South Korea on Tuesday deployed its fighter jets after Chinese and Russian military jets entered its air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on the south and east of the Korean peninsula, an incident that has followed two recent encounters between US and Chinese forces in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.
China’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that the planes that entered the Seoul ADIZ were taking part in an annual joint air exercise with Russia over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea, the sixth such drill since 2019. The latest drills were launched just after the US-Seoul joint military exercises.
The South Korean ADIZ is not part of the country’s airspace; However, neither of the two countries warned that their planes were entering the area, according to the South Korean news agency Yonhap.
Tuesday’s raid followed two previous close encounters: A Chinese warship closely passed a US destroyer in the Taiwan Strait on Sunday, and a Chinese fighter maneuvered close to a US military aircraft in international airspace over the South China Sea on May 26. A Biden administration official has cited the incidents as examples of Beijing’s growing “aggressiveness.”
The encounters with Chinese vessels coincide with trilateral naval exercises between the US, Japanese and Philippine coast guards in the South China Sea.
These incidents raise the risk of miscalculation and escalation as tensions escalate between Washington and Beijing over issues ranging from trade policy to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Taiwan’s security.
New and disturbing rules
Beijing’s incursions into the region have not stopped increasing in recent years. According to data from Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, in 2023 alone, there have been at least 745 sorties by Chinese military aircraft into Taiwan’s ADIZ.
Meanwhile, Washington is planning a stronger presence in the Indo-Pacific, increasing its military exercises and bolstering extended deterrence with allies such as South Korea, Japan and the Philippines.
Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that the meetings are not about freedom of navigation, as the United States maintains, but about “the hegemony of navigation and a different military provocation.”.»
“The United States has been sending warships and military aircraft from half the world to China’s doorstep and engaging in close reconnaissance activities and a show of military muscle near China’s territorial sea and airspace,” Wang said.
Encounters in the Indo-Pacific between the two rivals have become the “disturbing new norm,” said Zuri Linetsky, a researcher at the Eurasia Group Foundation.
“Both parties, the United States and China, are acting badly, instigating and escalating tensions,” Linetsky declared. “That has knock-on effects for regional players, in this case, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan.”
John Kirby, coordinator of strategic communications for the National Security Council, rejected the idea that the United States is partly to blame for the escalation.
“We all want tensions to de-escalate,” he declared during Tuesday’s White House briefing, arguing that the administration is working “very, very hard” to de-escalate the situation. Still, Beijing has so far not recognized his diplomatic efforts.
Last week, Beijing declined Washington’s request for a face-to-face meeting at the annual Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore between Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart Li Shangfu due to personal sanctions imposed on Li that did not have been lifted by the administration.
However, there has been some progress on the diplomatic front, and high-level officials from the US State Department and National Security Council have held private talks with their Chinese counterparts in recent weeks.
Officials are also working to reschedule US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Beijing, which Washington canceled following the downing of a Chinese spy balloon in February.
Increased defense spending
Growing concern about China, whose military spending has increased for 28 consecutive years, has helped fuel an arms race in the region.
According to military spending data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), in 2022, the countries of Asia and Oceania spent $575 billion on defense, 2.7% more than in 2021 and 45% more. More than in 2013, an uninterrupted upward trend continued from at least 1989.
Global military spending rose 3.7% in 2022, according to SIPRI data, driven mainly by the increased threat of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and tensions in East Asia.
“The continued increase in global military spending in recent years is a sign that we live in an increasingly insecure world,” said Nan Tian, Senior Research Fellow at SIPRI’s Military Spending and Arms Production Program. “States are building up their military strength in response to a deteriorating security environment, which they do not anticipate improving in the near future.”
Voice of America News
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