ministry said it had monitored two unarmed B-52 bombers that flew though the zone on Tuesday, and reasserted its ability to control the airspace. But its statement did not mention a previous warning that it would take "defensive emergency measures" if aircraft did not respond to instructions.
The zone covers islands at the heart of a long-running territorial dispute with Japan and overlaps with those already established by Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. Analysts say China is testing Japan's administrative control of the islands, while Beijing says it is exercising its right to self-defence.
Washington and Tokyo are refusing to acknowledge the zone and US officials said the B-52s had entered it without identifying themselves, with no attempted contact from the Chinese military. The two main Japanese commercial carriers, Japan Airlines and ANA which initially offered China flight plans stopped doing so on Wednesday under government pressure.
In Australia, the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, said the government hadsummoned the Chinese ambassador to voice its concerns. China's foreign ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, said it had expressed strong dissatisfaction at the "irresponsible" remarks and urged Australia to avoid damaging bilateral relations.
Air defence zones go beyond a country's national air space and require aircraft to identify themselves. Analysts have said China's rules do not distinguish between aircraft flying through the zone and those flying towards Chinese airspace. The US has said it does not apply identification procedures to foreign aircraft in its own zone unless they intend to enter US airspace.
US officials said Tuesday's flight was a long-planned training mission, with the bombers carrying out a round trip from their base in Guam that took them into the zone for less than an hour. Chinese officials said they were there for two hours and 20 minutes.
The state department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki ,reiterated the US government's belief that China's move was an attempt to change the status quo, which she said would "raise regional tensions and increase the risk of miscalculation, confrontation and accidents".
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the Chinese policy was "unnecessarily inflammatory" and destabilising.
Some believe the creation of the zone may backfire by pushing countries in the region closer to the US. "At one fell swoop, Beijing's decision has injected new problems into its ties with South Korea, Taiwan and the US, further soured relations with Japan, and frightened smaller nations in south-east Asia," wrote Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, in the Asia Times.
"It appears that Xi Jinping, who by all accounts has emerged stronger from the recently held Chinese Communist party third plenum, is willing to fan the flames of nationalism so he can ensure the party's popularity as he tackles economic reform at home," Glaser wrote.
Analysts suggest China is initially likely to log what it describes as intrusions as Japan does and perhaps gradually step up efforts at enforcement. "The Chinese can now start counting and reporting what they call Japanese violations, while arguing that the Chinese side has shown great restraint by not exercising what they will call China's right to shoot, and arguing further that China cannot be so patient indefinitely," Denny Roy, a security expert at the East-West Centre in Hawaii, told the Associated Press.
The zone covers the airspace over the rocky island chain claimed by Japan, China and Taiwan, which is inhabited only by goats but surrounded by fisheries and other natural resources. They are known as the Senkaku or Diaoyu islands.
The row over sovereignty is long-running but escalated last year when Japan bought three of the islets from a private owner, saying it was doing so to prevent nationalists from purchasing them.
China's weekend announcement may also be in part a response to Japan's extension of its own zone this spring and its recent warning that it was willing to shoot down unmanned drones it regarded as a threat to its airspace. An unidentified drone was detected near the islands this autumn.
The official People's Daily website quoted a military expert, Li Jie, as saying the US flights sought to test China's reaction, to discourage future interference as it continued "reconnaissance, patrolling, and spying on Chinese information" and because it wanted to show that it was still in charge in the Asia-Pacific region.

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[David Guyatt]

Is Shinzo Abe's 'new nationalism' a throwback to Japanese imperialism?

The escalating standoff in the Pacific is seen by Beijing and Seoul as proof that Japan is reviving its military mindset

• Simon Tisdall in Yokosuka
  
• theguardian.com, Wednesday 27 November 2013 05.46 EST
  
• Jump to comments (0)
  

Members of Japan's maritime self-defence forces: Abe believes Japan's national interest is existentially linked to freedom of navigation and open sea lanes around the Senkakus and elsewhere. Photograph: Toru Hanai/Reuters

The deepening confrontation between Japan and its giant neighbour,China, over a disputed island chain, which this week sucked in US military forces flying B-52 bombers, holds no terrors for Kenji Fujii, captain of the crack Japanese destroyer, JS Murasame.
As a battleship-grey drizzle sweeps across Yokosuka harbour, home port to the Japan maritime self-defence force and the US Seventh Fleet, Fujii stands four-square on his helicopter deck, a totemic red Japanese sun-ray ensign flapping at the flagstaff behind him. His stance exudes quiet purposefulness.
The Murasame, armed with advanced missiles, torpedoes, a 76mm rapid-fire turret cannon and a vicious-looking Phalanx close-in-weapons-system (CIWS) Gatling gun, is on the front line of Japan's escalating stand-off with China and its contentious bid to stand up for itself and become a power in the world once again. And Fujii clearly relishes his role in the drama.
Asked whether he will be taking his ship south, to the hotly disputed waters off the Senkaku islands in the East China sea (which China calls the Diaoyu and claims as its own), Fujii smiles and bows. His executive officer, acting as translator, explains that "for security and operational reasons", the captain cannot comment. The situation there is just too sensitive.
The disputed islands in the East China Sea known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. Photograph: Kyodo/ReutersThe name Murasame means "passing shower". But Japan's decision last year to effectively nationalise some of the privately owned Senkakus officials prefer to call it a transfer of property rights triggered a prolonged storm of protest from China, which has been sending ships to challenge the Japanese coastguard ever since.
So far, there have been no direct armed exchanges, but there have been several close shaves, including a Chinese navy radar lock-on and the firing of warning shots by a Japanese fighter plane.
China's weekend declaration of an exclusive "air defence identification zone" covering the islands was denounced by Tokyo and Washington and sharply increased the chances of a military clash. US B-52 bombers and Japanese civilian airliners have subsequently entered the zone, ignoring China's new "rules".
On Tuesday, Beijing said it had "monitored" the flights; its next move is awaited with some trepidation.
Japanese navy on manoeuvres last year: Beijing and Seoul view efforts to give Japan a bigger role on the world stage as intrinsically threatening. Photograph: Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty ImagesFor Shinzo Abe, Japan's conservative prime minister who marks one year in office next month, the Senkaku dispute is only one facet of a deteriorating east Asian security environment that is officially termed "increasingly severe" and which looks increasingly explosive as China projects its expanding military, economic and political power beyond its historical borders.
One year on, Abe's no-nonsense response is plain: Japan must loosen the pacifist constitutional bonds that have held it in check since 1945 and stand up forcefully for its interests, its friends and its values. The way Abe tells it, Japan is back and the tiger he is riding is dubbed Abe's "new nationalism".
It is no coincidence that high-level contacts with China and South Koreahave been in deep freeze ever since Abe took office, while the impasse over North Korea has only deepened. Unusually, a date for this year's trilateral summit between Japan, China and South Korea has yet to be announced.
The Beijing and Seoul governments profess to view Abe's efforts to give Japan a bigger role on the world stage, forge security and defence ties with south-east Asian neighbours, and strengthen the US alliance as intrinsically threatening a throwback to the bad old days of Japanese imperialism.
Shinzo Abe reviews troops near Tokyo: Abe believes Japan must loosen the pacifist constitutional bonds that have held it in check since 1945 and stand up forcefully for its interests. Photograph: Issei Kato/ReutersAbe is also charged with arrogance, chauvinism and historical revisionism, by minimising or ignoring wartime legacies such as thecontroversy over Korean "comfort women" who were forced into prostitution by Japanese troops during World War II.
Addressing the UN general assembly in September, Abe set an unapologetically expansive global agenda for a newly assertive Japan. Whether the issue was Syria, nuclear proliferation, UN peacekeeping, Somali piracy, development assistance or women's rights, Tokyo would have its say. "I will make Japan a force for peace and stability," Abe said. "Japan will newly bear the flag of 'proactive contribution to peace' (his policy slogan)."
Referring to the initial success of his "Abenomics" strategy to revive the country's economic fortunes, he went on to promise Japan would "spare no pains to get actively involved in historic challenges facing today's world with our regained strength and capacity … The growth of Japan will benefit the world. Japan's decline would be a loss for people everywhere."
Just in case Beijing missed his drift, Abe spelled it out: as a global trading nation, Japan's reinvigorated "national interest" was existentially linked to freedom of navigation and open sea lanes around the Senkakus and elsewhere. "Changes to the maritime order through the use of force or coercion cannot be condoned under any circumstances".
Akio Takahara, professor of international relations and law at Tokyo university, said such statements made clear the Senkaku standoff was potentially precedent-setting for all the countries of the region, including Vietnam and the Philippines, which have their own island disputes with Beijing.
"[Senkaku] must be viewed as an international issue, not just a bilateral issue … and it is very, very dangerous. They [China] must stop the provocations," Takahara said. "If Japan did buckle, it would send a very bad message to China's hardliners, they would be triumphant and the modernisers and reformers would be marginalised."
A senior government official was more terse: "We don't want to see China patrolling the East and South China seas as though they think they own them."
Abe's forcefulness has produced forceful reactions. In a recent editorial, South Korea's Joongang Daily, lambasted him as "one of the most rightwing politicians in Japan in decades". It continued: "Buoyed by the nationalist mood sweeping Japanese society since Abe took the helm of the once-pacifist nation, [rightwing politicians] are increasingly regressing to a militarist path … As a result, the political situation of north-east Asia is becoming shakier than ever".
Pure hyperbole, say Abe's defenders. Tensions were high primarily as a result of China's aggressive bid for hegemonic regional leadership, a senior foreign ministry official insisted, while describing the antagonistic South Korean leadership's anti-Japan behaviour as "strange" and "emotional".
Abe's premise, said government spokeswoman Kuni Sato, was that, after years of restraint, "Japan can now do what other countries do within international law". What Abe was doing was "necessary and justified" in the face of China's diplomatic hostility and rapid military buildup, said Yuji Miyamoto, a former ambassador to Beijing.
"Only three countries don't understand this policy China, South Korea and North Korea," said Nobuo Kishi, the prime minister's younger brother and senior vice-minister for foreign affairs. In contrast, the members of Asean (Association of South-East Asian Nations) were mostly on board.
Abe's advancing security agenda suggests his second year in office will be even more rumbustious than the first. It includes creating a national security council modelled on the US and British versions (David Cameron and William Hague have offered their advice), a new national security strategy, revamped defence guidelines, and a harsh state secrets law.
Criticised by the UN and the main opposition parties, the proposed lawthreatens long jail sentences for whistleblowers and journalists who break its vague, catchall provisions. Abe has increased the defence budget for the first time in years, is overseeing an expansion of naval and coastguard capabilities (Japan's maritime self-defence force, or navy, is already the second biggest in Asia by tonnage), and has gathered expert support for a reinterpretation of article 9 of Japan's pacifist constitution to allow "collective self-defence" meaning that if the US or another ally is attacked, Japanese armed forces will join the fight.
On the diplomatic front, Abe is busily wooing his Asian neighbours. Having visited all 10 members of Asean in his first year, he will host a gala Asean summit in Tokyo on 13 December that looks very much like an anti-China jamboree.
He comprehensively outflanked Beijing during this month's typhoon emergency in the Philippines, sending troops, ships and generous amounts of aid, the biggest single overseas deployment of Japanese forces since 1945 while China was widely criciticised for donating less financial aid that the Swedish furniture chain IKEA.
Abe is also providing 10 coastguard vessels to the Philippines to help ward of Chinese incursions. Improved security and military-to-military co-operation with Australia and India form part of his plans.
Officials insist, meanwhile, that the US relationship remains the bedrock of Japanese security. Taking full advantage of Barack Obama's so-called 'pivot to Asia', Abe's government agreed a revised pact in October with US secretary of state, John Kerry, and defence secretary Chuck Hagel, providing for a "more robust alliance and greater shared responsibilities".
With a wary eye on China, the pact envisages enhanced co-operation in ballistic missile defence, arms development and sales, intelligence sharing, space and cyber warfare, joint military training and exercises, plus the introduction of advanced radar and drones. Japan is also expected to buy American advanced weapons systems such as the F35 fighter-bomber and two more Aegis-equipped missile defence destroyers.
Washington is positively purring with pleasure over Abe's tougher stance. "The US welcomed Japan's determination to contribute proactively to regional and global peace and security," a joint statement said. The pact reflected "shared values of democracy, the rule of law, free and open markets and respect for human rights". But Abe's opponents fear the country is developing a new military mindset.
What the Japanese public makes of what seems to amount overall to a landmark post-war shift in the scope and ambition of Japan's regional and global engagement is hard to gauge.
China's disapproval ratings are a record high 94%, but a big majority (80%) also believes good bilateral relations are important. Many cling to the old pacifist verities but many others now understand the world around Japan is changing fast and unpredictably, said Kuni Miyake of Tokyo's Canon Institute for Global Studies.
"Despite his conservative, hawkish image, Abe is in fact a very pragmatic, reasonable politician. But he is also proud of Japan and he is saying it's OK to be proud," Miyake said.
"A huge power shift is going on in East Asia. Before Abe and the new era, we were day-dreaming. We thought we could follow pacifism, not threaten anybody, have no army, and the world would leave us alone. We were in a bubble. And it worked because of the US alliance, not because of pacifism.
"The next generation doesn't believe that … People are aware that prayers for peace are not enough. We have to deter many potential aggressors. If China insists on being a Pacific power and challenges the US-Japan hegemony at sea, a showdown is inevitable," Miyake said.
For Prof Takahara, the opposite holds true. There were limits to what Japan could do when faced by China's rising power and Abe's approach was fraught with peril. "There is really no choice but to use diplomacy and dialogue to mend ties with China," Takahara said.
"Abe is very rightwing by traditional measures. He is a historical revisionist at heart. He would really like to visit the Yasukuni shrine where Japan's war dead are remembered. He is a nationalist … But Abe won't succeed with his 'new nationalism'. We are a post-industrial society. There's no way the youngsters will go along."

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[Magda Hassan]

I understand China wanting an air defence region but this area is also on a major flight path corridor Singapore to Japan so I assume it is not exclusive. On the other hand US B 52's have no place anywhere around there. Can't trust present Japanese government one little bit either.

[Peter Lemkin]

I understand China wanting an air defence region but this area is also on a major flight path corridor Singapore to Japan so I assume it is not exclusive. On the other hand US B 52's have no place anywhere around there. Can't trust present Japanese government one little bit either.

While nothing came of this incident and China has had a slight 'loss of face' [so important in that part of the World...and everywhere, in fact] for not confronting the invading B-52s, I think this is just the tip of the iceberg: American Warrior Hawks REAL ambitions, longterm, are not in the Middle East, but Russia and China being made subservient to the Pax [sic] Americana! This is the way the World ends, the World ends, the World ends,.......if you know the tune....::face.palm::

[David Guyatt]

Nice of the Japanese to put their their civil airlines and passengers on the firing line like this.

If things go belly up and a national carrier gets shot down with loss of all hands, Tokyo (and the US) will be indignant. Indignant, I tell you.

Meanwhile, in sleepy Washington, a Wjite House spokesman tells the world that the "new Chinese policy" was "unnecessarily inflammatory' - which presumably is not the case with the "new Japanese policy" of placing civilians in danger?

Different rules for different folks...

Fears grow of clash as Japan and US stoke war of the skies with China



US B-52s and Japanese civilian aircraft fly through Beijing's air defence zone' over disputed islands

TIM WALKER
Thursday 28 November 2013

The looming struggle for regional supremacy in the Asia-Pacific is not simply a clash over strategic stretches of land and sea, but also over the skies above them. This week, the US and Japan have both defied new Chinese demands by flying aircraft, unannounced, into disputed airspace over a cluster of controversial islands in the East China Sea.

On Saturday, Beijing published a map of its new "air defence identification zone", with rules requiring foreign aircraft to notify the Chinese military before entering the area. The zone overlaps with an existing Japanese air defence zone, and takes in the islands known to the Chinese as Diaoyu, and to the Japanese as Senkaku, which are subject to competing claims from the two Pacific nations.
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, two unarmed US B-52 bombers from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam entered the new Chinese zone on Monday evening, as part of a long-planned exercise, and flew around 120 miles from the uninhabited islands. Today, the Japanese government ordered its civilian carriers to disregard the new Chinese rules; planes from the ANA and JAL airlines both passed through the area without incident.
Though the defence ministry in Beijing had warned that it would take "defensive emergency measures" against aircraft that refused to comply with its new strictures, the Chinese military made no attempt to contact the B-52s. The ministry later released a statement saying it had monitored the US bombers.
The B-52 flight may have raised tensions with the Chinese, but it also represented a show of US support for the other countries in the region, such as South Korea and Japan. The US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said before the exercise that Washington would not conform to the new rules set by the Chinese. "We view this development as a destabilising attempt to alter the status quo in the region," he said.
The Chinese foreign ministry described Mr Hagel's statement as "irresponsible", but the US response was echoed by China's neighbours. The Japanese chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, told reporters at a Tuesday news conference that the new Chinese measures had "no validity". The new US envoy to Tokyo, Caroline Kennedy, in her first speech as ambassador, said the Chinese actions would "undermine security" in the region. South Korea's deputy defence minister, Yoo Jeh-Seung, said his government would also refuse to recognise the new Chinese zone.
In Beijing, the foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang was asked what sort of military action China intended to take against foreign aircraft that entered the "air defence identification zone" unannounced. "The Chinese side will make an appropriate response according to the different circumstances and the threat level that it might face," he replied.
Chinese social media users appeared unimpressed with the military's lack of response to the B-52 flights, with many demanding stronger action. Beijing commonly reacts to such criticism via its proxies in the state-run media, yet even before the US bombers' flights became public knowledge, the People's Liberation Army Daily warned that without a robust defence of the air defence zone, the newly drawn map would be nothing more than "armchair strategy".
The competitive waters of the East and South China Seas contain rich natural resources, including fishing stocks and hydrocarbon reserves. The long-standing dispute over the Senkaku archipelago was stoked in 2012, when Japan bought three of the rocky islands from private owners, provoking the Chinese, who stepped up their military activities in the area.
At one point the Japanese threatened to shoot down an unidentified Chinese drone close to the islands, which Beijing warned would constitute an "act of war".
The new zone would have been approved by the Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who was appointed the Communist Party's top official in 2012. The word from the White House was that the dispute between China and its regional rival ought to be solved by diplomacy, not force. President Barack Obama was on a visit to California this week, where a White House spokesman told reporters the new Chinese policy was "unnecessarily inflammatory".

[David Guyatt]

China's dispatch of jets ratchets up tension over air defence zone

Analysts fear China may have miscalculated international reaction but cannot step back after raising domestic expectations

• Tania Branigan in Beijing
  
• theguardian.com, Friday 29 November 2013 06.41 GMT
  
• Jump to comments (214)
  

The islands at the centre of the air defence zone dispute. Photograph: AP

Tensions have risen further over China's declaration of an air defence zone in disputed regions of the East China Sea after it sent fighter jets and an early warning aircraft to patrol the area.
The state news agency Xinhua announced the patrols after Japan, South Korea and the US all sent military aircraft through the zone in a clear challenge to the Chinese measure. Beijing had previously responded only by saying it had monitored the flights.
Shen Jinke, a spokesman for the Chinese air force, described Thursday's dispatch of aircraft as "a defensive measure and in line with international common practices" in the Xinhua report.
"China's air force is on high alert and will take measures to deal with diverse air threats to firmly protect the security of the country's airspace," he said.
A previous patrol took place on Saturday, when the zone was declared.
Many countries have similar zones, requiring aircraft approaching their territorial airspace to identify themselves, and China has said it created the area to defend its national security. But its zone is controversial because it includes the skies over islands known as the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, which are the subject of a long-running territorial dispute, and overlaps zones established by Japan and South Korea.
Taylor Fravel, an expert on regional security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said establishment of the zone increased the potential for an incident in the air that could spark a larger crisis. But he said tensions might ease if China continued to clarify the nature of the zone and how it intended to deal with unidentified aircraft, especially those flying through the zone but not heading toward China.
"China has always chafed at Japan's ADIZ, which at some points is less than 150km from China and has been used by Japan to report intrusions into Japan's airspace. China probably wants to level the playing field with Japan and increase the pressure on Tokyo regarding the disputed islands," he said.
Japan does not acknowledge that the ownership of the islands is disputed. The US does not take a view on sovereignty but recognises Japan's administrative control and has said the joint security pact covers the islands.
Many analysts think China is laying down a long-term marker, but did not anticipate the forceful response it has received from the US as well as Japan.
"I think the logic is that incrementally it will make other countries accustomed to China exerting an enhanced degree of authority in that space," said Rory Medcalf of Australia's Lowy Institute.
China is now seeking to dampen the international pushback without appearing weak to other nations or its own people.
Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt, Asia-Pacific director at the US Institute of Peace, said the creation of its zone had its own momentum.
"The danger in the announcement is that it empowers the People's Liberation Army, maritime agencies and netizens [internet users] to hold the government to account," she said.
"Now people are transgressing the zone, they have to make it look to the domestic audience like they are serious. They have given birth to internal pressures."
Dai Xu, a famously hawkish air force colonel and high profile media commentator, wrote on his Weibo microblog: "The war of public opinion is more interesting than diplomatic war."
Other users wrote scathingly about China's muted response to foreign military flights into the zone, describing the government as a paper tiger.
Behind the immediate issues lie regional concerns about China's growing strength, Beijing's unease at Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe's determination to strengthen his country's forces, and questions about the US presence in and commitment to the region.
The US vice-president, Joe Biden, will visit Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul on a trip beginning this Sunday which is likely to be dominated by discussions of the zone.
"We decline to comment on Chinese flights, but the United States will continue to partner with our allies and operate in the area as normal," a Pentagon spokesman said.
In a statement released on Thursday, the European Union's foreign affairs chief Lady Ashton expressed concern at the establishment of the zone and China's warning of "emergency defence measures" in the event of non-compliance.
"This development heightens the risk of escalation and contributes to raising tensions in the region. The EU calls on all sides to exercise caution and restraint," she said.
Yan Xuetong, a foreign relations scholar at Tsinghua University, said: "I think the only problem is Japan because it has taken a confrontational policy. They want clashes and to drag America into military containment against China.
"The international community has ignored the roots of this... Abe has clearly stated that his fundamental goal is to revise the constitution [under which Japan renounces war] and he needs security tensions to legitimise his efforts."
Tokyo's military ambitions are particularly sensitive because many in China say Japan has not adequately recognised or atoned for its brutal occupation in the first half of the 20th century.
The state-run nationalist tabloid Global Times warned in an an editorial on Thursday that China was willing to engage "in a protracted confrontation with Japan".
The newspaper known for running hawkish pieces that do not always reflect official policy, but reflect the view of some within the power elites predicted that an imminent conflict might be waged between China and Japan, adding: "If the US does not go too far, we will not target it in safeguarding our air defence zone. What we should do at present is to firmly counter provocative actions from Japan."

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[David Guyatt]

China scrambles fighter jets towards US and Japan planes in disputed air zone

Washington tells airlines to notify Chinese authorities if flying through area amid escalating tensions in South China Sea

• Tania Branigan in Beijing and Ed Pilkington in New York
  
• The Guardian, Saturday 30 November 2013
  
• Jump to comments (1963)
  

Link to video: Japan and South Korea react after China flies jets over disputed zoneChina scrambled fighter jets to investigate US and Japanese aircraft flying through its new air defence zone over the East China Sea on Friday as the regional clamour over the disputed airspace escalated.
The ministry of defence announced the move, which is the first time China is known to have sent military aircraft into the zone alongside foreign flights, stepping up its response to the challenge after its unilateral establishment of the zone. It previously said it had monitored US, Japanese and South Korean aircraft and had flown routine patrols in the area on Thursday.
The ministry's statement said two US reconnaissance aircraft and 10 Japanese early warning, reconnaissance and fighter planes had entered the zone.
The airforce "monitored throughout the entire flights, made timely identification and ascertained the types", defence ministry spokesman Shen Jinke told the official China News Service.
The Pentagon has yet to respond to the statement. Japanese officials declined to confirm details of any flights, saying that routine missions were continuing.
Late on Friday the US state department advised American commercial airlines to notify Chinese authorities of flight plans over the East China Sea. But a US administration official said that did not mean Washington accepted Beijing's jurisdiction, the Reuters news agency reported.
"The US government generally expects that US carriers operating internationally will operate consistent with Notams [Notices to Airmen] issued by foreign countries," the state department said in a statement.
"Our expectation of operations by US carriers consistent with Notams does not indicate US government acceptance of China's requirements."
The developments came as South Korea's Yonhap news agency said officials were discussing how to expand its own air zone.
In Taiwan, legislators issued an unusual joint statement chiding Ma Ying-jeou's government for its tempered response to China's announcement of the zone and urging it to lodge a tough protest with Beijing. The government later said it would convey its "stern position".
Earlier the European Union's foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton expressed its concern that the zone had contributed to tensions in the region, saying that the EU called on all sides to exercise caution and restraint.
Foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang urged the EU to handle the situation "objectively and rationally", adding: "European countries can have air defence identification zones. Why can't China?"
While such zones are common, China's is controversial because it includes the skies over islands known as the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, which are the subject of a long-running territorial dispute, and overlaps zones established by Japan and South Korea. There has also been concern over China's warning that it would take unspecified "emergency defensive measures" if aircraft did not comply.
Taylor Fravel, an expert on regional security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said establishment of the zone increased the potential for an incident in the air that could spark a larger crisis. But he said tensions might ease if China continued to clarify the nature of the zone and how it intended to deal with unidentified aircraft, especially those flying through the zone but not heading toward China.
"China has always chafed at Japan's adiz [air defence identification zone], which at some points is less than 150km from China … China probably wants to level the playing field with Japan and increase the pressure on Tokyo regarding the disputed islands," he said.
Japan does not acknowledge that ownership of the islands is disputed. The US does not have a position on their sovereignty but recognises Japan's administrative control and has said they are covered by the joint security pact.
Many analysts think China is laying down a long-term marker, but did not anticipate the forceful response it has received from the US as well as Japan.
"The Chinese government is not going to concede the substance," said June Teufel Dreyer of the University of Miami. "When circumstances are more conducive, they will try to enforce it more strictly in the future. This is a pattern we have noticed for decades."
Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt, Asia-Pacific director at the US Institute of Peace, said the creation of its zone had its own momentum. "The danger in the announcement is that it empowers the People's Liberation Army, maritime agencies and netizens [internet users] to hold the government to account," she said. "Now people are transgressing the zone, they have to make it look to the domestic audience like they are serious. They have given birth to internal pressures."
Behind the immediate issues lie regional concerns about China's growing strength, Beijing's unease at Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe's determination to strengthen his country's forces, and questions about the US presence in and commitment to the region. US vice-president Joe Biden will visit Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul on a trip beginning this Sunday which is likely to be dominated by discussions of the zone.
"I think the only problem is Japan because it has taken a confrontational policy. They want clashes and to drag America into military containment against China," said Yan Xuetong, a foreign relations scholar at Tsinghua University.
"The international community has ignored the roots of this … Abe has clearly stated that his fundamental goal is to revise the constitution [under which Japan renounces war] and he needs security tensions to legitimise his efforts."
Tokyo's military ambitions are particularly sensitive because many in China say Japan has not adequately recognised or atoned for its brutal occupation.

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[Magda Hassan]

I wouldn't be traveling anywhere up that way while this is happening. I remember the Korean Airline flight that was shot down after it 'accidentally' went into Soviet airspace. And I don't trust some of the airlines to do the right thing by their passengers.

[Magda Hassan]

China could just call in some of the debt too. Just some. Put some pressure on. The US can't do anything really. And they know it. Japan has got enough on its plate with the Fukushima cleanup/coverup. Don't know that the people there have it in them for a war with China. They aren't the best financially too.

[David Guyatt]

China could just call in some of the debt too. Just some. Put some pressure on. The US can't do anything really. And they know it. Japan has got enough on its plate with the Fukushima cleanup/coverup. Don't know that the people there have it in them for a war with China. They aren't the best financially too.

Maybe the Fukushima problem requires serious diversion for the Japanese public?

And state diversion/deflection usually means some sort of tension and/or war overseas.

David J :tampfeet::