In his Jan. 10 letter, "Jet scramble all huff and puff," Robert Thornton asks what Japan would have had its scrambled F-15s do if the Chinese aircraft that approached the Senkaku Islands recently had entered Japanese airspace completely and then done dives and other provocative maneuvers?

The question posed sounds ridiculous. China wouldn't debase itself with such dangerous conduct.

It sounds like Thornton wants to see something like this develop into an armed conflict between China and Japan. A fight between two parties may be interesting to watch, but the one between China and Japan would not be a street fight. It would become a global issue, taking us back to the 1920s and '30s.

Japan has learned a lot since it lost the war, although we see some among us who, because of lack of knowledge and experience, naively believe that military power will serve the interests of the nation. It won't. China knows that, so does Japan.

takeru toki
nishinomiya, hyogo

The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.