China is stepping up war games in preparation for a possible conflict with Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, a tiny island chain in the East China Sea claimed by both Beijing and Tokyo, a senior U.S. Navy official says.
Captain James Fanell, deputy chief of staff intelligence and information operations for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, made the remark at a conference put on by the U.S. Naval Institute in San Diego last week.
Fanell said that after witnessing China's Mission Action 2013, a "massive amphibious and cross military" exercise that included ground and naval forces of the People's Liberation Army, U.S. analysts had concluded that "the PLA has been given the new task to be able to conduct a short sharp war to destroy Japanese forces in the East China Sea following with what can only be expected [as] a seizure of the Senkakus or even southern Ryukyu [islands]."
Beginning in the second half of last year, China's military training shifted toward what appears to preparation for "realistic maritime combat," he said.
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