China, U.S. seek peaceful resolution in East China Sea

2014-02-27

Analysis by Martin Sieff

Continuing efforts to find common ground highlighted by the California summit last summer involving the leaders of China and the United States, U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno met with People’s Liberation Army Chief of the General Staff Gen. Fang Fenghui in Beijing.

At the end of his two-day visit that began Feb. 22, Odierno said China and the U.S. would establish regular high-level dialogue between their armies to promote better understanding and avoid possible conflict, South China Morning Post reported.

“We want to expand our co-operation at a very high level, and then manage our differences constructively,” Odierno said.

Ralph Winnie, director of the China program at the Eurasian Business Coalition told the Asia Pacific Defense Forum that the Odierno-Fang talks represented the norm in U.S.-China strategic relations.

“Both sides want to adhere to the road map created by presidents Xi [Jinping] and [Barack] Obama at their California summit last June,” he said. “The maintenance of good and stable ties is essential for the prosperity and future of both countries.”

The United States in recent months has worked to strengthen its constructive relationship with China’s People’s Liberation Army [PLA] leadership.

However, relations between China and Japan, which is the oldest and closest ally of the U.S. in Northeast Asia, have deteriorated sharply in recent months, especially over the disputed sovereignty of the Senkaku [known as Diaoyu in China] islands in the East China Sea.

Mission Action 2013

A U.S. Navy analyst warned that a major Chinese combined operations military exercise called Mission Action 2013 appeared to have as its goal the practiced destruction of all Japanese military forces in the East China Sea.

Capt. James Fanell warned that a PLA exercise last year appeared to be a preparation for a “short sharp war” against Japan in the East China Sea aimed at seizing the Senkaku Islands.

“We witnessed the massive amphibious and cross-military region enterprise,” the deputy chief of staff intelligence and information operations for the U.S. Pacific Fleet [PACFLEET] told the West 2014 conference in San Diego, Calif. The conference was organized by the U.S. Naval Institute, an independent professional association founded in 1873.

Fanell said “that the massive Mission Action 2013 exercise between all three branches of the PLA last year was aimed at preparing for a war to defeat Japan’s Self Defense Forces in a conflict in the East China Sea,” The Diplomat magazine reported on Feb. 19.

“We witnessed the massive amphibious and cross military region enterprise — Mission Action 2013,” U.S. Naval Institute News [USNI] quoted Fanell. “[U.S. analysts] concluded that the PLA has been given the new task to be able to conduct a short sharp war to destroy Japanese forces in the East China Sea following with what can only be expected a seizure of the Senkakus or even a southern Ryukyu [islands] — as some of their academics say.”

Fanell said China was expanding training for its navy beyond the “long-standing task to restore Taiwan to the mainland.”

Unresolved territorial disputes plague region

Fanell also warned about growing tensions and risks of conflict throughout the East and South China seas, which are the locations for a series of unresolved territorial disputes between China and several of its neighbors including Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam.

“Tensions in the South and East China Seas have deteriorated with the Chinese Coast Guard playing the role of antagonist, harassing China’s neighbors while PLA Navy ships, their protectors, [make] port calls throughout the region promising friendship and cooperation,” Fanell told USNI.

“Protection of maritime rights is a Chinese euphemism for coerced seizure of coastal rights of China’s neighbor,” he said.

“Fanell also predicted China, which declared an air defense zone last year in the East China Sea where it is locked in a territorial dispute with Japan over a string of small islands, would declare another air defense zone by the end of 2015, this time in the South China Sea,” Reuters news agency reported.

“There is growing concern that China’s pattern of behavior in the South China Sea reflects an incremental effort by China to assert control of the area contained in the so-called 9-dash line despite the objections of its neighbors, and despite the lack of any explanation or apparent basis under international law,” Fanell said.

China challenges officer’s statements

Chinese analysts reacted in a matter-of-fact way to Fanell’s warnings.

Senior Col. Li Jie of the PLA Navy’s Military Academy told the South China Morning Post that Fanell’s comments “about China’s intention to declare another air defense identification zone [ADIZ] were meant to deter China from making such a move.”

Li told the South China Morning Post that this statement was “a typical U.S. diplomatic strategy.”

“Washington is very concerned about the tension developing in the South China Sea, which will relate to its strategic interests,” he said. “The establishment of another ADIZ over the South China Sea is necessary for China's long-term national interest.”