U.S. Credibility at Stake in the Senkakus

How Eight Uninhabited Rocks Could Collapse America’s Indo-Pacific Strategy

On May 3, Japanese Air Self-Defense Force fighter jets scrambled from Okinawa in response to a helicopter that took off from a Chinese Coast Guard vessel in an apparent territorial defense posture. The helicopter wasn’t near a port or any of Japan’s 430 inhabited islands. It was flying near the Senkaku Islands.

Long administered by Japan, and recognized by the U.S. as Japanese territory, the Senkakus have emerged as a flash point in the increasingly confrontational Japan-China relationship and the broader U.S.-China competition.

Far from a quarrel over empty rocks, the Senkaku Islands dispute resides at the volatile intersection of China’s rising nationalism, Japan’s strategic vulnerability, and, critically, America’s alliance credibility.

While control of the islands could marginally strengthen China’s anti-access/area-denial (A2AD) posture and expand its Exclusive Economic Zone, the real driver of China’s policy is rooted in its broader goal of undermining the U.S.-led alliance system in Asia. This effort is a critical step in the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) pursuit of a grand strategy bent on achieving regional hegemony and ultimately displacing the United States as the world’s leading superpower.

But the protests were not a spontaneous outpouring of long simmering anti-Japanese sentiment triggered by the nationalization of three barren rocks; they were state enabled. In a country where public demonstrations are suppressed, the CCP allowed and encouraged widespread displays of outrage. By letting nationalism flare, Beijing cloaked its ensuing policy shift towards the islands it defines as “inalienable” parts of its territory as a reaction to public sentiment rather than a calculated assertion of power and a component of their strategic ambitions.

That China’s policy shift towards the islands occurred in 2012 was no coincidence. An increasingly self-assured China perceived the U.S. as weakened, viewing the post-2008 Global Financial Crisis shock to U.S. economic power as a strategic opening. And with rising confidence in their military and economic power, the CCP, under the new leadership of Xi Jinping, began shedding its decades long “hide and bide” strategy in favor of a more aggressive foreign policy with a mandate to “actively accomplish something.”

For China, the Senkaku dispute is less about the intrinsic value of eight uninhabited rocks than about the future of the regional order. China knows that if it can erode Japan’s ability to control the islands without triggering a U.S. response, America’s security guarantees would appear flimsy and negotiable. Beijing’s ultimate Senkaku Islands objective, then, is to expose the vulnerabilities of the U.S.-Japan alliance and thus weaken a cornerstone of American power in Asia. For China to achieve national rejuvenation, it must erode the system of U.S. alliances that stands in its way.

Since 2012, China has transformed the Senkaku Islands dispute from a dormant issue into a calibrated campaign of coercion. China’s incremental pressure strategy aims at weakening Japan’s control and eroding confidence in the U.S.-Japan alliance.

At sea, China relies on constant presence operations. In 2023, Chinese government vessels entered the contiguous zone around the Senkaku Islands on 352 out of 365 days—the highest number since record-keeping began in 2008, according to data from the Japan Coast Guard. Additionally, Chinese Maritime Militia boats often harass Japanese fishermen and shadow Japan Coast Guard patrols.

The PLA Navy (PLAN) has also ramped up its footprint. China’s destroyers, cruisers, and surveillance ships conduct regular patrols near the islands, mapping the battlespace and normalizing their presence. Now the world’s largest navy, PLAN operations are becoming more frequent and more complex.

In the air, Beijing declared an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the East China Sea in 2013, encompassing the Senkakus. While ignored by the U.S. and Japan, the ADIZ signaled China’s intent to claim the airspace as its own. The PLA Air Force (PLAAF) now regularly flies J-11 fighters, H-6K bombers, and UAVs near the islands, prompting Japan to scramble jets hundreds of times per year.

The sea and air pressure campaign has three key effects:

This totality of this pressure campaign amounts to strategic salami-slicing, with each slice small enough to avoid escalation, yet collectively difficult for Japan to manage. The Senkakus may be barren, but their symbolic and strategic value makes them a key arena in the broader contest for regional order.

The U.S. recognizes Japan’s administrative control over the Senkaku Islands and affirms that they fall under Article 5 of the U.S.-Japan Mutual Security Treaty. Effectively, if China seizes the islands by force, the U.S. is treaty-bound to respond.

While Article 5 doesn’t guarantee automatic military retaliation, decades of bipartisan statements by American presidents, defense secretaries, and INDOPACOM commanders have made it clear that Washington intends for Beijing to believe it would act. That perception of credibility, not to mention the 60,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan, is foundational to U.S. deterrence.

But as we’ve seen, China’s pressure campaign is calibrated to chip away at that foundation without crossing the threshold of war. Each patrol, each air incursion, each renaming of a feature is designed to make Japan look feeble and the U.S. look hesitant. If China can erode Japan’s effective control without firing a shot, and the U.S. does nothing, the message to America’s other allies is that security guarantees are conditional. That is a message that would echo far beyond the East China Sea, and one the United States can ill afford to come to fruition.

The Philippines could reconsider U.S. backing at Second Thomas Shoal. Taiwan’s belief in American resolve would be shaken. Australia and South Korea might rethink America’s security guarantees. The U.S.-led regional order could collapse not through devastating conflict, but through gradual erosion. Moreover, a loss of confidence could spur an arms race. Japan’s new defense strategy hinges on closer U.S. coordination, but a failure to defend the Senkakus could shift Tokyo toward military self-reliance, even revisiting nuclear options long considered taboo.

To prevent China from rewriting the rules of the Indo-Pacific without direct confrontation, the U.S. must maintain the material capacity and political will necessary to deter China from pushing too far. That means continued assurances, both public and private, that the U.S. views the Senkakus as covered under treaty obligations. It also means supporting militarily, through presence patrols or training operations, the Japanese military’s efforts to maintain control over the islands and its territorial waters.

In short, the stakes are high. Not because of what the Senkakus are, but because they represent the credibility of America’s alliance system, the future of deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, and the contest between rules and revisionism.

In a 2021 wargame conducted by the Center for a New American Security, the scenario began with a sudden PLA occupation of the Senkakus. Chinese troops landed on the islands, enforced a 50-mile exclusion zone with a ring of ships, submarines, aircraft, and drones, and dared a response. What followed was described as a “slaughter in the East China Sea,” with U.S. and Japanese forces drawn into a high-intensity war neither side initially wanted.

Would China really risk war with the U.S. and such a slaughter over the Senkakus? U.S. planners must assume the answer is yes. The benefit to both China’s domestic politics of quenching the aspirations of its nationalist base and to its broader strategic aims of diminishing U.S. regional influence are evident in the lengths to which China is going to upend the status quo.

A flash point in the global strategic competition between China and the United States, the Senkaku Islands dispute combines a uniquely toxic brew of intense elite and public emotions with high numbers of armed and capable surface and aerial combatants. While China will likely seek to avoid kinetic conflict over the islands, China’s territorial ambitions in the ECS are unlikely to wane, and its actions might very well force America’s hands.

Rob Pierce deployed as a Naval Intelligence Officer with SEAL Team THREE to Iraq and the Indo-Pacific and later served as a China analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency. He also has experience on Capitol Hill and at the State Department. He graduated magna cum laude Wake Forest University and with distinction from the Georgetown University Security Studies Program. He is currently a Vice President at American Global Strategies.