Inside the Ring: China readies for ‘short, sharp’ war with Japan
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Navy Capt.
James Fanell,
director of intelligence for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, said during a
conference in San Diego that the war games last fall by People's
Liberation Army forces show that
China is preparing for a short war with
Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea. (
U.S. Navy)
China’s recent military exercises revealed that it is preparing for a short war with
Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea, a
Navy intelligence official recently warned.
Navy Capt.
James Fanell,
director of intelligence and information operations for the U.S.
Pacific Fleet, said during a conference in San Diego that the People’s
Liberation Army’s large-scale war games last fall showed that the island of
Taiwan is no longer Beijing’s lone major target.
“In addition to a longstanding task to restore
Taiwan
to the mainland, we witnessed the massive amphibious and cross-military
region exercise, Mission Action 2013, and concluded that the PLA has
been given new task: To be able to conduct a short, sharp war to destroy
Japanese forces in the East China Sea, followed by what can only be
expected [as] a seizure of the Senkakus, or even the southern Ryukus,”
he said.
The uninhabited Senkakus islands are located north of
Taiwan and south of
Japan’s Ryuku islands.
China claims the chain as its “Diaoyu” islands.
Capt. Fanell, who last year warned that
China
was escalating its bullying of regional neighbors, said security in the
Asia Pacific over the past year has worsened, reaching a nadir in
November with
China’s imposition of an air defense zone over much of the East China Sea.
Earlier,
Chinese coast guard and naval forces had conducted a coordinated series
of provocations aimed at intimidating nearby nations, he said.
The provocations included
China’s
harassment of a U.S. warship. The encounter led to the near-collision
between the guided-missile cruiser USS Cowpens and a Chinese amphibious
ship in the South China Sea. Officials said the incident could have
triggered a larger conflict between the U.S. and
China.
China asserted the Cowpens had violated a defense zone around its aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, near Hainan Island. But
Capt. Fanell
said the U.S. ship was 50 miles away when the Chinese amphibious ship
sailed within 100 yards of the Cowpens and stopped in front of it,
forcing the U.S. ship to make an emergency turn to avoid collision.
The Chinese also continued “expansionism” throughout the region last year, he said.
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Pentagon plays down intelligence officer's provocative China assessment
WASHINGTON
Thu Feb 20, 2014 8:31pm EST
Feb 20 (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Thursday
played down remarks by a senior Navy intelligence officer who
told a public forum that he believed
China was training its
forces to be capable of carrying out a "short, sharp" war with
Japan in the East China Sea.
The comments by Captain James Fanell, director of
intelligence and information operations at the U.S. Pacific
Fleet, were little noticed when he made them last week at a
conference on maritime strategy called "West 2014" in San Diego.
They can be seen here:
link.reuters.com/qyq96v
Fanell also predicted
China, which declared an air defense
zone last year in the East China Sea where it is locked in a
territorial dispute with
Japan over a string of small islands,
would declare another air defense zone by the end of 2015, this
time in the South China Sea.
The Pentagon's top spokesman, Rear Admiral John Kirby,
declined to comment on whether it was appropriate for Fanell to
publicly offer such a blunt assessment, but said the Pentagon
wanted closer ties with China's military.
"Those were his views to
express," Kirby told a Pentagon
news conference.
"What I can tell you about what Secretary Hagel believes is
that we all continue to believe that the peaceful, prosperous
rise of China is a good thing for the region, for the world," he
said, referring to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.
Asked whether the Pentagon shared Fanell's assessments,
Kirby said it would be inappropriate for him to speak to the
intentions or motivations of another country's military.
"It's for China to speak to China's intentions and
motivations and their relations with their neighbors. And
nothing's changed about our view here," Kirby said.
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Internationally recognized symbol. by Cary Bass
Armed
men patrol outside the Simferopol International Airport in Ukraine's
Crimea region on Friday, February 28. The gunmen, whom Ukrainian
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov called part of an "armed invasion" by
Russian forces, appeared around the airport without identifying
themselves. Crimea is an autonomous republic of Ukraine with an ethnic
Russian majority. It's the last large bastion of opposition to Ukraine's
new political leadership after President Viktor Yanukovych's ouster.
