Two Chinese patrol ships entered Japanese territorial waters near disputed islets claimed by both Beijing and Tokyo on Friday, Japan’s Coast Guard said, marking the latest incident in a long-running dispute between China and Japan.
The Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, for people too lazy to look them up on Wikipedia like I just did, are a bunch of barren rocks halfway between Taiwan and Okinawa. Their ostensible value lies in a UN report that is older than I am, and which suggests that there may be oil and other mineral resources in that particular area; their actual value lies in the fact that they’re a convenient focus for ire for both the Chinese and the Japanese*. The two countries have been getting fairly saber-rattling at each other lately; this is merely the latest episode, but it always gets awkward when the boats with guns show up. Anyway, I’ll be nice and note that the conflict would still be going on in a hypothetical McCain Presidency: on the other hand, the Japanese would also know darn well that the USA would be backing them against the ChiComs.
On the gripping hand: your reaction to the previous sentence will say a lot about you politically, methinks.
Moe Lane
*China and Japan are not fond of each other, in much the same way that Florida can get warm in August.