Kotani Tetsuo China’s “Nine Gates” and Security Policy in the Indo-Pacific: Challenges for Japan

Challenges Therefore, in addition to strengthening its defense of the southwestern region and boosting the Self-Defense Forces’ presence in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean, Japan is also responding to Chinese forays by seeking to establish the rule of law in the seas and by helping capacity building in littoral states, based on the ideas set out in the free and open Indo-Pacific. [...] For example, in December 2016 a Chinese carrier passed through the Miyako Strait then navigated through the Bashi Channel and entered the South China Sea, before passing through the Strait of Taiwan and sailing toward the East China Sea.5 In April 2018, a Chinese carrier navigated from the South China Sea through the Bashi Channel into the Pacific, and from the Miyako Strait into the 2 Ministry of. [...] The Air Defense Identification Zone that China has set up in the skies over the East China Sea is an attempt to place all aircraft passing through the zone under the control of the Chinese authorities; this could therefore easily impinge on freedom of overflight and other freedoms of the sky.17 Indeed, there have already been incidents in which the warning and surveillance activities of the Self-D. [...] In response to the threat facing the international maritime order based on the law of the sea in the Indo-Pacific, the National Security Strategy adopted by the Japanese government in 2013 calls for “open and stable seas” based on international laws and conventions. [...] For this reason, in addition to strengthening its defense of the southwestern region and boosting the Self-Defense Forces’ presence in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean, Japan is also responding to Chinese forays by seeking to establish the rule of law in the seas and by helping capacity building in littoral states, based on the ideas set out in the FOIP.