China: Air Defence Identification Zone

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Moynihan on securing this debate. I am afraid that he pipped me to the post, as I very much wanted to initiate a debate on the same subject. My noble friend said a great deal in his brief speech and I will not repeat many of the points. However, there are two or three that I want to emphasise.

In the year when we remember the centenary of the Great War it is important to reflect that it is issues that are unforeseen that have the ability to impact on our own preoccupations and interests, however far off they may seem. My noble friend has laid out the background and history of the current stand-off, but there are two or three things I want to draw out in my intervention.

While the introduction by China of an air defence identification zone in the East China Sea is not of itself remarkable—one should acknowledge that several of the neighbouring countries in the region have one—what is notable is China’s timing and the content and nature of its announcement. Japan’s own air defence identification zone was announced well ahead of implementation and as part of a transparent process with consultation. China did so without any of those criteria in place beforehand. Moreover, requiring aircraft whose destination is not Chinese territory to comply with its requirements is out of the ordinary. It is provocative in that it covers territory that is internationally recognised as being controlled by a foreign power—in this case, Japan.

One of the things we are learning about the new and rising China is that the art of diplomacy is not its forte on this matter. Let us hope that rational geostrategic calculation is. I read with interest the Foreign Secretary’s response to these heightened tensions between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the other place only a few weeks ago. His view was that the UK saw it as a regional issue to be resolved regionally. While the UK itself may not wish to comment on the dispute publicly, it undoubtedly has a stake in what happens there. China is a United Nations permanent five member. Another of our fellow P5 members and a United Kingdom ally—the United States—has a security treaty with Japan, among other east Asian countries. A rising of tensions between China and Japan cannot affect us as mere bystanders, and I know will be a subject of great concern in government and beyond.

In assessing the provocations and counterprovocations that have taken place between China and its neighbours recently, one has to note a fundamental difference. Japan is a democracy. As such, it cannot control all the actions of its citizens in a way that China can and does. China appears to have been prompted to set up the air defence identification zone in this manner as a retaliatory step aimed at the 2012 decision by the Japanese Government to buy three Senkaku/Diaoyu islands from their private owner. Japan, faced with a situation where a right-wing nationalist, Mr Ishihara, the former mayor of Tokyo, was threatening to purchase the islands, chose to take greater control over events by buying them for the state. A reasonable interpretation one can put on this action by the state was that it was acting to prevent escalation of the situation by a nationalist, but nevertheless elected, politician.

This is not to say that the Japanese Government themselves do not provoke. The visit by the Prime Minister to the Yasukuni shrine last month, particularly, it seems, calculated to insult China and South Korea, was misjudged, as the noble Lord said. However much we may wish that the Japanese Government did not set out to be insensitive, ultimately we have to accept that it is for the people of Japan to pass judgment on their leaders’ decisions—a luxury not afforded to Chinese citizens. Thus it is somewhat easier to comprehend Japanese actions than it is Chinese.

Turning to the implications of the air defence identification zone, I have to agree with RUSI’s assessment that China’s motives there are probably to establish a quasi legal basis for boosting its sovereignty claims to the Senkaku. Changing the facts on the ground, as the Israelis famously demonstrate, or, in this case, the “lines on the map”, to underpin its long-term claims, can result in success. However, if China sought to test the US “Pacific pivot”, then the immediate deployment of B-52 bombers to fly through the ADIZ must have answered its question.

Another long-term effect of this sudden expansion of Chinese power is the change in Japan’s calculations in its own geostrategic imperatives. One cannot see it as accidental that Japan announced its first ever national security strategy just weeks after the declaration by China of its ADIZ in the East China Sea. The strategy, with its stated aim to make a more “proactive contribution to peace”, refers generally to more complex and grave national security challenges that Japan faces, but also comments specifically on China’s attempts to change the status quo through coercion. So we will have a five-year military build-up on Japan’s part. More destroyers, more submarines and more F-15s might all be seen as a positive contribution to its security and may, indeed, be welcome in Washington, facing its own budget cuts, as one American ally starts shouldering a greater part of its defence burden, but it surely should not be seen as comfortable in China. An arms race is seldom an end in itself, as history has taught us.

Some noble Lords might have seen “Newsnight” a few days ago on the vexed issue of these islands. We had the spectacle of Jeremy Paxman interviewing the Japanese ambassador for a few minutes, then walking eight whole steps across the studio floor to sit in another chair and interview the Chinese ambassador about the same issue. The questions overlapped. Why blame one another? Why not go to international arbitration over the islands? Why not solve it multilaterally? Are you trying to solve it bilaterally? The question we viewers were asking each other was: if two senior diplomats could not even sit in the same group of chairs in a television studio, how on earth can any sensible solution be found to this matter?

The United Kingdom is often criticised over its dispute in the Falkland Islands, particularly as it is a United Nations Security Council member. However, the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands dispute is not analogous. We may hold a referendum but there are no people to vote on these uninhabited bits of rock. It is, therefore, sad to see that China, while rightfully wanting us to respect its proud imperial past, its ancient culture and its breathtaking advancement now, cannot submit, as a great power, to international arbitration so that a resolution to its disputes with its neighbours might be found. One can only hope that it will be able to do so in time. Meanwhile we must all hope that restraint will be the path that both China and her neighbours will choose.