How China's Navy and Air Force Could "Overwhelm" Japan In an East China Sea Clash

David Axe

Security, Asia

RAND cautioned that, in light of "long-term trends in acquisitions and China’s quantitatively superior inventory," Tokyo's reforms "may not be sufficient to enable Japan to keep pace over the longer term" as the two countries compete over the Senkakus.

RAND cautioned that, in light of "long-term trends in acquisitions and China’s quantitatively superior inventory," Tokyo's reforms "may not be sufficient to enable Japan to keep pace over the longer term" as the two countries compete over the Senkakus.

The sheer number of Chinese warships and warplanes patrolling a disputed East China Sea island chain threatens to overwhelm Japan's own ships and planes.

(This first appeared last month)

The imbalance could get worse for Japan.

The Senkaku islands, which are uninhabited, lie east of mainland China, northeast of Taiwan and west of Japan's Okinawa prefecture. Their location makes them strategically valuable to China and Japan. Both countries claim the islands.

In 2012, the Japanese government bought three islands in the Senkaku chain from their private owners.

Tokyo's purchase of the three islands "enraged" Beijing, according to RAND, a California think tank. The acquisition spurred China's leaders to significantly boost military sea and air operations around the Senkakus, RAND explained in its 2018 report.

By 2015, the two countries were in direct competition. China’s 2015 defense policy paper called Japan’s military modernization a “grave concern.” In its own defense policy the same year, Japan named China as a potential threat.

Around the Senkakus, military forces surged.

China's deployments were part of a broader assertion by China of its growing military might. "China seeks to overtake Japan as the dominant power in the region," the RAND report's authors wrote. "As part of that effort, China is intent on challenging Japan’s administrative control over the Senkaku islands and on demonstrating that it can exercise control in the area while avoiding escalation to a military conflict with Japan."

And the Japanese military is struggling to keep up. "The increased operational tempo has strained Japan’s ability to match the Chinese presence," RAND reported.

"By the end of 2012, the Japan Coast Guard reported that Chinese coast guard ships had intruded into Senkaku territorial waters 68 times since Sept. 11, an unprecedented number of intrusions," RAND explained.

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