In an article for the Washington-based National Interest magazine on June 21, US defense expert Harry Kazianis laid out a possible a scenario involving Japan and China clashing over the airspace of the disputed Diaoyutai islands (Senkaku to Japan, Diaoyu to China) in the East China Sea to analyze whether the United States would be ready for such a conflict.
The scenario takes place on March 1, 2015, Kazianis wrote, noting that China has already instituted daily non-naval maritime patrols around the disputed islands while its aircraft carrier Liaoning and other warships have conducted exercises only 50 miles away from the islands since February.
Kazianis described that two Chinese SU-27 fighters would come within 25 feet of a Japanese P-3 Orion surveillance plane just 10 miles west of the Diaoyutai on the first day of March 2015 — mirroring an actual event that took place over China's southern island province of Hainan in April, 2001, when a Su-27 fighter collided with a P-3.
According to the scenario, "the Japanese plane collides with one of the Chinese fighters. Both aircraft crash into the ocean, with no survivors." "Just 72 hours later, a group of twenty Chinese nationals land on one of the disputed islands under the cover of darkness."
Read the full story at Want China Times