ABE AND CHINA-JAPAN ROW

TO JAPAN-CHINA ROW, ADD ONE POTENTIAL PROVOCATEUR

Mark McDonald

IHT Rendezvous, December 19, 2012

HONG KONG — The idea that armed conflict could break out in the Pacific over a handful of godforsaken islands is almost unthinkable, not only for the violence involved but also for the potentially calamitous economic and political repercussions. Political leaders, military officials and security analysts can barely utter the W-word out loud for fear they might be unbottling the genie.

But the dispute between China and Japan in the East China Sea took another harrowing turn last week when a Chinese plane overflew the islands and Japan scrambled some fighter jets in response. The Japanese Defense Ministry said it was “the first known violation of Japanese airspace by a Chinese plane” in half a century, as my colleague Hiroko Tabuchi reported.

Naval vessels from both countries have been patrolling the islands, which are known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China. Bilateral tensions have been high enough that a bumping or brushing incident at sea — even an accidental one — might well lead to actual fighting.

Sheila Smith, senior fellow for Japan studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the dispute “has left both countries deeply suspicious of each other, and public antipathy on both sides of the East China Sea is running high.” In China there have been nasty anti-Japanese riots.

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