Japan Responds to China's Incursion

A recent breach of Japan's airspace reveals a growing trend of Chinese military activity in the region.

Transcript

00:00What does Japan do now, seeing that China has eroded Japan's ADIZ and its territorial airspace

00:06with this latest breach? Does it stick to the current strategy or does it have to change its

00:10game plan? Japan was an early mover, an early identifier of the strategic threat from China.

00:17From 2012, after Xi Jinping rose to power in 2013, Chinese intrusion into the Senkaku Daiyutai

00:27space really ramped up and it's been elevated ever since. So Japan is used to what I would

00:35call territorial needling. It's a tense equilibrium around the Senkaku Daiyutai

00:40space, but this is not new for them. Obviously, the intrusion of the military intelligence

00:48gathering plane into Japanese airspace. Its strategy, I think, is sound. I think the issue

00:57here is China is sort of constantly pushing where it sees space and you have to be, as Japan and

01:09other countries in the region, have to be really vigilant about this and its deterrence and response

01:13capabilities are key. Just further down south, Taiwan is also no stranger to Chinese military

01:19aircraft operating around its airspace, around its ADIZ. I want to ask you, do you think there's a

01:25window or some sort of avenue for cooperation there, given that Japan and Taiwan share similar

01:30threats? So there's a couple of issues here. I think one is the defence and response capabilities.

01:39The absolutely critical for the region is this Japan-US relationship and without that,

01:45then I think it becomes a very different strategic space. So it's really important for Taiwan, for

01:50Philippines, for other countries that want the status quo that this Japan-US relationship continues

01:56to deepen and continues to evolve and obviously has to boost its own deterrence and response

02:02capabilities. With Taiwan, obviously it's more difficult because of Taiwan's legal status and

02:10the way that Japan responds to that. So while political connections between Japan and Taiwan

02:19seem to have been proliferating over the last couple of years, on the military front,

02:26intelligence front, it's more difficult and you can see that from Japan's point of view.

02:31China is really important for Japan in terms of its economy, investments and so on. They're

02:36right next door to each other. So Japan does have to tread very carefully but at some point

02:42to make the deterrence front complete, of course you need maximum intelligence sharing. So whether

02:49that will happen or not, at what speed, I mean I don't know because Japan's obviously being very

02:54careful but that would definitely seem a logical step, yeah.