The Japanese Air
Force is scrambling to deal with a growing number of Chinese aircraft
snooping around. In the last year Japanese aircraft have gone up 306
times to confront Chinese aircraft coming too close to Japanese air
space. This was the first time Chinese intrusions exceeded Russian ones.
In the previous year nearly 43 percent of the time the sorties were for
Chinese aircraft. That's almost three times as many Chinese intrusions
as in the previous year. Meanwhile, Russian intrusions have been
declining. In 2011 Russia still accounted for 52 percent of the
intrusions, and in the last year Chinese intrusions were 23 percent more
frequent than the Russian ones.
The Japanese believe that one cause for this shift is more
electronic and maritime patrol aircraft available to the Chinese and a
desire to gather as much information as possible about the strongest
potential foe in the area. But the main reason is the dispute with China
over the Senkaku Islands near Okinawa. China and Japan both claim these
uninhabited islets, which are 167 kilometers northeast of Taiwan and
426 kilometers southeast of Japan's Okinawa and have a total area of 6.3
square kilometers. Taiwan also claims the Senkakus, which were
discovered by Chinese fishermen in the 16th century and taken over by
Japan in 1879. They are valuable now because of the 380 kilometer
economic zone nations can claim in their coastal waters. This includes
fishing and possible underwater oil and gas fields.
In 2011, the 355 Japanese anti-intrusion sorties were up 17
percent over the previous year, while in 2010 sorties by were up 29
percent. Now they are up again. All this should be measured against Cold
War activity, which peaked in 1984 at 944 interception sorties. After
the Cold War ended in 1991 (when there were 488 sorties) the number of
intrusions fell through the 1990s, but in the last decade the number has
increased.
These intrusions have been increasing sharply over the last
five years. Early on, the Japanese launched many aircraft for each
intrusion. For example, in 2008 a Russian Tu-95 entered Japanese
airspace, near an uninhabited island about 600 kilometers south of
Tokyo. Although the Russian aircraft was in Japanese airspace for only
about three minutes the Japanese launched 22 aircraft to intercept. This
force included two AWACs aircraft and twenty fighters. It had been two
years since a Russian aircraft entered Japanese airspace without
permission and that explained the massive response. But as the
intrusions increased the number of interceptors sent out for each
declined.
One explanation for all the Russian activity has been Japanese
diplomats pressuring the Russians to return the Kurile Islands (off
northern Japan). This has caused a lot of tension and the Russians have
responded with more aerial activity. This sort of thing also goes over
well inside Russia. But now the Russians are cutting back.
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