By Ankit Panda
The two countries are expected to engage in a high-level defense dialogue on the ADIZ tomorrow.
Much has been said and written already about China’s unilateral establishment of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) earlier this week. Reactions in Japan and the United States have been well-documented, but little analysis has been devoted exclusively to the South Korean angle on the ADIZ issue. The ADIZ, even it was a ham-fisted and poorly conceived strategic attempt to exert Chinese sovereignty over the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku islands, did not necessarily have to overlap with about 3,000 square kilometers of South Korea’s own ADIZ, encompassing Ieodo (Suyan) Rock and grazing the Western fringe of Jeju-do’s airspace in the process.
Coverage from Monday in the South Korean press was less-than-sympathetic to the Chinese ADIZ. The Hankyoreh began its report by noting the inclusion of Ieodo in the ADIZ. The Chinese press, for its part, immediately disseminated a Chinese defense ministry statement that China had “no territorial dispute” with Seoul over Ieodo in an attempt to offset the tension. The report included a statement by Qin Gang, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, who clarified that the two would resolve the issue via “friendly consultations and negotiations.”
The official South Korea response was significantly more muted than Japan’s. For example, Park Geun-hye did not make any public denunciations of the ADIZ while Shinzo Abe responded publicly and comprehensively. The South Korean high-level response came from Kim Min-seok, the defense minister, who said that Korea would continue to fly in the area covered by the ADIZ without informing China. The Wall Street Journal reports that South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, speaking at a defense forum, said that the ADIZ imposition by China had made “tricky regional situations even more difficult to deal with” — a fairly muted response.
Read the full story at The Diplomat