Anti-Submarine Aircraft of Royal Australian Airforce Flies Over Disputed South China Sea

An Australian military surveillance plane flew near disputed areas of the South China Sea, emerging Wednesday after the crew warned China's navy it was on a freedom of navigation mission.

Tensions in the region have mounted since China transformed reefs in the South China Sea into small islands capable of supporting military facilities, a move the United States says threatens free passage in an area through which one-third of the world's oil passes.

In October, Washington infuriated Beijing when the USS Lassen guided missile destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles of at least one land formation claimed by China in the disputed Spratly Islands chain.

Now a Royal Australian Air Force patrol plane has carried out patrols in air space around the area.

"A Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion was conducting a routine maritime patrol in the region as part of Operation Gateway from Nov. 25 to Dec. 4," a defence department spokesperson told AFP.

"Under Operation Gateway, the Australian Defence Force conducts routine maritime surveillance patrols in the North Indian Ocean and South China Sea as a part of Australia's enduring contribution to the preservation of regional security and stability in Southeast Asia."

The comments follow audio released by the BBC late Tuesday after a reporting assignment in the Spratly archipelago.

In the scratchy radio recording, an RAAF pilot is heard speaking to the Chinese navy.

"China navy, China navy," the voice said.

"We are an Australian aircraft exercising international freedom of navigation rights in international airspace in accordance with the international civil aviation convention and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea — over."

The BBC said it recorded the audio from a RAAF AP-3C Orion aircraft on Nov. 25. It said the message was repeated several times but no response was heard from the Chinese.

The Australian newspaper said it understood that the aircraft did not fly within the 12-nautical-mile limit China claims around the artificial islands it has built up.

The BBC hired a small plane and took off from the Philippines, which also claims some of the scattered atolls and reefs in the region, to film Chinese claimed land and construction and to see whether they were challenged.

It said they were warned several times, with radio communication from the Chinese navy telling them "you are threatening the security of our station."

China insists on sovereignty over virtually all the resource-endowed South China Sea, but Washington has repeatedly said it does not recognize the claims.

In a communique after talks in Sydney in November, US allies Japan and Australia called on "all claimants to halt large-scale land reclamation, construction, and use for military purposes" in the South China Sea.

S-400 will Bolster China's Capabilities in Response to Any Aerial Threat

A deal between Russia and China for procurement of the new S-400 air defense system will serve as a force multiplier for Beijing in its quest to dominate the skies along its borders, experts said.

The 400-kilometer-range system will, for the first time, allow China to strike any aerial target on the island of Taiwan, in addition to reaching air targets as far as New Delhi, Calcutta, Hanoi and Seoul. The Yellow Sea and China's new air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea will also be protected. The system will permit China, if need be, to strike any air target within North Korea.

The S-400 will also allow China to extend, but not dominate, the air defense space closer to the disputed Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, said Vasiliy Kashin, a China defense specialist at the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, Moscow. China refers to the islands as the Diaoyu, and tensions between Beijing and Japan have been increasing for several years as China continues to claim the islands.

China's current inventory of S-300s, at a range of 300 kilometers, only allows it to strike targets along Taiwan's northwestern coast and cannot reach capital cities in India and South Korea, said Alexander Huang, chairman, Council on Strategic and Wargaming Studies, Taipei. The S-400 will challenge Taiwan's ability to conduct air defense operations within its own ADIZ, which covers the Taiwan Strait.

"Of course, these new systems will also give China extra capability to deter and deny hostile air threats, making regional forces more cautious when operating near China," Huang said.

Rosoboronexport CEO Anatoly Isaikin announced the sale on April 13. He told news media outlets that the S-400 was in demand in the international market and that China would be the first export customer. No specifics were revealed, but the actual contract was most likely signed in the last quarter of 2014, Kashin said. He said the deal will include four to six battalions at about US $3 billion.

The S-400 is capable of intercepting missiles and air breathing targets, he said. Rosoboronexport did not clarifies any additional information.

The S-400 is a decent system and an evolutionary progression of China's air and missile defense modernization, said Mark Stokes, executive director of the Project 2049 Institute. "It would be interesting to know what specific missile variant is being exported, and where the systems would be deployed," he said.

Deployment of S-400 systems opposite Taiwan could drive Taiwan to increase investment into asymmetric capabilities designed to exploit vulnerabilities in China's air defenses, he said.

Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense (MND) is not surprised by the revelation and the military is keeping a close watch on developments, said Maj. Gen. Luo Shou-he, MND spokesman. Russia and China have cooperated closely on military issues for decades, he said, including arms sales and exchanges of defense technology.

"To cope with the potential threat of this new system, the ROC [Taiwan] armed forces has already completed its analysis of the missile threat, and tweaked its tactics and strategies to reflect countermeasures for engaging the S-400," he said.

Flight training by Taiwan's armed forces would still continue as planned and remain unaffected by the new system, Luo said .

"In the future, the ROC military will continue to keep a close eye on China as the S-400 begins deployment and take precautions for any possible new contingencies."

Kashin said China is gradually improving its long-range air defense missile production capabilities, but still lags behind Russia in this area. Chinese systems sometimes compete effectively on international markets, "but that was achieved not so much by the system capabilities but by Chinese willingness to provide favorable financial conditions and to transfer technology," he said.

China would no doubt attempt to reverse engineer the S-400, as it has done with previous sales of the S-300, but reverse engineering is time consuming, Kashin said, and Russia is now working on the next-generation S-500. The S-500 is expected to enter serial production in 2017; roughly, the same time China receives its first S-400 delivery, Kashin said.

Class overview and general characteristics of the "Type 055 Advanced Destroyer" of PLAN!

 

Source: Wikipedia

The Type 055 Destroyer: A True Multi-Role Surface Combatant For Peoples Liberation Army Navy

The Type 055 destroyer is a class of guided missile destroyers being developed in China for the People's Liberation Army Navy Surface Force. There have been two versions of the Type 055, the first one was a much earlier proposed destroyer design that was eventually cancelled, and the other is a modern design using the same "Type 055" designation according to many internet claims, which has yet to be verified by official or independent sources.

Computer Generated Graphics of Type 055 destroyer.

The Type 055 was originally a proposed project in the late 1960s order titled “Recommendations on Building Oceanic Escort Ships”, but its progress was seriously delayed due to political turmoil in China at the time, namely, the Cultural Revolution. It was not until more than half a decade later in 1976, the year the Cultural Revolution ended, was the requirement of the ship finally completed and issued. At the time of its appearance until its final cancellation, the Type 055 was the second air defence ship of PLAN, after the Type 053K Jiangdong class frigate. The standard displacement of Type 055 design was in excess of 8000 tons.

Even as the requirement was completed, it was flawed with unrealistic standards that were way beyond the scientific, technical, and industrial capabilities of China at the time due to the influence of the Cultural Revolution. For example, the sea-keeping requirement mandated that the ship should be able to navigate anywhere in the world except polar regions, but this conflicted with combat requirement: China lacked the capability to develop any multifunctional radar, so separate radars were needed for different tasks. The Type 518 radar was needed for long range early warning / surveillance, the Type 381 radar was needed for 3-D air search / track, and each gun and missile needed its own fire control radars. In addition, there was need for navigation, surface search, and helicopter control radars as well. The Type 518 radar itself would effectively negate any possibility of meeting the sea-keeping requirement because its antenna of 8.5 meter diameter weighed 4.5 ton, and must be installed on a mast of at least 25 meters, thus severely restricting wind scale and sea state allowed for safe navigation of the ship. However, reducing the weight of radar antenna would lead to the great decrease in performance, thus not meeting the combat effectiveness requirement.

The problem is further exasperated by the problem of the ship being top heavy: due to the fact each electronic system was single function only, numerous of them were needed to meet the original requirement, resulting in a total of 22 radars and 33 communication gears, which in addition to heavy weight, also generated the problem of electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) problem, so bad was the EMC problem that the missile control system could not function properly when everything was turned on, potentially causing missiles to be accidentally launched.

After the Cultural Revolution ended, the strenuous design requirements of the Type 055 that was settled during the Cultural Revolution went through re-evaluation, as with most projects of that period, and difficulties revealed in the design requirement review caused the criteria to be drastically revised and scaled back. There was later a modernisation plan to adopt British subsystems including combat data system, Sea Dart surface-to-air missiles (SAM), and Rolls-Royce Olympus TM3B high-speed gas turbines propulsion system used on the Type 42 destroyer. However efforts to incorporate British systems did not materialize, and just like the Type 051S destroyer, the Type 055 project was finally cancelled in the early 1980s, under the order of then commander of PLAN Liu Huaqing.

Since late 2012, Chinese internet websites circulated discussion of a new class of PLAN destroyers was being designed as the successor of the highly successful Type 052D destroyer, using the same "Type 055" designation as the cancelled project from the 1960s.

Photos appearing on Chinese websites in 2014, revealed that a Type 055 shore integration facility was being constructed at the Ship Design and Research Center (701 Institute) of CSIC at the Wuhan University of Science and Technology. The mock-up facility has been extensively used for testing of electronics and systems for the destroyer program, and shown to be integrated with a Type 346/348 series radar and an enclosed mast similar to Advanced Enclosed Mast/Sensor on European ships. There is speculation that the Type 055 may also have an L-band radar installed on the aft section of the ship similar to the SMART-L system. The class is expected to be armed with 112 to 128 vertical launch missile cells that can fire antiship missiles, ASW missiles, land-attack cruise missiles or SAMs.

In late December 2014, a photograph appeared on the internet indicated the first cut of steel ceremony at a Chinese shipyard. If the image is accurate, construction of the first unit has begun.

U.S. media sources have speculated that the Type 055's power and strength could make it on-par with the latest U.S. Navy Aegis warships. Some U.S. sources predict the Type 055 could carry 128 missiles, be able to carry out in-depth strikes through cruise missiles to protect its task force's airspace, and might be equipped with electromagnetic railguns and laser weapons in the future. The semi-official PLA Daily, published an article however stating the class is not a "game changing" vessel as it's not much larger than contemporary Russian, Japanese, or American destroyers, and will only be equivalent to the U.S. Arleigh Burke-class destroyer or Japanese Atago-class destroyer.

 

Source: Wikipedia

Did USA provocating a war with China regarding Soth China Sea disputes?

The Pentagon in the third week of May sent a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon surveillance plane near Fiery Cross Reef in the South China Sea — called the East Sea by Vietnam. The Fiery Reef is in the archipelago called the Spratly Islands by the U.S., the Nanchan Islands by China and the Truong Sa Islands by the Vietnamese.

 As the U.S. surveillance plane approached the area of the reef, a Chinese radio dispatcher warned: “Foreign military aircraft, this is the Chinese Navy. You are approaching our military alert zone. Leave immediately!” (Los Angeles Times, May 21)

The U.S. military replied that the plane was over international waters, even though it was close to 12 miles from the reef. “I am a military aircraft conducting lawful activities,” added the U.S. plane. The Chinese warned the spy plane off eight times, to no avail.

The U.S. surveillance flight came less than a week after the USS Fort Worth, a Navy littoral combat ship designed for near-shore operations, passed close to the islands, where the Chinese are dredging sand and building up five reefs.

Provocation part of planned campaign

These were deliberate provocations staged by the Pentagon as part of a planned campaign to escalate Washington’s military pressure on the People’s Republic of China. It is the implementation of the so-called “Asian pivot” announced by President Barack Obama.

According to a May 12 article in the British paper The Guardian, “Ash Carter, the defense secretary, had requested options that included sending ships and aircraft within 12 nautical miles of reefs that China has been building up in the disputed Spratly Islands. …

“‘We are considering how to demonstrate freedom of navigation in an area that is critical to world trade,’ [a] U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity, adding that any options would need to be approved by the White House.”

To unfold such a plan under the banner of defending “freedom of the seas” is ludicrous. For one thing, the U.S. is one of the few countries that has not signed the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, although it participated in drafting much of the language.

This is a reflection of the imperialist arrogance and presumptuous, great-power chauvinism of Washington. The Pentagon regards the Pacific as a “U.S. lake.” What else could explain the military challenging China’s right to build up islands a few hundred miles from its shore, when California is more than 6,000 miles away? What right has the U.S. ruling class to have its Navy conduct patrols in the Pacific region to “ensure freedom of the seas,” but not allow China to promote its interests in the region?

The answer is that it has no right, except the right based on military force by a power that has devastated Asia, beginning with the U.S. intervention in China during the Boxer Rebellion of 1898-1900 followed by the slaughter in the Philippines in 1898-1902 and colonization of that country — to say nothing of the atomic bombing of Japan in World War II, the brutal Korean War, the genocidal Vietnam war, the bombing of Laos and Cambodia, and the CIA-backed massacre of a million people in Indonesia in 1965-66.

Council on Foreign Relations unveils new strategy

The Council on Foreign Relations is the think tank of a major section of the U.S. ruling class. Its members include former Defense secretaries, former heads of the State Department, generals, admirals, ruling-class military intellectuals, strategists, etc.

In April the CFR released a report titled “Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China,” written by Robert D. Blackwill; Henry Kissinger, Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy; and Ashley J. Tellis, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The core of the report is summarized as follows:

Strengthen the U.S. military. “Congress should remove sequestration caps and substantially increase the U.S. defense budget. … Washington should intensify a consistent U.S. naval and air presence in the South and East China Seas” and “accelerate the U.S. ballistic-missile defense posture” in the Pacific.

Expand Asian trade networks. “U.S. grand strategy toward China will be seriously weakened without delivering on the TPP [Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement]. A major push by the White House for ratification should therefore begin immediately in the new Congress, including seeking trade promotion authority.”

Create a technology-control regime. “Washington should pay increased attention to limiting China’s access to advanced weaponry and military critical technologies.” The United States should encourage its allies “to develop a coordinated approach to constrict China’s access to all technologies, including dual use.”

Implement effective cyber policies. Washington should “impose costs on China that are in excess of the benefits it receives from its violations in cyberspace … increase U.S. offensive cyber capabilities … continue improving U.S. cyber defenses” and “pass relevant legislation in Congress, such as the Cyber Information Security Protection Act.”

Reinforce Indo-Pacific partnerships. “The United States cannot defend its interests in Asia without support from its allies” and “should build up the power-political capabilities of its friends and allies on China’s periphery.”

The report has the earmarks of the campaign that was devised to bring down the USSR. It is formulated by former Cold Warriors. It aims to promote military encirclement, which would divert economic resources and disrupt national economic planning. During the time of the USSR, the U.S. set up a wide blockade on technology transfer, with the aim of depriving the Soviet Union of modern economic tools for national development. And, of course, Washington fashioned global alliances such as NATO directed at the USSR. What is being proposed by the CFR is a milder version of the Cold War full-court press. But the goal is clearly to undermine the People’s Republic.

The problem for the imperialists is that China already has the technological and industrial capability to withstand such a campaign, should it be implemented. But the important point is to be aware of the aggressive thinking in the highest imperialist circles concerning China. And to note that the recent provocations are not just arbitrary or momentary. They are part of a longer-range plan.

U.S. views Russia and China differently

Washington regards China as a hostile class power — unlike Russia, which is a fully capitalist country with imperialist investments and an upstart oligarchic ruling class. Created on the ruins of the nationalized economy of the Soviet Union, it is looking for its place in the sun of imperialism. Wall Street and the Pentagon have a different idea. They want to take Russia over. Thus Russia is in conflict with the U.S. imperialists on many fronts, and the oppressed countries can and should take full advantage of this.

But China is more or less a compromise of socialism with capitalism. The socialist foundation must be defended against counterrevolution. The planning principle and state-owned enterprises dominate the economy, although it is riddled with capitalism and corruption. The Communist Party of China, the state banks and big state industries are combatting the current economic slowdown and trying to advance employment.

China is managing this slowdown while economic stagnation and recession are plaguing the capitalist world. This includes Russia, which is in the grip of an economic crisis, with its gross domestic product, sales and wages falling — unlike China, where wages are rising.

The goal of U.S. and European capitalism is to destroy the state enterprises in China, privatize them, undermine the Chinese Communist Party and politically enthrone the capitalist class.

Both China and Russia must be defended against imperialism when they are under attack. But no one should overlook the difference between a distorted socialist country with capitalist inroads and a state fully in the hands of an exploiting class.

China ignores Vietnam’s sovereignty in island dispute

While the overriding threat in the Pacific right now is the provocation by U.S. imperialism against China, the fact that China is expanding into territory long claimed by Vietnam and within Vietnamese territorial waters must not be lost sight of.

China may have legitimate commercial and defense interests in building up the Spratly Islands/Truong Sa Islands. But it is incumbent upon China, both as a great power and as a country with claims to socialism, to defer to Vietnam and to work out territorial relations under conditions that are mutually acceptable and agreed upon.

It is one thing to expand military and commercial positions to be better able to protect against imperialist incursions. It is another thing to expand territorial claims far beyond any legally recognized boundaries and disregard the territorial claims of Vietnam, or the other nations that have claims on the islands, including the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei.

Acting in a high-handed manner with respect to small nations, especially with respect to a sister socialist country like Vietnam, both demeans China and increases the space for U.S. imperialism to create divisions and conflict.

Washington is fishing in troubled waters by sending its military into a contested region. It has no business in these waters. Its aggressive military and political maneuvers that foster division are meant to serve imperialist purposes and should be shunned by China first of all.

Chinese PLAN Type 055 Destroyer

Land based mock-up of Chinese Type 055 Destroyer, which is used for extensive study & research located in the construction at Wuhan.

Analysis: End of year surge for Chengdu J-20 fighter programme

In November and December 2014 two additional prototypes of the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation's (CAC) J-20 fifth-generation fighter emerged, advancing its development towards a possible initial operational capability (IOC) of 2017-18.

A view of the latest J-20 prototype, 2015, which made its maiden flight from the CAC airfield on 18 December. (Chinese internet).

The J-20 programme currently features six known prototypes. Two are early technology development articles (serial numbers 2001 and 2002) that emerged in 2009 and 2010, while four are modified versions closer to operational prototypes (serial numbers 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2015) that all emerged in 2014.

No prototype numbered 2014 has yet to appear and may not, given the traditional Chinese view that four is an unlucky number.

Chinese aircraft spotters responsible for early internet photos report that the latest J-20 prototype, 2015, made its maiden flight from the CAC airfield on 18 December.

hinese aircraft spotters responsible for early internet photos report that the latest prototypes, 2013 and 2015, made their maiden flights from the CAC airfield on 29 November and 18 December 2014 respectively.

Both have most of the refinements seen on aircraft 2011, which emerged in February 2014: cropped canards and vertical stabilisers, a modified air intake, modified wing leading-edge extensions, and a new electro-optical targeting system (EOTS) under the nose.

However, 2013 and 2015 lack the nose-mounted pitot tubes that featured on the earlier prototypes. In addition, number 2015 has longer and sharper-shaped rear-fuselage horizontal strakes. Although this aft surface does not appear to be movable, it may contribute to aircraft stability, as a similar - though movable - surface did for the Grumman X-29 technology demonstrator.

A detail of the strakes on the latest J-20 prototype, 2015. (Chinese internet).

Early internet-sourced images have also emerged of the J-20's retractable refuelling probe, placed on the upper starboard of the nose. The development status of an indigenous Chinese turbofan for the J-20, often referred to as the WS-15, remains unknown. There is speculation that early J-20 examples may use a version of the Russian Saturn AL-31 turbofan.

In April 2014 an Asian government source told IHS Jane's that China would have 24 J-20s by 2020, which if realised, could constitute a first operational regiment. This would indicate that IOC may occur in the 2017-18 timeframe.

Source: Janes

Type 052D (Luyang-III) Multirole Destroyer: PLAN's Prime Surface Combatant

PLA Navy amphibious task force reaches Malaysia 'to defend South China sea'

A fully equipped PLA amphibious task force has reached China's southernmost claimed possession in the South China Sea in an unprecedented show of force that is raising eyebrows across the region. The four-ship flotilla headed by the landing ship Jinggangshan visited James Shoal - some 80 kilometres from Malaysia, less than 200 kilometres from Brunei and 1,800 kilometres from the mainland coast - close to the outer limits of China's "nine-dash line", by which it lays claim to virtually the entire South China Sea.

Chinese Navy's amphibious landing ship Jinggangshan is seen during a training with a hovercraft in waters near Hainan Province on March 20, 2013. Photo: Xinhua

A Xinhua report yesterday described marines and crew gathering on the deck of the Jinggangshan - one of the PLA Navy's three 200-metre landing ships - to pledge to "defend the South China Sea, maintain national sovereignty and strive towards the dream of a strong China".

"It was a surprisingly strong message in sending out this task force, on such a new operational role from previous PLAN [PLA Navy] patrols in the region," said Gary Li, a senior analyst with IHS Fairplay in London.

"It is not just a few ships here and there, but a crack amphibious landing ship carrying marines and hovercraft and backed by some of the best escort ships in the PLAN fleet," he said, adding that jet fighters had also been used to cover the task force.

"We've never seen anything like this that far south in terms of quantity or quality ... it is hard to know whether it is just coincidence, but it does seem to reflect [President] Xi Jinping's desire for more practical operationally based exercises."

The landing ships are considered some of the most sophisticated vessels in the PLA and are thought to be key to any strategy to invade Taiwan. Their deployments are closely watched by regional rivals. The first of the landing ships, Kunlunshan, has been used in anti-piracy work off the Horn of Africa. Photos circulating on mainland websites show marines storming beaches, backed by hovercrafts and helicopters dispatched from the Jinggangshan during several days of exercises that saw them visit all of China's holdings in the Spratly Islands.

The PLA took six Spratlys reefs and shoals from Vietnam in a sea battle 25 years ago this month. The ships are due to head back north, crossing into the western Pacific for further drills via the Bashi channel between Taiwan and the Philippines, Xinhua said. News of the Jinggangshan's appearance off James Shoal last night sparked chatter among military officials in the region.

"That is quite a show of sovereignty - an amphibious task force," said one military attaché monitoring developments. "It has got everyone talking.

"The Spratlys is one thing, but turning up at James Shoal is quite another. Once again, China is showing it is quite unafraid to send a message to the region - and in a year when Asean is chaired by Brunei, turning up down there in such a fashion is pretty strong symbolism."

PLA deployments into the South China Sea in 2009 and 2010 sparked fears across the region of a new assertiveness by Beijing. Those concerns in turn prompted fresh moves by several Southeast Asian nations to force the long-simmering South China Sea dispute back on to the regional agenda - and forge closer ties with the US.

 

Source: South China Morning Post

BREAKING: Malaysian PM News Conference over MH370 Hijacked (Youtube link)

China's Maritime Disputes

 

 

In light of the recent entry by Galrahn on the issue of China's expanded map, I want to just put my thoughts on this. I was originally thinking of writing a separate entry on the dramatic expansion of China's maritime surveillance agencies of CMS and FLEC, but I want to spend a little time just looking at the non-military part of this.

 

Territorial disputes in the South China Sea involve both land (island) and maritime disputes among seven sovereign states within the region, namely the:

• People's Republic of China (PRC)
• Republic of China (Taiwan)
• Philippines
• Vietnam
• Malaysia
• Brunei
• Indonesia

 

 

 

The main point I want to make here is that China's border dispute with entirely different than its border dispute with India and the countries around South China Sea. We often read about China's recent actions have made neighbouring countries feel uneasy and have pushed them toward America. While I do agree the other countries reactions have been similar, it's important to note that these are different issues for Chinese people.

And this has everything to do with the historical relationship of the two countries. It starts from 1895 when China was badly defeated by Japan, who it had always looked upon as a vassal nation. The unfair treaty which resulted in war reparation in addition to annexation of Taiwan was followed up by the brutal Russo-Japanese war of 1905 which was fought over Chinese soil and resulted in the Japanese control of Lushun (Port Arthur). Of course, all of this was small compared to the occupation of Manchuria in 1931 and second Sino-Japanese War between 1937 and 1945. The Chinese side has claimed that around 20 million civilians were killed during this conflict. If that's true, it would in effect be the equivalent of 3 holocausts. I do not know how accurate these numbers are, but I did hear a story (growing up) where my friend's ancestor was tortured to death by Japanese soldiers. And my opinion is that most people born in my generation or prior in China probably have heard of such stories from their family or friends. When I visited Nanjing in 2006, I was told by locals that the only place not pillaged during the Nanking massacre was the Sun Yat-Sen memorial. Even by then, Japanese business was not allowed on the city's premise. 

 

There has been a lot of anger within China toward Japan in the past 10 years due to the visits by Koizumi/Abe of the Yasukuni Shrine and the denials of wartime atrocities by some Japanese Nationalists. While I do not think that the Japanese government is denying th war atrocities, I do think a lot of people in China would feel better toward Japanese if the Japanese government adopt the same attitude toward this subject as Germany has adopted toward the Holocaust. When something like the recent Diaoyu/Senkaku dispute came up, it came across as another reminder of Japanese aggression for Chinese people. Back when the two countries normalized relations in 1978, Deng Xiaoping made a strategic decision to not overly press Japan over this issue in exchange of money and technology to help with the Chinese economy. And I think while China was still economically weak and needing Japan, this was something it was willing to do (not overly voicing past grievances). However with China's growing power in the past 10 years, this is no longer the case, so the current generation of Chinese population and officials do not see the need to hold pacifying attitude toward Japan. With the Koizumi/Abe visits, all of these anger/grievances from the past 60 years flared up and it is tough for me to see how relations between China/Japan will get better.

The difference between the Diaoyu/Senkaku dispute and the South China Sea dispute is that the entire Chinese population is invested in this issue. It's not just the PLA or a group of nationalist cranks on the internet forums that are passionate about this, it's the ordinary people. You've seen that with the wide spread boycotting of Japanese business in the past few months due to the outrage in China over the entire Diaoyu/Senkaku issues. This is not just a couple of islands. This is 70 years of grievances. It's also seen in the expansion of civilian maritime patrol fleet. In the past few months, 11 ships from PLAN have been sent to the shipyards to be retrofitted and removed of weaponry so that they can join the CMS fleet and patrol the disputed regions with Japan. And I think that until the Japanese government adopts an attitude toward its World War II crimes toward China (and South Korea) as Germany has toward Israel, there will always be that underlying tension that makes all border disputes even worse. I think that the relationship between the two countries have gotten so bad that it may be more likely a conflict will break out between China and Japan rather than China and Taiwan in the next 10 years. That's really unfortunate, because the two countries have so much to gain in this economically unstable period if they can somehow move past this issue and resolve past grievances.

As a last point, it really bugs me that Japan is often put in the same category as Vietnam/Philippines with regards to needing American help to defend itself against the big bad Chinese. Even with the rise of PLAN, JMSDF is still clearly the stronger force at this time. The Japanese civilian patrol fleet is also a very powerful fleet, so it is not going to be scared away by the presence of a few 1500 ton CMS cutters. In fact, CMS has this huge build up just so that it can get somewhat close to the size of its Japanese counterpart.