After raking the Irish Times over the coals for screwing up
the headline it tacked onto the Reuters story about the alleged intrusion of a
Chinese military aircraft into Japanese airspace by calling a Y-8 turboprop a “fighter
plane”, I was…interested? bemused? incensed? to see AP run its story with the fighter plane characterization in the body of the text. As in:
Tokyo expressed unease Thursday
over Chinese military and maritime activity near disputed islands that Japan
controls, as China defended a flight by one of its fighter jets near Japanese
airspace.
I think it was a flub by AP, though I would be interested to
find out if the reporter was simply passing on an incorrect? misleading? dishonest?
characterization by a Japanese government official.
Was it a fighter plane to begin with, and initial Japanese
government statements got it wrong? Or
was it a turboprop, which is now turning into a “fighter jet” in order to give the
story some more legs? Inquiring minds
want to know.
For military aviation enthusiasts, Wikipedia tells us that
the Y-8 turboprop, when converted to an airborne early warning aircraft, is
called the KJ-200 Balance Beam. Why “balance
beam”? Ask a gymnast. Here is a picture I found on the
Internet of this fearsome armament:
Doesn’t look much like a fighter jet.
Anybody get a picture of the Chinese
intruder? The great thing about maritime
confrontations is that there’s nobody out there except the Japanese Self
Defence Forces, so the Japanese government has near total control of the stories
that come out.
As I reflect on the ongoing Senkaku/maritime saga, I am
increasingly of the opinion that Prime Minister Abe welcomes tensions with
China because it gives him a pretext to expand? exceed? the boundaries of the
pacifist constitution with new missions and capabilities for the Japanese
military without the need to make difficult explanations to the U.S. government
and Japan’s neighbors about his manifest desire to transform the Japanese
military into a strategic asset: one that not only intimidates and deters Japan’s
neighbors and gives Japan the necessary capability and credibility to construct
and lead alliances of lesser regional states, but also turns Japan into a
self-sufficient and independent actor in the Asian security game: one that can dare ignore or defy the United States, and perhaps even use its unilateral capabilities
to force the U.S. to either endorse its actions, follow them…or get out of the
way.
So aggressive Japanese government spin about Chinese
intentions and actions that push the boundaries of plausibility and truth are
to be expected.
As to whether Japan would actively foment or misrepresent
confrontations with China, well, for now I leave that interesting question to
the intrepid journos of the leading media outlets.
