By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR
UPDATED: US Challenges Chinese, Flies B-52 Bombers Through Air Zone
China escalated tensions with Japan literally sky-high last weekend. After years of shadowboxing at sea around the Senkaku Islands, China’s Ministry of Defense announced a new “Air Defense Identification Zone” with authority to oversee and, implicitly, even intercept aircraft flying over the disputed waters, includes Japanese and American military planes. That raises the ugly prospect of repeating the 2001 collision off Hainan that killed a Chinese fighter pilot, downed a US Navy spyplane, and left 24 Americans in Chinese captivity for 11 days.
[UPDATED 12:45 pm: Reuters just reported America's first challenge to the zone, a flight through the newly declared Chinese air defense zone by two US military aircraft that elicited no Chinese response. The Wall Street Journal's Julian Barnes identified them as Air Force B-52 bombers flying out of Guam. That means the US sent two of America's oldest, biggest, least stealthy, and least agile aircraft from a long way away. They should have been easy for Chinese radar to spot and for Chinese fighters to intercept -- but whether the Chinese saw them coming or not, Beijing did nothing.
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