China Steps Up Provocations

Chinese incursions along its southern and eastern peripheries this month suggest an increase in the pace of territorial provocations.

On June 15, one of China’s intelligence-gathering ships entered Japan’s territorial waters in the wee hours of the morning. The Dongdiao-class vessel sailed near Kuchinoerabu Island and the larger Yakushima Island as it shadowed two Indian warships participating in the Malabar exercise with the US and Japan. The intrusion was the first since 2004, when a Chinese submarine entered Japan’s waters, and only the second by China since the end of the Second World War. Japan filed a protest, but China countered that it was transiting in compliance with international freedom of navigation rules. China's ship lingered for some 90 minutes, possibly in violation of international transit norms.

A few days earlier on June 9 a Chinese frigate for the first time entered the contiguous zone off the Senkakus, a group of small Japanese-controlled islands that Beijing claims and refers to as the Diaoyus. Tokyo has exercised control over the islands and the surrounding region since 1972, when Washington relinquished administration of Okinawa and the rest of the Ryukyu chain. In a related development, it might be noteworthy, state media has been hinting that China will seek control of the Ryukyus as well.

On June 7, two Chinese aircraft intercepted a US Air Force RC-135 reconnaissance plane over the East China Sea. The US Pacific Command labeled the close fly-by “unsafe.”

There have been provocations in surrounding regions as well.  On June 16th, a Chinese vessel deliberately rammed a Vietnamese fishing boat during an hours-long chase near the Paracel Islands. And, just last week China’s fishing trawlers were again spotted and tracked in Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone near the Natunas, sparking a confrontation involving gunfire.

And if that were not enough, Chinese troops intruded into Indian-controlled territory at four separate spots in the state of Arunachal Pradesh on the 9th of this month.

All the while, China continues to make expansive claims in the South China Sea, where it is rapidly fortifying the Spratly chain of islands. At the same time, it is surveying Scarborough Shoal, which it took from the Philippines in 2012, with the apparent intention of reclaiming it, making permanent its seizure. Some believe a reclamation there, just over 120 nautical miles from the main Philippine island of Luzon, will be its response to an anticipated ruling against China at the Hague in a case brought by Manila.

The quickening pace and expansion of China's provocations raise questions about why Beijing has chosen this moment to increase tensions wide and far. Are we seeing a new confidence among China’s civilian leaders who believe they can intimidate their neighbors and the international community simultaneously? Or, might those political leaders have lost control of aggressive generals and admirals who act now with little or no authorization from policymakers?

In any event, Chinese policy this month may have taken a dangerous turn.

OG Image: Asia PacificChina