MANILA, Philippines - Visiting Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said yesterday that China’s plan to establish an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the West Philippine Sea would further trigger tension as Beijing’s unilateral action would be opposed by other nations in Southeast Asia.
Emerging from a bilateral meeting with Department of National Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin at Camp Aguinaldo, Onodera pointed out that an ADIZ over the South China Sea would cause alarm not only to the Japanese government but to the international community as well.
“I think the world shares the same understanding that the regional tension should not be raised by Beijing’s unilateral course of action,†Onodera said.
Japan and China are locked in a territorial row over a chain of islands known as Senkakus to the Japanese and Daoiyu to the Chinese in the East China Sea.
Tension has been mounting in the region following China’s establishment of ADIZ over the area, a moved defied by the Tokyo government and the US military.
Beijing recently announced it is also establishing an ADIZ over the South China Sea to further boost its maritime claim in the hotly-contested region against other claimant countries including Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines.
“The United States, South Korea, Taiwan and European Union and other countries are expressing strong concern over this. If the new ADIZ will be set in South China Sea or the West Philippine Sea, I think the government of Japan needs to express its concern similarly to what we have stand in East China Sea,†Onodera said.
Aside from several reefs that Beijing has converted into forward naval bases in the South China Sea, it has also established what it calls Sansha City on the Woody Island in the Paracels to manage its supposed territorial waters in the East and South China Seas.
Several Chinese warships have been conducting regular patrols over the two areas. As China’s naval operations are continuously being challenged by Japan in the East China Sea, they have remained largely uncontested in the South China Sea and West Philippine Sea.
China has been maintaining warships in Panganiban Reef and Subi Reef in Palawan. Only this year, China deployed two maritime surveillance vessels within the vicinity of Ayungin Shoal.