Over the past year, Chinese aircraft, warships and submarines have challenged Japanese territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands, ruled by Japan since the late 19th century, but now claimed by China. Even more worrying, China has begun asserting claims to Okinawa on the basis that its independent rulers paid tribute to Imperial China in the past. These claims, and China’s rapid development of a true blue water navy and long-ranged aircraft that can project power into the Pacific, and Beijing’s increasingly assertive claims to all the East China Sea, are deeply alarming Japan. As the nationalist drums beat ever louder in China, Japanese increasingly feel vulnerable. Japanese are asking whether the US would really risk nuclear war with China to defend Japan’s Senkaku or Ryukyu Islands. China, for its part, sees its rising naval and maritime power constricted, even threatened, by the Japanese archipelago that acts as a giant barrier, blocking China from the open Pacific. lewrockwell/2013/07/eric-margolis/japan-is-still-subservient-to-its-wwii-enemies/
Posted on: Sun, 28 Jul 2013 03:16:04 +0000
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