The Foreign Policy Essay: China’s ADIZ in the East China Sea

Reporting on China’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea, which it rolled out in November 2013, has been highly (if understandably) skewed. (ADIZs are unilaterally declared areas that stretch beyond territorial airspace within which states impose reporting requirements on aircraft for purposes of national defense.)

China’s ADIZ stretches into the East China Sea, beyond Japan’s designated “mid-point line,” towards the Ryukyu Islands, and covers the contested Senkaku Islands (known as the Diaoyu Islands in Chinese).

Global media coverage tends to be event driven, and the “event” in this case was China’s establishment of the ADIZ, which escalated an already tense situation between Japan and China.

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