The United States brazenly sent two B-52 strategic bombers through China's Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) without informing Beijing ahead of time, thus challenging China's will to defend its rights.

The incident took place on November 26, just two days after China's announcement that it was establishing an ADIZ, according to accepted international practice.

The U.S. claimed that the flight was a training mission planned long in advance of China's announcement of its ADIZ. But U.S. Colonel Steve Warren admitted that "we have continued to follow our normal procedure which includes not filing flight plans, not radioing ahead and not registering our frequencies." In short, the flight intentionally defies China's declared ADIZ rules. U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel declared: China's ADIZ "will not in any way change how the United States conducts military operations in the region."

Really? What if Chinese aircraft enter the U.S. ADIZ without complying with the U.S. rules? Washington has always considered itself exceptional. The world's hegemon still has some left over prestige to exhibit.

Why have Washington and Tokyo react so strongly against China's ADIZ? After all, the U.S. was the first to establish such a zone back in 1950 and has kept increasing the number and size of such zones. Japan started its ADIZ in the 1960s, and a score of other nations also established similar zones. If anything, China is a latecomer.

The United States and Japan refuse to recognize China's ADIZ primarily because it covers the Diaoyu Islands, which are China's historical and legal territories. It was the Chinese people who first discovered them and named them Diaoyu Dao. China has exercised sovereignty over the islands since 1400. They were illegally grabbed by the Japanese in Japan's 1895 war and should have returned to China after its defeat in World War II according to the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation, both of which the United States played a leading role in drafting.

The United States now supports Tokyo's illegal claim in order to contain China's rise. It is cooperating with a former enemy which perfidiously sneak-attacked Pearl Harbor and killed tens of thousands of Americans, to fight a former ally.

The United States, which has for a long time been the dominant power in the Asia Pacific region, feels it is threatened by a rising China, and is scrambling to shore up its influence in the region. As it is strapped financially because of sequestration, it is increasingly using Japan in its rebalancing strategy. Japan's right wing government is taking advantage of U.S. backing to move full steam ahead toward re-militarization.

Japan's right wing prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has called China's ADIZ "unacceptable" and an effort to change the status quo with threats of force. But it was Japan itself which changed the status quo by illegally nationalizing the islands in the first place.

Both the United States and Japan are testing China's will to defend its rights. American officials said that the U.S. military would continue to stage a standard cycle of training flights over the East China Sea.

China has never bowed to U.S. bluster. The People's Liberation Army Daily, the official media organ of China's military, said that the army has the capacity and resolves to safeguard China's territorial integrity and national sovereignty.

Those who want to test China's determination to defend its rights had better come to their senses.

The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/zhaojinglun.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.

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