China yesterday said it let two US B-52 bombers fly unhindered through its newly declared air defense zone in the East China Sea on Tuesday, despite its earlier threat to take defensive measures against unidentified foreign aircraft.
The US flights, which tested the Chinese zone for the first time since it was declared on Saturday, raised questions about Beijing’s determination to enforce its requirement that foreign aircraft identify themselves and accept Chinese instructions. China’s lack of any action suggested that it was merely playing out a diplomatic game to establish ownership over the area rather than provoke an international incident.
The flights followed days of angry rhetoric and accusations over Beijing’s move, designed to assert Chinese claims to a group of uninhabited islands controlled by Japan.
Photo: EPA
The US and Japan have said they do not acknowledge the zone, and Taiwan and South Korea have also rejected it.
A Chinese Ministry of National Defense statement said the US planes were detected and monitored as they flew through the area for 2 hours and 22 minutes. It said all aircraft flying through the zone would be monitored and that “China has the capability to exercise effective control over the relevant airspace.”
Asked repeatedly about the incident at a regularly scheduled briefing, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Qin Gang (秦剛) said it had been handled according to procedures laid out in the Saturday statement, but offered no specifics.
“Different situations will be dealt with according to that statement,” Qin said.
The US, which has hundreds of military aircraft based in the region, described the flights as a training mission unrelated to China’s announcement of the zone.
US officials said the two unarmed B-52 bombers took off from their home base in Guam around midday and were in the zone that encompasses the disputed islands for less than an hour before returning to their base, adding that the aircraft encountered no problems.
The bomber flights came after US Department of State spokeswoman Jen Psaki said China’s move appeared to be an attempt to change the status quo in the East China Sea.
“This will raise regional tensions and increase the risk of miscalculation, confrontation and accidents,” she told reporters.
Beijing’s move fits a pattern of putting teeth behind its territorial claims and is seen as potentially leading to dangerous encounters depending on how vigorously China enforces it — and how cautious it is when intercepting aircraft from Japan, the US and other countries.
Chinese reaction to the US bomber flights was predictably angry, with some recalling the 2001 collision between a Chinese fighter and a US surveillance plane in international airspace off China’s southeastern coast — the kind of accident some fear China’s new policy could make more likely.
The Chinese pilot, Wang Wei (王偉), was killed in the crash and the US crew forced to make a landing on Hainan island, where they were held for 10 days and repeatedly interrogated before being released.
“Let’s not repeat the humiliation of Wang Wei. Make good preparations to counterattack,” wrote Zheng Daojin (鄭道錦), a reporter with Xinhua news agency on his Weibo microblog.
Others criticized the government’s handling of what they termed a battle of psychological pressure and international public opinion.
“China is terrible at telling its side of the story. The silent one is the loser so why don’t they better explain our response to the American bomber flight,” wrote Hu Xijin (胡錫進), editor of the state-run Global Times, on his blog.
Chinese academics, who often serve as ad-hoc government spokesmen, criticized Tuesday’s flights as a crude show of force and said Beijing was not looking for a fight.
“It’s not that China didn’t want to enforce its demands, but how do you expect China to react?” said Zhu Feng (朱鋒), an international security expert at Peking University.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique