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But boatload after boatload of activists cuts through choppy currents to reach them, turned away each time by Japan's wily coast guard. Most of the activists come from China, where the government claims the rocky protrusions as their own and wants Japan out. The unassuming islets, part of a huge constellation of others just like them, suddenly threaten to sink Japanese companies with business in China. Competing claims over what Japan calls the Senkakus and China the Diaoyudao have hatched waves of occasionally violent street protests across China plus boycotts against made-in-Japan products sold in the offended country. Taiwan makes yet another claim on the islands.
Japanese people fearing for their safety have cancelled trips to China, while normally eager Chinese consumers avoid cars, electronics and shops that are emblematic of the world's No. 3 economy. (China ranks No. 2, so take that.) Like foreign firms from Europe or the U.S., the big names from Japan have expanded into China to take advantage of its fabled potential market and low-cost manufacturing bases. China is now Japan's largest trade partner. The number of Japanese subsidiaries has grown eight times since the 1990s, and they sold 11.4 trillion yen ($147 billion) worth of goods to China in the 2011 fiscal year. Another 13.4 trillion yen worth of stuff is shipped to China from Japan, London-based Capital Economics says in a Sept. 24 report on fallout from the turf strife.
Compounding the dispute, China and Japan may never settle a series of problems that extend back to World War II. After Japan surrendered and left occupied China in 1945, it never adequately apologized and instead glorifies wartime acts, Beijing argues. It's astonished that Tokyo would now insist on controlling the disputed islets, plus claiming an undersea oilfield north of it. Japanese leaders accuse the Chinese government of bringing up these issues late in the game (Beijing said little until about 20 years ago) to stoke public nationalism while overlooking the renunciation of its World War II past with a 1947 peacetime constitution.
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This is why we can't cut our military. This is the first time since the fall of the USSR that we really do need it.
This is why we can't cut our military. This is the first time since the fall of the USSR that we really do need it.
Interesting theory.
What side would the USA take on this issue?
Japan's China's or Tiawans?
They're ALL vieing for ownership and control of these islands, ya know.
A senior advisor to the Chinese government has called for an attack on the Japanese bond market to precipitate a funding crisis and bring the country to its knees, unless Tokyo reverses its decision to nationalise the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea.
Beijing hints at bond attack on Japan - Telegraph
In a speech late Thursday to the United Nations General Assembly, Yang Jiechi said the Japanese purchase "grossly violated" Chinese sovereignty. Yang said it cannot change the "historical fact that Japan stole" the islands from China. Japan purchased some of the islands from their private Japanese landowner earlier this month. Though Tokyo said it was meant to help manage the dispute, the move infuriated Beijing and prompted violent anti-Japan across China.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Foreign Minister Yang on Thursday. In the meeting, she called for "cooler heads to prevail" and for the dispute to be solved peacefully. State Department officials say Clinton also stressed that stability in Asia is vital for the struggling world economy. But there were no immediate signs that either side would back down from their positions in the simmering dispute, which has brought Japan-China relations to their lowest point in years. In Yang's address to the U.N., he repeated Beijing's stance that the islands have been part of Chinese territory since ancient times. Yang said the islands were seized by Japan after it won the Sino-Japanese War in 1895.
On Wednesday, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda vowed that Tokyo will not compromise on its claim to the islands, which he called an "inherent part" of Japan's territory. Both sides have continued to hold high-level talks in hopes of resolving the dispute diplomatically, but officials have described the atmosphere as "tense" and "severe." There are concerns that the dispute over islands may hurt the strong economic relationship between China and Japan, Asia's two largest economies. The islands, known as Senkaku in Japan but Diaoyu in China, are surrounded by rich fishing grounds and potential oil reserves.
Source
If Japan and China get into it this will be the first real hot war since wwII. Regional to global scale...This is going to be very bad.
You could say the Korean war as China did back them or Vietnam.....But this would be much worse on a far larger scale.
Tens if not hundreds of millions of human beings could die.
Obama mentions in the article: 1A senior advisor to the Chinese government has called for an attack on the Japanese bond market to precipitate a funding crisis and bring the country to its knees, unless Tokyo reverses its decision to nationalise the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea.
Beijing hints at bond attack on Japan - Telegraph
And you got "So Obama is ok with this" out of it.The Obama administration must navigate a delicate course. A tough line against China risks putting the worlds two superpowers on a collision course: a soft line risks setting off alarm bells in Japan and pushing the country towards rearmament.
A senior advisor to the Chinese government has called for an attack on the Japanese bond market to precipitate a funding crisis and bring the country to its knees, unless Tokyo reverses its decision to nationalise the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea.
Beijing hints at bond attack on Japan - Telegraph
If Japan and China get into it this will be the first real hot war since wwII. Regional to global scale...This is going to be very bad.
You could say the Korean war as China did back them or Vietnam.....But this would be much worse on a far larger scale.
Tens if not hundreds of millions of human beings could die.
Japan is not stupid. They won't take on the Chinese in a hot war...and the Chinese won't press the issue that far. This whole "crisis" is for domestic consumption.
