In reverse, Okinawa is also essential for Japan to remain indispensable to the US. It's as if Tokyo was employing the Pentagon as mercenaries -- as much as the Pentagon uses mercenaries in its global shadow wars. Talk about a low cost/high return business model. Japan thus keeps its defense spending at 1% of GDP (yet it's now rising while for most countries this may be at 3% or more.
Were Beijing to actually enforce for good its aerial jurisdiction around the Diayou islands, that would be the beginning of the breach of this aquatic Hadrian's wall. For the moment, though, ADIZ is a message to Washington, part of the much-vaunted xinxing daguo guanxi -- the "New Type of Great Power Relations" being implemented slowly but surely by President Xi Jinping.
Beijing may be right on principle and certainly does want to create facts on the sea. What happened was essentially a PR disaster -- an inability convincingly to "sell" the ADIZ to world public opinion. Absolutely nothing will convince any Chinese administration that this is not about Japan encroaching upon a territory and sphere of sovereignty that have been Chinese for centuries.
Instead of the usual ritualistic pilgrimages to revere "heroes" in shrines accused of committing hair-raising massacres, Tokyo could easily defuse the problem by admitting to its appalling imperial adventures in Asia. Tokyo could also redefine its role in Asia by behaving like an Asian power -- and not some obedient Western appendix, as it's perceived by millions across the continent, and not only by the Chinese.
Ultimately, the only way to defuse the Diaoyu/Senkaku/ADIZ problem would be for Beijing and Tokyo to sit at the table and work out a security treaty for these East China Sea lanes -- ideally arbitrated by the United Nations. The problem is Tokyo simply does not admit there is a problem. Now Beijing's strategy is to force the Japanese to do it. Perhaps Beijing should consider hiring an American PR agency, like everyone does.
Were Beijing to actually enforce for good its aerial jurisdiction around the Diayou islands, that would be the beginning of the breach of this aquatic Hadrian's wall. For the moment, though, ADIZ is a message to Washington, part of the much-vaunted xinxing daguo guanxi -- the "New Type of Great Power Relations" being implemented slowly but surely by President Xi Jinping.
Beijing may be right on principle and certainly does want to create facts on the sea. What happened was essentially a PR disaster -- an inability convincingly to "sell" the ADIZ to world public opinion. Absolutely nothing will convince any Chinese administration that this is not about Japan encroaching upon a territory and sphere of sovereignty that have been Chinese for centuries.
Instead of the usual ritualistic pilgrimages to revere "heroes" in shrines accused of committing hair-raising massacres, Tokyo could easily defuse the problem by admitting to its appalling imperial adventures in Asia. Tokyo could also redefine its role in Asia by behaving like an Asian power -- and not some obedient Western appendix, as it's perceived by millions across the continent, and not only by the Chinese.
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