China Has Skewed Understanding Of National Airpsace: Experts

Drew Thompson, a senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, has slammed China for its prevarications after admitting it owned the spy balloon that the US shot down off the Carolinas on Feb. 4, 2023, saying it has to talk turkey on its gross violation of US sovereignty, Nectar Gan and Selina Wang reported for CNN.

Photo Insert: China cannot play the victim card after it was caught with its fingers in the cookie jar.

Collin Koh, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, stressed that China cannot play the victim card after it was caught with its fingers in the cookie jar.

In fact, the Chinese Foreign Ministry claimed that poor China was subjected to surveillance by the US 657 times last year – and 64 times this January in the South China Sea (SCS).

China did not provide any details of the alleged incursions of US balloons into its airspace – when and where they occurred, or whether it responded in any way at the time.

The accusation is also complicated by how China defines its airspace, especially given its contested territorial claims in the SCS, experts say. A country’s sovereign airspace is the portion of the atmosphere that sits above its territory, including its territorial waters that extend 12 nautical miles from its land.

Above the ocean beyond the 12 nautical mile limit is considered international airspace, where commercial and military aircraft – including balloons – are allowed to engage in overflight without seeking permission, said Donald Rothwell, a professor of international law at Australian National University.

Koh said Beijing doesn’t necessarily draw a distinction between national airspace and international airspace in practice. “In the past and till recently, the Chinese military had challenged foreign military aerial activities in the international airspace in such manner as though it’s national airspace,” he said, citing the 2001 collision between a US Navy spy plane with a Chinese fighter jet over the SCS.

Conflicting island and maritime claims in the South China Sea can well extend into the skies, as what China defines as its airspace above the islands and waters it claims as its own may not be recognized by other countries, such as the US.

China has also undertaken significant land reclamation and built at least seven artificial islands in the SCS.

But according to international law, an artificial island does not give any airspace sovereignty, Rothwell said. China claims up to 90% of the SCS and it could very include commercial vessels and airliners passing through the waterways as intelligence-gathering intruders.

About 99% of the international community does not recognize China’s weird claims on the SCS.

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