If you lived in Japan you may actually feel that way Zack, all kidding aside.
It would be like China putting a grid overtop of the the waters over the ilse of Man near the UK or wherever you live right now, and say all commercial and military aircraft now have to report to them, file flight plans with them, and obey all their orders or face interception and force.
I think even the Queen may object to that in some form or another. Indeed!
Japan may have a "self defense" force only, but I know from my time there they still have a very martial culture. They are obsessed with military things, and the circles I was in (kendo) years ago had me bombarded with questions about all things do to with western military. Their politics are pretty weird, even by US standards, but history shows that Japan needs only a strike on the match to become a very scary monster, so I wouldn't be surprised either way - Japan laying down and taking this, or getting angry and doing something about it. Japan does have a pretty good air force, US trained and supported, as well as a lot of built in house/country technology in things such as radar and weapons systems. I'm sure some of the US fighter pilots here have worked with their Japanese counterparts and could comment more accurately, but things I've read doesn't suggest them to be awful or anything.
On the other hand now, China has fielded and is currently testing some pretty impressive new fighters, considering what they were flying only a decade ago. They have around 200 SU 27/30 variants, 140 in house copies of the SU27 with another 100 building, 200 of the very good J10's. The "Stealth" fighters will be here soon as well, the J31 and J20 both most likely, and that will change the balance quite a bit in the area in the skies. China also just publicly and successfully tested their first stealth weaponized drone this week, an interesting coincidence. There is also the new J16 fighter, in the SU class of strike fighters, and it'll be no slouch either. China is moving forward VERY fast, the J16 was pretty much announced only once it was already in full squadron service. It has an AESA radar and a very, very long range IR missile system, but looks like it'll be optimized for naval strike and long range patrol. From their deployments it looks like they will be used in naval and long range operations in the disputed area. They've only got 24 of them, but it's still a pretty impressive leap forward that they can build their own copies of Russian stuff that actually works pretty well now with all the nice stolen information they've gotten from the USA in the last ten years.
There have been a lot of interceptions in the last year by both sides, and by Taiwan and China as well. Like Maverick said, and I said as well earlier, China is taking the long road, as is their tradition and culture - they have been very patient in this expansion of both military capability and on the map as well, but this latest incident is IMO a real departure from this and a push to the limit to see what they can get away with. There have been many incidents with Chinese and Japanese ships in the recent months as well, mainly a bunch of warnings issued and close shaves. Time will tell if China has the ability to stage fighters out that far and support them there, I have no idea on their tanking, radar support, and ESM support capabilities in practice, just that they have the aircraft to do it. I'm sure they have been practicing this as well, again, a lot of good information in those US defense department computers that have been compromised by spies, at least according to the media. I know Mace was eluding a while back that China had slipped guys into the US Navy as enlisted men in order to learn and observe everything about CVN operations, and that China had actual copies of all the MANOPS for various things about operating on carriers. They seem to be learning very fast in that department with their first CVN, and are building more of these as well.
It'll be interesting to see how the Chinese Navy plays into this new "area" they are claiming. Like their air force, they've really ramped up their stuff in the last decade. I amazes me to think that back in the 90's, long after the cold war, China was flying Mig21's and had crappy tin cans for ships. Compare that to now. http://www.jeffhead.com/redseadragon/ffg.htm is a great site for Chinese naval capability, and it's pretty scary stuff when you look at some of the numbers. Over 200 of those fast little stealthy boats with 8 long range high speed low alt cruise missiles. Even 50 of them would be 400 missiles for a CVN group to try and deal with.
