Implications of Russian Chinese Air Exercise in the East Sea

(Source- Channel A News Top Ten, 7.24 ) The thief so much the worse has a club: Japan. Japan portrays Dokdo on its Olympic web site showing the Olympic torch route (right) when in the recent past, the South Korean government removed the depiction of Dokdo from the 2018 Winter Olympic flag at Japan's request (left).

The Russian action, in particular the territorial airspace violations over Dokdo which elicited an armed response from South Korean air defense aircraft, appears calculated to aggravate a long simmering dispute over the island territory between Japan and South Korea and drive a further wedge in their current poor relations. The Japanese claim to the islands is spurious having asserted control of the islands during the period of Japanese imperial military actions subjugating Korea during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They lost this control after August 1945. The unprecedented ROK Air Force resort to warning shots against a Russian military aircraft is evidence of the potential for sudden military conflict in the East Sea.

Here is the pertinent quote from the CNN article which reveals Moscow's motive:

The Japanese government said that it had issued a strong protest against both the Russian and the South Korean governments for intruding on what they regard as their airspace.

The South Koreans said they had dismissed Japan's protests. Moscow has not responded to either country's concerns.*

* https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/23/asia/south-korea-russia-military-intl-hnk/index.html

(Source-JTBC News 7.24) Japanese MOD report shows flight path of Russian A-50 around Dokdo (Takeshima) entering territorial airspace twice. Japanese fighter aircraft had intercepted the unprecedented joint Russian Chinese air operation over the East China Sea according to JTBC News.

Beyond this the joint operation of Russian and Chinese air forces in the East Sea/Sea of Japan and the East China Sea pose a challenge to the reduction of the scope and scale of joint military exercises scheduled by the US and South Korea. North Korea has recently suggested that it's suspension of longer range missiles and nuclear testing is dependent upon whether or not upcoming US South Korean joint military exercises take place. The scope and scale of the Tong Meng 19-2 US-ROK exercise is probably more correctly the issue. The need for such exercises is bolstered by Russian Chinese military cooperation in the region. Prior South Korean news broadcasts have suggested that the 19-2 joint exercise is principally a simulated command post type exercise with limited field operations. Such Russian-Chinese actions along with today's North Korean short range missile testing today are likely to expand rather than diminish such exercises. This appears to portend a hostile attitude toward the Moon administration in South Korea, tending to promote the cause of the right wing there and indefinite division of the peninsula.

(Source- Channel A News Top Ten, 7.24) John Bolton meets with Jong Eui Jong, ROK National Security Adviser in the Blue House with a Turtle ship replica in the background. The Turtle ship fleet under the leadership of Admiral Lee Sun Sin was credited with defeating the Japanese fleet during the Japanese invasion of Korea in 1598. The comment notes that the model has always been there. President Moon Jae In had mentioned the spirit of Lee Sun Shin to encourage the public in the face of Japanese free trade restraints. The removal of South Korea from Japan's so called "white list" of trusted trading partners is scheduled to become operational on South Korea's Independence Day, which commemorates it's liberation from Japanese rule on August 15, 1945, in another characteristic Abe/LDP affront.

(Source- Channel A News Top Ten, 7.24. President Moon has breakfast with the Mayor of Pusan at the Lee Sun Shin raw fish house. The comical quote, ascribed to Moon by netizens, says "I had breakfast at the famous fish house in Pusan. I hope people don't get the wrong idea."

At the same time, one can't help but notice the coincidence that John Bolton the US national security adviser is in Asia, lobbying the Japanese and South Koreans to join the "coalition" to defend "freedom of navigation" in the Persian Gulf/ Gulf of Oman region. Increased regional operations and the prospect of future military cooperation by Russia and China in East Asia might make South Korean and Japan less likely to send their forces so far afield from the increased local military challenge. Increased Russian Chinese military cooperation certainly presents a prospect that may affect US considerations of force disposition in the widely dispersed Indo-Pacific theater. This is likely the intention of the budding partnership of the peer rivals of the US. Two historical frameworks compete for dominance in Asia the legacy of western imperial dominance and the cold war versus the legacy of an unrepentant imperial Japan and the Great Pacific War.