A U.S. congressional report highlights China’s expanding military posture and strategic intentions toward Japan over the Senkaku Islands. Repeated incursions, air operations, and military planning raise the risk of direct Japan-China conflict and possible U.S. involvement, revealing a dangerous and ambitious anti-Japan strategy.

What emerges here is China’s ambitious and dangerous strategy toward Japan.
2018-01-17
The following continues from the previous chapter.
American concerns.
Among China’s various developments, the United States is paying its most serious attention above all to military trends.
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission continuously examines the relationship between China’s military and economic developments.
As a Washington-based correspondent for many years, I have taken a strong interest in the activities of this commission.
I have frequently reported on its activities and results.
In particular, in early 2001, just after completing two years in Beijing as Sankei Shimbun’s China bureau chief and returning to my previous post in Washington, the commission had just begun its activities.
Since then, U.S. responses to China’s developments have drawn my particular attention.
The commission released its annual report for fiscal year 2017 in November.
It was a massive report totaling 657 pages.
Its contents addressed not only U.S.-China bilateral relations but also, in many chapters, relations between Japan and China, an ally affecting U.S. national security.
Regarding Japan-China relations, the report emphasized that tensions between the two countries are rising particularly due to China’s military-related pressure over the Senkaku Islands and introduced the view that China has formulated concrete plans to seize them.
What emerges here is China’s ambitious and dangerous strategy toward Japan.
It seems appropriate to characterize this strategy as a true national crisis for Japan.
The main points of the report’s description regarding China’s intentions, actions, and the resulting crisis over the Senkaku Islands were as follows.
• The Chinese government regards Japan’s claims of sovereignty and administrative control over the Senkaku Islands as the result of illegal occupation of Chinese territory and seeks to overturn that “occupation” by repeatedly sending People’s Liberation Army and China Coast Guard vessels into Japan’s territorial waters and contiguous zones around the Senkakus to establish and demonstrate Chinese rights.
• Chinese incursions into the Senkaku waters were most frequent around 2013 but have continued at a fairly high level since the summer of 2017, now averaging about three times per month.
Japan has taken countermeasures, yet the Senkaku area has become the greatest potential flashpoint for military clashes between Japan and China due to miscalculation, accident, or intent.
• China has continued bombing drills and surveillance flights by various fighter jets, interceptors, and bombers in the airspace over the East China Sea centered on the Senkakus, frequently prompting Japanese scramble responses.
In particular, Chinese bomber exercises over the Miyako Strait have drawn serious monitoring not only from Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force but also from the U.S. Air Force, heightening tensions.
• Given these conditions, tensions over the Senkaku Islands have become the primary factor escalating Japan-China relations and have begun to create real risks of military confrontation.
Behind this lies China’s large-scale military expansion and aggressive behavior, which further heighten Japan’s resistance and intensify bilateral tensions.
Moreover, a military clash over the Senkakus could quickly draw in U.S. forces under the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty and is increasingly viewed as a potential trigger for a U.S.-China war.
• Meng Xiangqing, head of the Strategic Research Institute at China’s National Defense University, recently published a paper asserting that China has already taken away the actual administrative control over the Senkaku Islands long claimed by Japan.
This view is based on the reality that Chinese vessels already freely enter Japan’s territorial waters around the Senkakus, effectively hollowing out Japan’s administrative control.
At this rate, China may soon declare that Japan no longer holds administrative rights over the Senkaku Islands.
To be continued.