China: Air Defence Identification Zone

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Moynihan]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of China’s introduction of an Air Defence Identification Zone over the East China Sea, and of heightened tensions in the wider Pacific Rim.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I am very glad to have the opportunity to raise this important topic. There is no doubt that China shocked both its neighbours and the international community when, last November, it announced its highly controversial decision to create an ADIZ beyond its territorial airspace in the skies above the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea. Those shock-waves are still reverberating around the region and beyond, and I believe it is essential for British interests that we adopt a clear position when assessing the significance of China’s abrupt unilateral action. In particular, China promised emergency defence measures in the case of non-compliance and an intent to establish more of these zones in the future.

In this latest escalation, Beijing insists that the ADIZ was drawn with no specific country in mind, but it seems highly likely that it was intended as a rebuke to the Japanese Government for their private purchase of three of the islands in September 2012—a move that gave rise to anti-Japan protests across China and caused concern among Japan’s allies. Since then, Chinese coastguard vessels have repeatedly asserted an operational presence in the territorial seas around the islands, raising the spectre of a new Sino-Japanese conflict and sparking fears of tit-for-tat retaliatory measures spreading volatility and uncertainty across the region.

Of course, ADIZs are hardly uncommon in the region and have been used to political ends in the past, but no other country in the region extends its ADIZ to cover disputed territory that it does not control. Following the announcement, the United States expressed its “deep concern”, as did the EU. Does the Minister agree that incorporating the skies over the Senkaku/ Diaoyu islands within its alert zone is, at best, a significant misjudgment on China’s part and that, beyond the present war of words, it will increase the likelihood of further escalation, creating fertile conditions for a serious incident in the region as a result?

This particular dispute in the East China Sea has attracted much attention because of the potential for war between the region’s biggest economies. However, as this House well knows, the resource-rich South China Sea is the subject of a number of equally contentious territorial disputes between China and its neighbours, particularly the Philippines and Vietnam. Worryingly, clashes in the South and East China Seas have risen significantly over the past two years, with Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam all accusing China of a more aggressive posture over disputed territories and waters.

It would cause international outrage if China were to create an ADIZ over the whole South China Sea, but this has not stopped Beijing from choosing to provoke its neighbours, most particularly in its decision to use an image of the highly controversial “nine-dash line” in Chinese passports in 2012. A Chinese ADIZ in the north of the South China Sea would be particularly sensitive, especially if it overlapped with Vietnam’s ADIZ and included the disputed Paracel Islands.

Of course, we cannot debate this issue without reference to British interests in the region. The region’s economic vitality, its influence and its ever-increasing importance are without doubt and its dynamism fuels the global economy. Last year, ahead of a visit there, the Foreign Office Minister, Hugo Swire, in a candid and important statement, rightly called Japan,

“our closest partner in Asia”.

He said:

“Whether it is global trade or international peacekeeping our relationship with Japan is fundamental to UK foreign policy, not just in Asia but around the world”.

Our close ties and mutual interests with Japan are particularly articulated through our long record of working together to maintain Asia-Pacific regional stability, as well as in a host of other global security issues, from reconstruction in Afghanistan and counterproliferation in Iran to cyberdefence. It is equally important that we work together with China to improve international stability and security, to increase mutual prosperity and to support China’s process of modernisation and reform.

From the Sino-Japanese wars and the occupation of Manchuria, the relationships in the region are deep, complex and historically multilayered. The China-Japan relationship is at the very core of this inextricable enmeshing of old rivalries, wars, antagonism and competition. Memories of Japan’s early 20th century empire-building are still raw within the region—thus the Chinese reaction to Prime Minister Abe’s recent visit to the Yasukuni shrine. China’s past empire, too, is surely heavy and emotive historical baggage for today’s Chinese leaders to carry as they contemplate the future regional hierarchy.

Beijing has argued that its latest move is no more than legitimate defence. However, the Chinese concept of defence is notoriously broad. Officially, all Chinese security policies and uses of force since 1949 have been defensive, this being the most recent case of China defending Chinese territory. However, in recent years in particular, Beijing has seemed unwilling to recognise that, in the eyes of its neighbours, Chinese defence might appear indistinguishable from Chinese aggression.

It is, of course, the law of unintended consequences that we fear: stoking simmering tensions and raising the temperature for short-term political gain can be the touch-paper for conflagrations that quickly get out of control. This is a real flashpoint—not because any country necessarily individually wants to start a shooting war, but because accidents happen.

This is all happening at a time when the security balance of the region is changing. The present poor state of relations between Japan and China is certainly a catalyst for that change, if not a cause. In the face of sharp criticism from China, Japan is increasingly moving away from its post-war pacifist stance. Last month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe approved a new five-year defence spending plan that calls for the acquisition of drones, jet fighters, destroyers and amphibious assault vehicles to bolster the nation’s armed forces. Prime Minister Abe described the spending plan as “proactive pacifism”, but—significantly, given Japan’s traditionally pacifist public—with a substantial measure of popular support, it continues a trend of reversing a decade of military cuts to counter China’s rapid military build-up and the relative decline of American influence. Although the US still provides the basis for Japan’s national security, under the new draft strategy, Japan will,

“build a comprehensive defensive posture that can completely defend our nation”.

That is an important declaration of intent.

Much of the new spending will go towards strengthening Japan’s ability to monitor and defend the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands among others, and will include more early-warning aircraft stationed in Okinawa and the purchase of unarmed surveillance drones. China’s efforts to pursue a more proactive diplomacy with its neighbours, in quiet rejection of Deng Xiaoping’s famous low-key approach to foreign affairs, saw Beijing hold a major conference on peripheral diplomacy last September. Ironically, it was at this conference, intended to demonstrate the leadership’s wish to promote a stable regional environment for China’s future development, that final approval was reportedly given to the long-held objective of establishing the East China Sea ADIZ and reinforcing China’s claim to disputed maritime territories.

The question remains: what can and should the UK do? With the public mood in both Japan and China being one of renewed nationalism and self-assertion, how can a period of political quiet and trust between China and Japan be engendered, prior to the resumption of high-level discussions on confidence-building measures? Will confidence-building measures be enough?

As noble Lords are well aware, two days after the Chinese ADIZ announcement, the US Administration flew B52 bombers over the disputed islands without alerting China, in what can only be described as a warning to Beijing. The key dynamic is clearly the relationship with America. For the US in particular, it will be a fine balance to urge restraint by all parties and diffuse these looming confrontations on the one hand, while robustly reaffirming its security commitment to Japan.

It remains to be seen what tangible support Britain might be able to bring to bear in future and what, if anything, we—or, indeed, Europe—could do practically in terms of hard power to shape or respond to the present situation in East Asia, should the need arise. We can and should use our very effective diplomacy and soft power to act as an influence multiplier in support of stability and to help to build a capable regional, multilateral security structure that would encompass a workable code of conduct to avoid a new round of ADIZs announced in the South China Sea. But what comes next, if confidence-building mechanisms such as hotlines, agreements on incidents at sea and mid- and high-level diplomacy do not prove sufficient?

My remarks today would not be complete without some thoughts on where this competition for influence will end. This is about the whole shift of economic and political power and influence to Asia. It seems to me that the tectonic plates of geopolitics are shifting and that the rearrangement of the post-war settlement in the wider Pacific Rim ultimately lies ahead of us. As we know, China is rapidly and profoundly changing. China’s rise inevitably challenges the current system, built by Western states and reflecting their interests and rules-based values.

The issue of the Chinese ADIZ, while pressing, is a jigsaw puzzle piece in a much bigger picture. With China’s rise, the dynamics of the region are changing, and it remains to be seen who will win and who will lose in this global shift of power and influence in the Asia-Pacific region. Will we see a change from a US-led regional security system to a Chinese-led one, and who will decide? The extent to which countries in the region continue to want an American counterweight to the rise of their mighty neighbour and the extent to which the US will continue to provide is key.

We have heard a great deal about Mr Obama’s rebalancing to Asia, to extricate the US from more than a decade of war in the greater Middle East and to pivot America’s strategic focus and resources towards Asia and the Pacific Rim, and about the highly complex relationships with China and key US allies there. For the United States, China has become, if not the key, certainly a key bilateral relationship.

In conclusion, within its region China remains a solitary rising power, facing potentially insurmountable domestic challenges and currently encircled by US military bases and allies. There is still a major risk of mutual misunderstanding, miscalculation and strategic non-comprehension between China and the United States, and it seems clear that our policy should be to help diffuse that trust deficit when we can. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s thoughts on whether she believes that is a sensible way forward and on how we in the UK can help realise it for the future peace, security and prosperity not just of the region but of the world.