China's recent establishment of its ADIZ and its implications for regional security

중국의 방공식별구역(ADIZ) 선포와 역내 안보적 함의

The regional security and stability in Northeast Asia has become more complicated because of a sudden establishment of China's Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) on 23 November 2013. One dimensional conflicts on the territorial sovereignty over the islands between the regional States has developed into the two dimensional conflicts like maritime delimitations among the States concerned since they have all ratified the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea which adopts the 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone regime. Moreover, due to the notion of the outer limit of the continental shelf, the conflicts have developed into three dimensional ones in order to acquire more natural resources even in the seabed. To make matters worse, such three dimensional conflicts have expanded to the airspace as well. The paper will analyze what implications the sudden declaration of China's ADIZ have for the regional security in Northeast Asia from the perspectives of public international law. To this end, the paper 1) starts with the debates on the legal nature of the ADIZ, 2) identifies the Chinese government's political motives for the establishment of the ADIZ over the East China Sea, 3) assesses the responses of the regional States and the USA to the China's establishment of the ADIZ, and then 4) discuss what implications the overlapped ADIZ of the three key States in the region have for the regional security and stability.