Deterring Chinese Aggression

China’s militarization of the South China Sea includes beefing up its military facilities on Woody Island in the Paracel chain – occupied by China but also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam – where the Chinese reportedly just deployed eight batteries of its advanced, long-range HQ-9 air defense system.  This is the latest step by Beijing to deploy anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities designed to complicate or disrupt U.S. power projection in the Western Pacific.

Seen against this backdrop, the territorial dispute between China and Japan over the Senkaku Islands seems like an open and shut case from a U.S. national security perspective:  Japan is a U.S. treaty ally, the Senkaku Islands are under the administration of Japan, and Article 5 of the treaty stipulates in part that, “Each party recognizes that an armed attack against either Party in the territories under the administration of Japan would be dangerous to its own peace and safety, and declares that it would act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional provisions and processes.”