The Chinese are playing with fire:
The Japanese defense minister, Itsunori Onodera, said that a Chinese navy frigate had directed its fire-control radar at a Japanese destroyer in the incident on Jan. 30 near the islands in the East China Sea, known as the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in Chinese. The uninhabited island group has been controlled by Japan for decades, but claimed by China and also Taiwan.
On Tuesday, the Defense Ministry also disclosed that a Chinese frigate had directed the same kind of radar at a Japanese military helicopter in a previously undisclosed incident on Jan. 19. In both cases, the Chinese ships eventually turned off the radar without actually firing a shot.
While not quite as bad as initiating a radar lock in a fast moving fighter plane stand off, using fire-control radar is obviously a step toward firing a weapon. The Chinese counted on the Japanese not worrying that the Chinese would actually then fire their weapons. What happens if a Japanese ship commander believes firing will take place? What if the Japanese captain decides two can play that game and turns on his fire control radar to paint a target?
What happens if the Chinese captain then believes the Japanese captain isn't playing games? Will the Chinese captain have trust that the Japanese vessel will not fire? Will a Chinese captain get in more trouble for shooting at the Japanese ship or losing their ship by getting hit by the Japanese?
If the Chinese continue to urge their military to be prepared for war, each confrontation will be a greater risk of escalation than if the two countries are friendly and at peace. Some years ago, we accidentally fired missiles at a Turkish warship during exercises, and this obviously did not lead to a battle even though 5 Turkish sailors were killed:
[The] Saratoga's commanders decided to take advantage of the proximity of the NATO warships to rehearse the response to a simulated attack. But the awakened crew was left with the impression that they were under an actual attack and fired their missiles, the officials said.
It was clearly understood as an accident rather than an act of war--albeit an accident that the aircraft carrier's captain should not have risked.
That incident also shows the problem of assuming that even if the ship captains understand they are playing a game of chicken, what if one of the actual sailors manning the weapons doesn't realize that it is all a game? Under the circumstances, how much trust does each side have in the other's good intentions?
