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With an avalanche reports about the air defense identification zone (ADIZ), many medias erred in defining the nitty-gritty of an ADIZ, mixing it up with the official airspace of a country.
According to news commentator Lau- Lan-cheong, A country, based on its needs of air defense, unilaterally demarcated airspace, for the convenience of effective military control.
Lau said ADIZ is different from a flight information region (FIR), to the extent that the latter is the specifically for civil aircrafts.
Stipulated in international laws, when an aircraft enters an ADIZ, the country of the zone are can start monitoring that aircraft.
However, the country cannot take such actions as forced landing or attacks by any mean, until the aircraft enters the airspace of the country.
"Many news articles are misleading in claiming that a country can take action against a plane once it enters the ADIZ," Lau said.
According to Xinhua News Agency, after the World War II, in response to the quickness of the newly developed fighter jets in other countries, the U.S. marked its first ever ADIZ, to ensure timeliness of alerting airspace intrusion.
By the end of 1950, to guard threat of the USSR to the North America, Washington formed an ADIZ comprising of five sub-zones.
This new form of air defense concept had been widespread across the world. More than 20 countries have had their ADIZ established, including Japan, Korea and Australia, under the framework of international laws.
But under existing international laws, countries are at liberty to regulate their own methods of demarcating ADIZs.
Measures of dealing with incoming flights to the zone vary in different countries. Some require any plane to "submit" the flight plans and purposes of entry to the belonging country of the ADIZ beforehand, or they will be seen as illegal intrusion, which may risk physical actions against them.
