In this photo released by Japan Coast Guard 11th Regional Coast Guard, a Chinese airplane flies in Japanese airspace above the islands known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese in southwestern Japan Thursday, Dec. 13, 2012. A Japanese government spokesman said a Chinese airplane has been spotted in Japanese airspace above the islands controlled by Tokyo but also claimed by Beijing. The Defense Agency said four Japanese F-15 jets headed to the area which has been at the center of a territorial dispute Thursday morning, but no further action was taken.
Even if a newly elected Japanese prime minister wanted to ramp up military operations, he would be restricted by wavering public opinion as well as Article IX of the country's constitution, which prohibits an act of war by Japan.
China, in turn, also has to balance its desires to shore up regional resources against opposition from Japan, which can muster an international coalition.
"When Japan does something like this, and makes a point to contest the islands, it's probably a smart move," says Snitch. "They can't contest [China] militarily, but what they can do is throw it into an international arena."
A military response invokes the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and other allied partners into protecting their own territorial claims against China.
However, the new government under Xi Jinping still has an unclear relationship with its fighting forces, says Snitch.
"You have this new group of leadership coming in who obviously have been schooled and groomed for many many years, but suddenly they're in the driver's seat and who knows how much they've been briefed on these things," he says. "The question you have to ask is, 'What is [Jinping's] relationship with the military?' I don't believe anybody in the West knows what that is."
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Paul D. Shinkman is a national security reporter for U.S. News & World Report. You can follow him on Twitter or reach him at pshinkman@usnews.com
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