Sino-Japanese Conflict Over Senkaku Islands

The conflict has a long history.

There's video here, "Japan-China island row opens diplomatic wounds."

And at the New York Times, "Dispute Over Islands Reflects Japanese Fear of China’s Rise":

ISHIGAKI, Japan — When the flotilla of 21 fishing boats arrived at an island chain at the center of a growing territorial dispute with China, the captains warned the dozens of activists and politicians aboard not to attempt a landing.

Ten of the activists jumped into the shark-infested waters anyway, swimming ashore on Sunday and planting the rising sun flag that evokes painful memories of Imperial Japan’s 20th-century march across Asia.

“We feel that they dragged us into an international incident,” said Masanori Tamashiro, one of the boat captains.

That feeling is widely shared in Japan, where a small number of nationalists has pushed the country to assert itself more boldly to counter China’s and South Korea’s economic rise and China’s quickly evolving territorial ambitions. The conflict with China has raised the specter that the United States, Japan’s longtime defender, could be pulled into the fight.

The nationalists have gained traction for their cause in recent months by taking advantage of the government’s political weakness, forcing the governing party to take a tougher stand on the islands west of here, known as the Senkakus in Japan and the Diaoyu in China.

But the activists are also tapping into a widespread anxiety over China, which intensified two years ago during the last major flare-up over the Senkakus. China retaliated then for Japan’s arrest of a fishing captain by starving Japan of the rare earths needed for its already struggling electronics industry. That anxiety became more pronounced in recent months as China expanded its claims in the nearby South China Sea, challenging Vietnam, the Philippines and others over more than 40 islands in a vast area, and backing its statements with aggressive moves that included sending larger patrol boats to disputed waters.

There is still little appetite in pacifist Japan for a full-blown confrontation with China. But analysts say consensus is growing on the need to stand up to China as power in the region appears to slip further from economically fading Japan and the United States.

“We are all gearing up for an international tug of war in this region,” said Narushige Michishita, an expert on security issues at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo. “Whenever the distribution of power changes in a dramatic way, people start to redraw lines.”

I personally welcome the dispute --- one, because neither China nor Japan has the slightest interest or inclination toward military conflict; but second, in the case of Japan, a forceful and independent stand will allow it to make the case for its geographic interests independent of the United States. It's time to cut the cord. The U.S. will need Japan to stand up as China's regional balancer in the Pacific. The balance of power is changing, but Japan's a powerful country. Let those two East Asian giants work things out on their own.