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Showing posts with the label China-Japan

Japan goes all out against China to defend Taiwan (Credits- TFI Global)

Chinese Navy Holds 'Confrontation Drill' in Sea of Japan ( Source- The Diplomat / Author- Ankit Panda)

Image credits- USNI Source- The Diplomat Author- Ankit Panda Last week, China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) held what state media called a “maritime confrontation drill” in the Sea of Japan. The drill involved a simulated skirmish between two Chinese naval task forces and involved multiple warships from the PLAN’s East China Sea Fleet..............( Read on )

Japan: 7 Chinese Coast Guard Ships, 230 Fishing Boats in Disputed East China Sea Waters ( Source- The Diplomat / Author- Ankit Panda)

Image credits- VOA Source- The Diplomat Author- Ankit Panda Starting Friday, Chinese Coast Guard ships, accompanied by more than two hundred fishing vessels, entered disputed waters around the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea..... ( Read on )

Chinese and Japanese Fighter Jets Come Close to Dogfight in East China Sea ( Source- The Diplomat / Author- Franz- Stefan Gady)

PLAAF J-10 ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Ratxham) Source- The Diplomat Author- Franz-Stafan Gady China’s Ministry of Defense (MOD) has accused Japan of aggressive behavior in the East China Sea, claiming that Japanese “provocations” nearly resulted in a dogfight between aircraft of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and the Japan Air Self Defense Force (JASDF), according to a statement published on the Chinese MOD website. The Chinese claims came a week after Japanese media reported that a Chinese warplane was close to firing at a JASDF aircraft in the East China Sea—an incident that was immediately denied by Koichi Hagiuda, the deputy chief Cabinet secretary and an aide to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Hagiuda said that the Chinese aircraft did not make “an attack motion” against JASDF fighter jets. This did not stop a Chinese MOD spokesperson from characterizing the Japanese media report as “distorting facts by calling white black a

That Chinese Frigate in the Senkakus Was a Bad Move for China ( Source- The Diplomat / Author- Steven Stashwick)

PLAN Frigate ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Stekruebe) Source- The Diplomat Author- Steven Stashwick Early last Thursday morning, a Chinese Jiangkai I frigate entered waters near the disputed Japanese Senkaku islands, called the Diaoyu by China. The move sparked an immediate response from the Japanese government, which summoned the Chinese ambassador at 2 am to lodge a protest. When the islands were nationalized by Japan in 2012, incursions by Chinese ships and aircraft increased dramatically, from practically zero to sometimes several per day. This most recent incursion was unique because it was the first time China has used a naval vessel instead of a Coast Guard or other state ship to venture near the islands. One senior Japanese defense official said the warship’s presence meant “the level of crisis has gone up one notch.” However, both the frigate’s route and Japan’s response may actually have confirmed that Japan really has the upper hand in the Senkaku di

China Claiming Okinawa Is Like Japan Claiming Hawaii ( Source- The National Interest / Author- Micael Peck)

Japanese Self Defence Force ( Credits- Flickr) Source- The National Interest  Author- Michael Peck Hawaii belongs to Japan, the Japanese press suddenly proclaims. Tokyo publishes ancient maps and documents that purport to show that the Hawaiian islands were historically part of the Japanese homeland until they were illegally annexed by the Americans. To hammer the point home, a Japanese warship sails into Hawaiian waters. Does this sound totally insane? It's no more crazy than Chinese claims that the Ryukyu Islands—which include the island of Okinawa—belong to China rather than Japan. In 2013, the world let out a collective "Say what???" when Chinese officials, scholars and journalists suggested that the Ryukyus belong to China. The claims, based on the fact that the Ryukyu islanders paid tribute to China more than six hundred years ago, were not officially endorsed by the Chinese government, but neither were they denied. Analysts suggested that

Japan's Master Plan to Destroy the Chinese Navy in Battle ( Source- The National Interest / Author- Harry J. Kazianis)

JMSDF ships ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons ) Source- The National Interest Author-  Harry J. Kazianis It seems that Japan is developing plans to craft its own Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD) strategy—or what one former Japanese official describes as “maritime supremacy and air superiority”—against the Chinese Navy. The plan itself, detailed by Reuters, makes a tremendous amount of good sense: “Tokyo is responding by stringing a line of anti-ship, anti-aircraft missile batteries along 200 islands in the East China Sea stretching 1,400 km (870 miles) from the country's mainland toward Taiwan. . . “While the installations are not secret, it is the first time such officials have spelled out that the deployment will help keep China at bay in the Western Pacific and amounts to a Japanese version of the "anti-access/area denial" doctrine, known as "A2/AD" in military jargon, that China is using to try to push the United States and its a

A New Dawn in Japan: How China Is Empowering Its Greatest Rival ( Source- The National Interest / Author- Richard Javad Heydarian)

JASDF F-2A Fighter ( Image source- Wikimedia Commons / Author- United States Air Force) Source- The National Interest Author- Richard Javad Heydarian For the past seven decades, Japan hasn’t fired a single bullet for offensive military purposes, nor has it established a standing army with the mandate to engage in war. The northeast Asian powerhouse has been bound by a legendary pacifist constitution, Article 9 of which compels Japan to "forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes." Today’s Japan, unlike its imperial predecessor in the early twentieth century, is a curious case of a “rich country, no army” nation that has no parallel in modern history. But this is bound to change, as Japan reorients its foreign policy towards what it calls “proactive pacifism.” One of the most significant implications of China’s territorial assertiveness, which has often translated into o

Japan’s One-Way Push Against China: An Unstated Acquiescence? ( Source- The Diplomat / Author- Justin Chock)

Japanese P3C Orion ( Source- Wikimedia Commons / Author- United States Navy) Source- The Diplomat Author- Justin Chock Recent Japanese reports depict China in an unusually threatening light: Japan’s Ministry of Defense (MOD) rigorously analyzed Chinese assertive actions in the 2015 Annual White Paper after earlier rejections by Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party for being “too soft on China.” Japan then released an East China Sea (ECS) Unilateral Development Report and even a MOD South China Sea (SCS) Report highlighting the threat of China’s assertive unilateral actions. But as The Diplomat’s Ankit Panda has noted, the Chinese ECS structures are not much of a threat, and the SCS report focuses 15 of 16 pages on China’s destabilizing effects without providing new facts or data (even the red-letter “danger” highlights are reserved for Chinese actions). Instead, these reports seem to be more demonstrative than alarming, which begs the question of why Japan would depict Ch

Surprise: Japan Sees China as Its Main National Security Threat ( Source- The Diplomat / Author- Franz Stefan-Gady)

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe  ( Source- Wikimedia Commons / Author- United States Embassy, Tokyo) Source- The Diplomat Author- Franz Stefan-Gady Today, the cabinet of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe approved the 2015 defense white paper compiled by the Ministry of Defense entitled “Defense of Japan 2015.” The approval came after a week-long delay due the Liberal Democratic Party’s demand for the document to name additional examples of China’s “one-sided” maritime actions, such as the construction of an offshore gas platform in the East China Sea. China’s naval ambitions and its overall maritime activities remain Japan’s top national security concern. Beijing’s activities take up a third of a section in the 429-page white paper discussing Tokyo’s security concerns and trends. ”China, particularly over maritime issues, continues to act in an assertive manner, including coercive attempts at changing the status quo, and is poised to fulfill its unilateral demands

Watch Out, China: Japan and Australia Are Getting Closer ( Source- The National Interest / Author- Yusuke Ishihara)

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons Source- The National Interest Author- Yusuke Ishihara Under the banner of a new special relationship, we are currently witnessing a second evolution of Japan–Australia strategic relations. Looking back, the relationship’s evolution has had two distinct phases; the first phase of evolution started in 2007 which was marked by a deeper institutionalization of bilateral cooperation focusing on non-traditional security, culminating in the historic Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation in Tokyo. The non-traditional security cooperation between Australian Defense Force (ADF) and Japan’s Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) is best represented by the past record of the frequent humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) cooperation between ADF and JSDF units, to name a few, in responding to the 2010 flood disaster in Pakistan, the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and the 2013 mega-typhoon disaster in the Philippines. Building on those i

Sorry, China: Japan Has the Better Claim over the Senkakus ( Source- The National Interest, Author- Ryan Scoville)

Japanese Coast Guard vessel ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons) Source- The National Interest Author- Ryan Scoville Commentary on the long-standing contest over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands may be entering a new and more conciliatory phase. A lot of early scholarship focused on the zero-sum question of who has proper title under international law, but more recent analyses have started to explore paths toward a cooperative resolution. Last month, Akikazu Hashimoto, Michael O’Hanlon and Wu Xinbo offered a multipronged plan under which China and Japan would promise not to raise new territorial disputes in the future, the parties would agree to decouple EEZ determinations from sovereignty over the islands themselves, each side would acknowledge the other’s territorial claims and Japan would delegate rights of administration to a joint oversight board with authority to regulate patrols and usage. The authors view their approach as “designed to respect the core interests and