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Japan and China on Sunday accused each other's air forces of dangerous behavior over the East China Sea, with Japan saying Chinese aircraft had come within a few dozen meters of its warplanes. Japan's defense minister accused Beijing of going "over the top" in its approach to disputed territory. China's defense ministry said Japanese planes had carried out "dangerous" actions during its joint maritime exercises with Russia. Tensions have been running high between China and its neighbors over Beijing's assertive stance on claiming land and sea territory. Japan's defense ministry said Chinese SU-27 fighters came as close as 50 meters...

December 02, 2013, 06:58 pm Biden goes on mission to China By Julian Pecquet Vice President Biden has been thrust into the center of an escalating standoff with China that is testing him on the global stage ahead of a possible presidential run in 2016. President Obama dispatched Biden to Asia, where he will deliver a strong warning to China for declaring an air defense zone over islands that are also claimed by U.S. ally Japan. “This is an opportunity for Vice President Biden to raise our concerns directly with policymakers in Beijing and to seek clarity regarding the Chinese...

The zone includes a groups of islands known as Diaoyu in Chinese and Senkaku by Japan Continue reading the main story Related Stories Tensions rise across region Watch Viewpoints: China air zone tensions Why China air zone raises risk China has sent warplanes to its newly declared air defence zone in the East China Sea, state media reports. The vast zone, announced last week, covers territory claimed by China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. China has said all planes transiting the zone must file flight plans and identify themselves, or face "defensive emergency measures". But Japan, South Korea and the...

TOKYO — Matching China’s stern rhetoric with warnings of his own, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan vowed on Monday to defend his nation’s airspace after China declared an air defense zone over a disputed group of islands in the East China Sea. Speaking in Parliament, Mr. Abe called China’s move an unacceptable effort to change the status quo with threats of force. He described it as a dangerous ratcheting up of tensions in the standoff over the uninhabited islands, which are administered by Japan but also claimed by China. “We are determined to defend our country’s air and sea...

The United States warned Saturday that China's military claim to airspace over a disputed island chain creates the risk of "misunderstanding and miscalculation." The creation of an "Air Defense Identification Zone" by China, which its top defense official described as an early-warning system, comes amid rising tensions between China and Japan over claims to the islands that are believed to have large oil reserves. "This unilateral action constitutes an attempt to change the status quo in the East China Sea. Escalatory action will only increase tensions in the region and create risks of an incident," U.S. Secretary of State John...

Geneva (AFP) - The United States said Saturday it was "deeply concerned" and committed to defending Japan after China announced an air zone in the East China Sea that includes disputed islands. In a move that US ally Japan branded as "very dangerous," China said it was setting up the "air defense identification zone" over the islands administered by Tokyo to "guard against potential air threats." (snip) Hagel reiterated that the Japanese-administered Senkaku islands -- which the Chinese claim and call the Diaoyu -- fell under the US-Japan security treaty, meaning that Washington would defend its ally Tokyo if the...

The United States said Saturday it was “deeply concerned” and committed to defending Japan after China announced an air zone in the East China Sea that covers disputed islets. In a move that U.S. ally Japan branded as “very dangerous,” China said it was setting up an “air defense identification zone” over islands administered by Tokyo to “guard against potential air threats.” In similar statements, Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said that the United States was “deeply concerned” about the moves by China, which also scrambled jets to carry out a patrol in the...

(Reuters) - Japanese politicians are being provocative and are deceiving themselves about a territorial dispute, China's Foreign Ministry said on Monday, a day after Japan's prime minister said it was ready to be more assertive towards China. Sino-Japanese ties have been overshadowed for years by what China says has been Japan's refusal to admit to atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers in China between 1931 and 1945. But relations have been further strained for months because of a dispute over tiny islands in the East China Sea, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China. Japanese Prime Minister...

BEIJING: China on Sunday warned Japan that any attempts to shoot down its unmanned drones over disputed islands in the East China Sea would be considered as an act of war and will invite retaliation. "If Japan took the so called moves, it would be a severe provocation to China and an act of war, and China will take resolute measures to strike back. The Japanese side shall be responsible for the consequence", China's defence ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng said. He was reacting to reports that Japanese government has approved defence plans that envisaged using air force planes to shoot...

BEIJING - China's Communist Party has begun ordering all Chinese journalists not to be supportive of Japan when writing about territorial and historical issues between the two countries, participants of an ongoing mandatory training program said Saturday. About 250,000 journalists who work for Chinese media organizations need to attend the nationwide training program to learn about such topics as the Marxist view on journalism, laws and regulations and norms in news gathering and editing. The unified program started in mid-October and will run through the end of this year. In addition to Japan, instructors of the program taught them that...

China said on Friday that it was ready to talk to Japan over an increasingly heated maritime row, but only if Tokyo declares the islands involved to be disputed. Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) faced questions about ties with the US ally during a visit to Washington, where he called for mutual respect in relations between the US and a growing China. Wang laid blame for tensions on Japan, which in September last year nationalized three of the islands, known as the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in Taiwan, which also claims them, as the Senkakus in Japan and...

China and Japan have exchanged fiery diplomatic rhetoric about a group of disputed islands in the East China Sea, with a Japanese government spokesperson suggesting the country may station workers on the islands, after an unidentified drone nearly entered Japanese airspace. A territorial dispute over the uninhabited islands, called the Diaoyu by China and the Senkakus by Japan, has strained political and economic ties since last year, when the Japanese government purchased three of the islands from a private owner. This Wednesday will mark the one-year anniversary of the purchase. On Monday Japan scrambled an unspecified number of fighter jets...

(Reuters) - China on Tuesday brushed aside calls from Japan to hold a leaders' summit as "grandstanding", while Japan's finance minister said Tokyo should make clear it would use its navy to defend islands at the core of a dispute with Beijing. Ties between the world's second- and third-largest economies have been strained for months because of a row over the islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China, as well as disputes over the countries' bitter wartime past. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is keen to improve ties and has called for dialogue with China,...

(Reuters) - After decades of emulating Japan's export-driven economic miracle, China appears in danger of following it into the same kind of economic coma that Japan is trying to wake up from 20 years later. China is struggling to wean itself off a habit picked up from its more advanced neighbor: relying for growth on exports and credit-fuelled investment. That has left its economy lopsided, economists say, with massive over investment in property and industries rapidly losing their cost advantage, from mining and electronics to cars and textiles. Wages are rising, the return on investments falling. With growth slipping, China's...

BEIJING, July 26 (Xinhua) -- A four-ship fleet of the newly-unveiled China Coast Guard on Friday patrolled the country's territorial waters surrounding the Diaoyu Islands, the State Oceanic Administration said. Comprising CCG ships 2350, 2101, 2506 and 2166, the fleet made clear the Chinese government's stance on its sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands to Japanese ships sailing there, which constituted violations of Chinese sovereignty. The Japanese ships were told to immediately leave the Chinese territorial waters.

Beijing on Thursday dismissed Japan's complaints of a Chinese military aircraft flying through international airspace near Japan's southern islands, saying it was not the first time a Chinese aircraft had conducted legal training in the western Pacific. The flyover on Wednesday was part of the Chinese navy's routine training and "does not target any specific country or have any specific aim", Geng Yansheng, a defense ministry spokesman, said at a monthly news conference. "The training is in accordance with international law and practice, and China has the legal right and freedom of flight over the relevant seas," he said. "We...

Yang Bojiang, deputy director of the Institute of Japanese Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and one of China’s leading political experts on Japanese affairs says that he is expecting a gradual improvement in bilateral relations between Japan and China after the Japanese Upper House elections this Sunday. Tensions between Asia’s two largest economies have increased over the past 10 months since Japan nationalized a string of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, and have been worsened by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s nationalistic-leaning political beliefs, but Yang is still positive about an upturn in bilateral relations...

Far East: Wars have started over less weighty issues than the sovereignty of islands in the East China Sea called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. They are barely rocks above water, but they sit atop valuable resources and are rapidly becoming a flash point as a rising power confronts one whose sun has set. These islands have become involved in a three-way tug of war between China, Taiwan and Japan with each sending fishing boats, even armed vessels, to the area. Private boats from Japan recently journeyed to the Senkakus to plant the Japanese flag one more time....

(CNSNews.com) – Exchanging warnings but avoiding confrontations thus far, Chinese and Japanese ships have come within less than half a nautical mile of each other in an ongoing dispute over the sovereignty of contested islands. Amid deepening tensions in a long-running saga over the uninhabited islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned Sunday about the possibility of war between the two Asian countries. “What we don't want is to have any kind of provocative behavior on the part of China or anybody else result in conflict,” he told reporters accompanying him on...

China and other Asian countries could end up at war over territorial disputes if governments keep up their 'provocative behaviour', US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta says. Speaking to reporters before arriving in Tokyo on a trip to Asia, Panetta appealed for restraint amid mounting tensions over territorial rights in the East China Sea and the South China Sea. 'I am concerned that when these countries engage in provocations of one kind or another over these various islands, that it raises the possibility that a misjudgment on one side or the other could result in violence, and could result in conflict,'...