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The Japanese government has lashed out at Beijing, condemning an incident wherein a flotilla of Chinese government vessels breached Japan-claimed waters around the around the disputed Senkaku islands in the East China Sea.Tokyo has lodged a formal diplomatic complaint after a Japanese-registered private vessel operating within Japanese-controlled waters was approached by four Chinese Coast Guard ships in the early morning hours of Monday. Tokyo says its coast guard patrols forced the Chinese ships to depart the area.Illustrative file image, via Kyodo NewsThe encounter was tense, based on the description given to US military news outlet Stars & Stripes, which recounted...

Japan on Monday will switch on a radar station in the East China Sea, giving it a permanent intelligence gathering post close to Taiwan and a group of disputed islands claimed by both Tokyo and Beijing. The new Self Defense Force base on Yonaguni is at the western extreme of a string of Japanese islands in the East China Sea, 150 km (93 miles) south of the disputed islands known as the Senkaku islands in Japan and the Diaoyu in China. “This radar station is going to irritate China,” said Nozomu Yoshitomi, a professor at Nihon University and a former...

Military Spending: In the face of an expansionist China seeking to dominate the East and South China Seas, Tokyo has set its largest defense budget ever to help defend islands that it rightfully considers Japanese territory. As its military, economy and ambitions grow, so too does China's assertiveness about control of the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and the larger South China Sea. Chinese military doctrine refers to establishing dominance over what it calls the "first island chain," which encompasses the East China Sea. Beijing has long declared the South China Sea to be its territorial waters and has...

BEIJING — China appeared to soften the rules it had issued for its new air defense zone, raising no objection on Wednesday to flights by two American B-52 bombers and Japanese airliners that ignored Beijing’s demands to file advance flight plans and saying only that it had monitored the planes. The subdued initial response came just days after China warned of possible military action if planes did not comply with the rules for flights through a large stretch of airspace it now says it controls over the East China Sea. The unarmed B-52s flew through the newly declared zone overnight...

Japan said Tuesday it is considering stationing government officials on disputed East China Sea islands to back its territorial claim. … In Beijing, China’s Foreign Ministry warned that such a move would not be tolerated. … Japan also summoned China’s ambassador in Tokyo on Tuesday to lodge a protest after eight Chinese coast guard vessels entered waters near the islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. …

WASHINGTON, April 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai said Tuesday that it is Japan, not China, that is taking "unilateral or coercive actions" on their islands dispute. Cui made the remarks in response to U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's unfounded assertion on the dispute between Japan and China over the Diaoyu Islands. Addressing a joint news conference Monday with visiting Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera, Hagel claimed that the U.S. "opposes any unilateral or coercive action that seeks to undermine Japan's administrative control, a message (Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff) General (Martin)...

We don't know if it merely a coincidence that a story has emerged discussing a Chinese mobilization in response to the ongoing territorial feud with Japan over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands (and the proximal massive gas field) the very week that China celebrates its new year (and days after news that a Chinese warship was very close to firing on a Japanese destroyer). We don't know how much of the story is based in reality, and how much may be propaganda or furthering someone's agenda. What we do know is that the source of the story: offshore-based, Falun Gong-affiliated NTDTV has...

General Secretary Nobutero Ishihara of the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, 2nd highest ranking official and possibly a future Prime Minister of Japan, asserted in Washington that Japan should position military forces, an armed forces bases for troops on the Senkaku's or Diaoyu's or Diaoyutai Islands. He is son to Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara one who denies Japanese responsibility in the Nanjing Massacre of 1937 a particularly heart wrenching part of history etched in many a Chinese psyche- whether ROC (Taiwan), PROC (China), or Chinese worldwide (indicative in the recent wide distribution reading and interest in Iris Chang's 'Rape of Nanjing')....

Is China the best friend of American power? Beijing’s recent missteps in Asia — moving ahead with reactor sales to troubled Pakistan and crudely threatening Japan over the arrest of a Chinese fishing captain — are swiftly solidifying America’s Asian alliances. The new Japanese government came into office hoping to rebalance Japan’s foreign policy and reduce tensions with China. That dream is now dead. And China’s deepening relationship with Pakistan, intended in part as a counter to America’s nuclear opening to India, is driving Asia’s other emerging nuclear power closer than ever into the arms of America (and Japan). South...

HONG KONG (AP) - Japanese patrol vessels fired water cannon Sunday at a boat carrying Chinese activists who were protesting Japanese claims to territory in the East China Sea, the activist group said. A boat carrying the protesters arrived near the five disputed islets - known as the Diaoyu Islands in China and Senkaku in Japan - on Sunday evening, according to the activists' group, the Hong Kong-registered China Federation of Defending Diaoyu Islands.

TOKYO -- Japan's navy on Saturday denied a report that Japan and the United States held a drill simulating a Chinese invasion of disputed islands during recent joint naval exercises. The U.S. and Japan sent a flotilla of warships - including the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk and its battle group - off Japan's southern coast for a week of war games in mid-November called Annualex 18G, their largest joint naval exercise of the year. One of the drills addressed a hypothetical Chinese military invasion of a group of uninhabited islands called Diaoyu in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese that...

Ross Terrill: China's hardly in a position to lecture JapanApril 22, 2005 YOU could be forgiven for smiling at East Asia's two giants bickering over school textbooks and rocky reefs, over how many apologies add up to an Apology and who should pontificate at the UN on behalf of Asia. Yet China-Japan wrangling, containable for now, could yet explode and make Middle East violence seem like kids throwing stones. East Asia is the axis of world power, because the US, China, Japan, and Russia intersect here as nowhere else. Coiled Japan and theatrical China have seldom got on well. War...

Anti-Japanese protests at Ningbo Auto Show As the the online petition against Japan getting a permanent seat on the UN Security Council grows to more than 22 million signatures, demonstrations — smetimes violent — have broken out in Chengdu and Shenzhen, while Shenyang has seen a convenience store chain pull all Japanese goods off its shelves. Danwei received photos today of another demonstration. The photos were labelled "Ningbo Auto Exhibition" (宁波车展) and date stamped March 31. They were also watermarked with the URL Pic.tiexue.net, the gallery section of Iron Blood (铁血), a Chinese online forum devoted to military matters....

China demands Japan 'unconditionally' release activists The Chinese Foreign Ministry lodged a solemn representation Wednesday afternoon with Japan for illegally detaining seven Chinese citizens who landed on Diaoyu Island, a Chinese island in the East China Sea. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui Wednesday afternoon summoned Chikahito Harada, charge d'affaires of Japanese embassy in China, to lodge the representation. Zhang stated the stance of the Chinese government on the Diaoyu Island issue. He pointed out that Diaoyu Island and the attached islets have been a part of the Chinese territory since ancient times and China has indisputable sovereignty over these...