Two unarmed U.S. B-52 bombers flew over disputed islands on a training mission in the East China Sea without informing Beijing while Japan's main airlines ignored Chinese authorities when their planes passed through a new airspace defense zone on Wednesday.
The defiance from Japan and its ally the United States over China's new identification rules raises the stakes in a territorial standoff between Beijing and Tokyo over the islands and challenges China to make the next move.
China published coordinates for an East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone over the weekend and warned it would take "defensive emergency measures" against aircraft that failed to identify themselves properly. The zone is about two thirds the size of Britain.
"If the United States conducts two or three more flights like this, China will be forced to respond. If China can only respond verbally it would be humiliating," said Sun Zhe, a professor at the Center for U.S.-China Relations at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
"The concept of the paper tiger is very important. All sides face it."
China's Defense Ministry said it had monitored the entire progress of the U.S. bombers through the zone on Tuesday Asian time. A Pentagon spokesman said the planes had neither been observed nor contacted by Chinese aircraft.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang, when asked how China would respond to future infractions of the zone, said the country would "make an appropriate response" that depended on the "situation and degree of threat".
Source: NewsOnJapan
