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Two Chilling Developments Suggest Asia May Be One Step Away From War Robert JohnsonFebruary 8, 2013, 9:38 AM China and Japan, along with North and South Korean troops at the DMZ, appear one step away from armed combat and tensions don't look likely to ease any time soon. New developments within both regions illustrate how close to open combat the four countries are, and how quickly one incident could expand to war among very powerful nations. Tokyo reported two January events where Chinese naval vessels targeted its East China Sea forces with fire-control radar. This specific type of radar is...

China Sends Fighter Jets To Meet Japan's F-15s In The East China Sea Robert JohnsonJan. 11, 2013, 8:49 AMSino Defence After repeatedly flying surveillance aircraft into disputed airspace with Japan, and Tokyo scrambling F-15s in response, China's now sending fighters of its own on "routine flights" into the East China Sea. China Daily: A Foreign Ministry spokesman said Friday that Chinese military planes were on"routine flights" in relevant airspace over the East China Sea. Spokesman Hong Lei made the remarks at a press briefing in response to media reports that Japan sent fighter jets to head off a number of...

TOKYO (AFP) - Japan scrambled fighter jets on Saturday to head off a Chinese state-owned plane that flew near islands at the centre of a dispute between Tokyo and Beijing, a Japanese Defense Ministry spokesman said. The Japanese jets were mobilised after a Chinese maritime aircraft ventured some 120 km north of the Senkaku islands, which China calls the Diaoyus, at around 12:00 pm (11am Singapore time), the spokesman said. The Chinese Y-12 twin-turboprop later left the zone without entering Japanese airspace over the islands, he added. It was the first time Japanese fighter jets had been scrambled this year...

Big U.S. Fleet Nears Disputed Islands, But What For? By Kirk Spitzer | September 30, 2012 TOKYO – It’s probably just a coincidence; no need to worry yet. But the U.S. has quietly assembled a powerful air, land and sea armada not far from where Japan and China are squaring off over disputed islands in the East China Sea. Two Navy aircraft carrier battle groups and a Marine Corps air-ground task force have begun operating in the Western Pacific, within easy reach of the Senkaku Islands. That’s where Japanese and Chinese patrol boats are engaged in an increasingly tense standoff.

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,'...

TOKYO — Japan’s ambassador-designate to China, Shinichi Nishimiya, died on Sunday in a Tokyo hospital, the Foreign Ministry said, three days after he was found unconscious on a Tokyo street. Doctors were looking into the cause of death, ministry official Takashi Ariyoshi said in a statement, but no other details were available. Nishimiya, 60, was found unconscious on a street near his home on his way to work. Nishimiya was to have left in mid-October to take over from Uichiro Niwa as Japan’s top envoy in Beijing. While coincidental, Nishimiya’s death came as tensions flared up between Japan and China...

Protests against Japan over its control of disputed islands spread across more than two dozen cities in China and turned violent at times Saturday, with protesters burning Japanese flags and clashing with Chinese paramilitary police at the Japanese Embassy before order was restored. Thousands of protesters gathered in front of the embassy in Beijing. Hundreds tried to storm a metal barricade backed by riot police armed with shields, helmets and batons. Many threw rocks, bottles, eggs and traffic cones at the embassy. The embassy said protesters around the country set fire to Japanese factories, sabotaged assembly lines, looted department stores...

Vice minister of foreign affairs Wang Yi summoned Japanese ambassador to China, Koreshige Anami, and made a "formal representation" over Japan's reported leasing of three disputed isles in the East China Sea, state press said early Sunday. Xinhua news agency said Wang Saturday noted that the Diaoyu Islands -- also known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China -- and adjacent islets had been a part of China since ancient times. "Any unilateral action on the islands by the Japanese side is illegal and invalid, which China will not accept," Wang said. "The Chinese government and people have the...