Bitter dispute sees the US and Japanese navies play war games against the Chinese Coast Guard

The Chinese Coast Guard has been elbowing its way around some remote Japanese islands throughout the year. Now a large-scale naval exercise between the United States and Japan is practicing how to get them back.

Tens of thousands of American and Japanese soldiers are participating in an island-hopping campaign not seen since World War II.

It is part of exercise Keen Sword 21. Its mission is “to deliver combat troops to defend the Senkakus or respond to other crises or contingencies.”

The Senkaku Islands are an uninhabited group of rocks about 1900 km southwest of Tokyo, just a few hundred kilometers from Taiwan.

They are at the center of a bitter dispute with Beijing.

Imperial Japan inspected and claimed the islands in 1895. Communist China claimed them in 1952. Since July, Coast Guard vessels controlled by the Chinese navy have been relentlessly plying their waters as if in control.

“The security situation around Japan has become increasingly severe,” the head of the Japanese defense force, General Koji Yamazaki, told the media on Monday aboard the aircraft carrier Kaga. “This gives us the opportunity to demonstrate the strength of the Japan-US alliance.”

The USS Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group is contributing to the 20 warships, 170 aircraft that are concentrated in the area. Some 46,000 soldiers will participate in the war game that operates from Okinawa and mainland Japan.

“Our arrival today was simply to demonstrate the ability to move a few people, but the same ability could be used to deploy combat troops to defend the Senkaku Islands or respond to other crises and contingencies,” said US Commander Lt. Gen. Kevin Schneider.

TREATY TRIGGER

Owning the Senkaku Islands is complicated.

Imperial Japan reclaimed the uninhabited outcrops after surveying the region during its 1890 war with Imperial China. The islands were occupied by the United States after World War II, but returned to control of Tokyo in 1972.

In 1952, Communist China declared that it owned the islands as a legacy of its century-old imperial empire. It is the same assertion basis that Beijing asserts about the entire South China Sea. An international court of arbitration rejected this in a 2016 ruling as historically unfounded.

Beijing has rejected the ruling.

This has profound implications as the mutual defense treaty between the United States and Japan commits Washington to defend the disputed islands as if they were US territory.

Keen Sword is the first major military exercise with Japan since Yoshihide Suga took over as Prime Minister of Japan last month. He promised to counter pressure from China on the territories of Japan.

For his part, General Schneider, the commander of the US force in Japan, says Washington is “100% absolutely firm in its commitment to help” defend Japanese property from the Senkakus.

SHARP SWORDS

The Marines swam ashore to explore the islands. Tracking forces were then inserted by tilt-rotor MV-22 Ospreys. Protectively watching over everything was a fleet of AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters.

“Our ability to rapidly seize and operate from critical maritime terrain will support naval operations to ensure that we are ready to meet our treaty obligations with Japan and maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific,” states a statement from the United States Navy. United.

Exercise Keen Sword forces “will train in a comprehensive scenario designed to exercise the critical capabilities necessary to support Japan’s defense and respond to a crisis or contingency in the Indo-Pacific region,” adds General Schneider.

This includes mixing and matching the use of helicopters, fighters, and personnel from different nations among the multinational force.

“Demonstrating interoperability between the two forces in realistic scenarios is just as important, if not more so, than showing off any shiny new hardware,” says Kanagawa University international relations analyst Corey Wallace.

The joint exercise between the United States, Canada and Japan will end on November 5.

‘COERCIVO Y UNILATERAL’

Japan’s largest warship, the Kaga helicopter carrier, will soon be rebuilt to operate F-35B “Jump Jets” to enhance its combat capabilities. But the 248-meter-long ship is currently leading the international force in the simulated island-hopping campaign.

Her refit, and that of her sister ships, represents Tokyo’s growing concern for Beijing’s ambitions.

Japan’s defense white paper, also published in July, warned of an increase in “unilateral and coercive actions” by China. That same month, the US signed a deal allowing Japan to purchase 105 F-35B jet planes as part of a $ 23 billion (AU $ 32 billion) package that will eventually deliver a total of 147 stealth fighters.

This month, Suga visited Vietnam and Indonesia to strengthen Japan’s ties with its Southeast Asian neighbors. It has also hosted talks aimed at strengthening the informal “Quad” relationship between Japan, the United States, Australia and India.

FOOD FIGHT

Even as the combined naval fleet of the United States, Japan and Canada plows through the disputed waters, China’s fisheries militia is accused of expelling Tokyo ships from its own exclusive economic zone.

The persecution for declining populations of flying squid has led the Communist Party-controlled fleet to make its way into North Korean waters. It is allegedly behind the deaths of North Korean crews and a series of so-called “ghost ships” that reached the shores of Japan.

Now Chinese ships are heading towards the Japanese side of the Sea of ​​Japan. So far, the Tokyo Fisheries Agency has warned about 2,600 Chinese boats that are passing through its territory, four times more than last year.

Japan has imposed a ban on its own fishing fleet operating in the Yamatotai area to preserve squid populations.