China sends in warplanes after Japan, SKorea defy air defense zone

China ordered warplanes into its newly declared maritime air defense zone Thursday, seemingly in response to an early South Korean and Japanese fly-through that defied Beijing's new rules.

Chinese air force spokesman Shen Jinke announced the measure, telling state-owned Xinhua news agency that several fighter jets and an early-warning aircraft had been sent on normal air patrols in the zone.

Shen described the flights as "a defensive measure and in line with international common practices." He said China's air force would remain on high alert and would take measures to protect the country's airspace

Japan and South Korea announced hours earlier that they had defied China's newly declared air defense zone with military overflights. The move follows one by the U.S., which sent B-52 bombers into the area on Tuesday.

The defiant flyovers come amid increased regional and international concern over the air defense identification zone (ADIZ).

Declared last weekend by Chinese officials, the zone includes flight paths above disputed islands claimed by China, which knows them as the Diaoyus, but controlled by Japan, which calls them the Senkakus.

Both the U.S. and Japanese governments have accused China of provocation in regard to the air defense zone. Meanwhile Beijing has come under domestic pressure to deliver a tough response to the incursions.

The ADIZ requires aircraft to provide their flight plan to Chinese officials, declare their nationality and maintain two-way radio communication or face "defensive emergency measures."

But Tokyo said its coast guard and air force had flown unopposed in the zone without complying with Beijing's rules.

"We have been operating normal warning and patrol activities in the East China Sea, including that area," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga. "We have no intention of changing this."

South Korea's military said it encountered no resistance when one of its planes entered the area — which also overlaps Seoul's ADIZ — unannounced on Tuesday.

A day earlier, two giant U.S. Stratofortress bombers flew into the zone, an unmistakable message from Washington before a long-planned visit to the region by Vice President Joe Biden.

China's defense ministry issued a statement 11 hours after the U.S. announcement, saying its military "monitored the entire process" of the B-52 flights, without expressing regret or anger or threatening direct action.

The decision to send in warplanes comes amid debate over the response by Beijing to regional and international protest over the defense zone.

The Global Times, which is close to China's ruling Communist Party and often takes a nationalist tone, criticized the reaction as "too slow" in an editorial Thursday.

"We failed in offering a timely and ideal response," it said, adding that Chinese officials needed to react to "psychological battles" by the U.S.

Asked about the South Korean flight, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said, "China identifies any aircraft within the ADIZ and must have noted the relevant situation you have mentioned."

He reiterated criticism of U.S. and Japanese responses to the zone, urging both countries to "immediately correct their mistakes and stop their irresponsible accusations against China."

China's Communist Party often seeks to drum up popular support by tapping into deep-seated resentment of Japan for its brutal invasion of China in the 1930s.

Such nationalist passions are easily aroused, and Chinese social-media users called for Beijing to retaliate against Washington.

"The U.S.'s bomber wandered around the edge of our ADIZ, I figure we should respond in kind. One good turn deserves another, right?" wrote one commentator on Sina Weibo, a social-media service similar to Twitter.

Senior administration officials in Washington said Wednesday that Biden would raise Washington's concerns about the zone while in Beijing.

The trip will allow him to "make the broader point that there's an emerging pattern of behavior by China that is unsettling to China's own neighbors and raising questions about how China operates in international space," an official said.

China's relations with South Korea have recently improved, but the zone covers a disputed South Korean–controlled rock that has long been a source of tensions between them.

South Korea's Vice Defense Minister Baek Seung-joo expressed "strong regret" at China's ADIZ announcement, which he said was "heightening military tension in the region."

Australia on Thursday refused to back down from criticism of the air zone after summoning China's ambassador earlier this week and prompting an angry response from Beijing.

The Philippines voiced concern that China may extend control of air space over disputed areas of the South China Sea, where the two nations have a territorial dispute.

Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Raul Hernandez said Thursday that China's ADIZ threatens the national security of affected states and "transforms the entire air zone" into China's "domestic airspace."

Japanese passenger airlines said after government pressure that they would not obey Beijing's rules, while the U.S. State Department has taken an ambiguous position, saying it was advising U.S. carriers "to take all steps they consider necessary to operate safely in the ... region."

Thai Airways said Thursday it would comply with Beijing's directive.

China, for its part, has accused the U.S. and Japan — which both have ADIZs —of having double standards, saying the real provocateur is Tokyo.

Defense Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun said in a statement Thursday that Japan established its ADIZ in 1969, so Tokyo had "no right to make irresponsible remarks" about China's.

"If there are to be demands for a withdrawal, then we invite the Japanese side to first withdraw its air defense identification zone, and China may reconsider after 44 years," he said.

The island dispute lay dormant for decades but flared in September 2012 after Tokyo purchased three of the uninhabited outcrops from private owners.

Beijing accused Tokyo of changing the status quo and has since sent surveillance ships and aircraft to the area, prompting Japan to scramble fighter jets 386 times in the 12 months since September.

The maneuvers have raised fears of an unplanned clash.

Al Jazeera and wire services