Has Abe overreached on China's ADIZ?

http://atimes.com/atimes/Japan/JAP-01-031213.html



Has Abe overreached on China's ADIZ?
By Peter Lee
Dec 3, '13

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has cleverly exploited the China's unilateral announcement of its air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in order to assert Japanese impunity in military flights equal to that of the United States, a key element of Japan's ambitions to act as the local hegemon in oceanic East Asia.

That's something that won't please China, of course; but it may also displease the United States as another demonstration of Japan's aspirations to status as an independent peer - and not a tractable ally - in the US "pivot to Asia".

But Prime Minister Abe, either as part of his strategy to muddy the waters or in an ill-advised spasm of nationalist elan, seriously overreached with his unprecedented call to Japanese civilian carriers to defy the PRC requirement to file flight plans before entering the ADIZ.

On the civilian flight issue, the Abe administration has crawled off on a long, skinny branch and invited the US and the PRC to saw it off for him.