The incident follows a series of accusations by Tokyo over the past months that China Coast Guard ships have entered waters around the Senkaku Islands, some 1,000 kilometers to the southeast of the Danjo. The Senkaku Islands, under Japanese control, are also claimed by China, which calls them the Diaoyu Islands. Like the Danjo, the Senkaku/Diaoyu are uninhabited, but are believed to hold potentially lucrative oil and gas reserves. (Al Jazeera, Kyodo, Kyodo, BBC News, PhilStar, Jane’s)

Map: Google

Mainichi, PTI and Reuters report this week that Japan has activated its first amphibious marine unit since World War II. Some 1,500 members of the Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade held a mock public exercise in which they acted out the recapture of "a remote island" from invaders, following a ceremony at a military base near Sasebo, outside Nagasaki. The brigade, expected to eventually grow into a 3,000-member force, is the latest component of a growing Japanese marine force that includes helicopter carriers, amphibious ships, Osprey tilt-rotor troop carriers and amphibious assault vehicles. The ARDB exercise came days after three Chinese Coast Guard vessels temporarily entered Japan's claimed territorial waters near the Senkaku Islands—the seventh such incursion this year. (NHK)

Meanwhile, the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier, with a group of Philippine generals onboard, entered disputed waters in the South China Sea, where China is building military defenses on islands claimed by the Philippines and Vietnam. Another carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, patrolled the contested waters last month, taking part in anti-submarine drills with Japanese forces and visiting Vietnam with its 5,000-strong crew—the largest such US military presence there since the Vietnam War ended in 1975.

Tensions have de-escalated somewhat since Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte visited Beijing and raised the issue with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2016. Since then, China also allowed Philippine fishing fleets back into disputed Scarborough Shoal.

But from a long-term perspective, the dangers are growing. Philippine ambassador to Beijing, Chito Sta. Romana, recently warned that the risks of a miscalculation and armed conflict have risen in the disputed region with a militarily stronger China now able to challenge the US. Sta. Romana compared the two powers to elephants fighting and trampling on the grass and said, "What we don't want is for us to be the grass." (AP via Stars & Stripes)

Map via IDSA

In a controvery around the protests earlier this year, the Pentagon reportedly dismissed a senior US Marine Corps official in Okinawa following the leak of a base surveillance video to a Japanese neo-nationalist group. Robert Eldridge, deputy assistant chief of staff for external affairs, apparently leaked footage showing the arrest of Hiroji Yamashiro after he crossed the yellow-painted perimeter line in a protest at Camp Schwab. The footage was uploaded to YouTube by a user called "Tedokon Bogii," believed to be a presenter for the far-right online Channel Sakura. Dubbing itself a Japanese culture channel, Sakura regularly glorifies Japan's role in World War II, and portrays anti-base protests in Okinawa as the work of Chinese, Korean or communist agitators. Eldridge had himself appeared on Channel Sakura twice—in one appearance branding the Okinawa protests "hate speech." (Japan Times, March 23)

China had long come under international criticism for lax environmental laws and enforcement, but has taken more protective steps in recent years. Earlier this month, China set a 60% per capita carbon dioxide emissions reduction goal for 2030. That follows up a November agreement with the US to cut its greenhouse gas emissions.

From Jurist, July 28. Used with permission.

Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel toured Asia earlier this month ahead of Obama's coming visit, and at an April 10 stop in Ulan Bator signed a "joint vision" statement with his Mongolian counterpart Dashdemberel Bat-Erdene, calling for expanding military cooperation through joint training and assistance. "A strong US-Mongolia defense relationship is important as part of the American rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region," Hagel told a joint press conference. Bat-Erdene ruled out the possibility of hosting US forces, citing a Mongolian law that bars foreign military bases from the country. But the agreement is clearly aimed at extending US military encirclement of China. Days earlier, Hagel had lectured his hosts in Beijing over China's establishment of an air defense zone in the East China Sea. He also made a flat warning about the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, telling reporters: "We affirmed that since [the Senkaku Islands] are under Japan's administrative control, they fall under Article 5 of our Mutual Security Treaty." (AFP, April 10; Time, April 8)

But Mongolia has hardly burned bridges with China, which remains the destination for 90% of its exports. As Hagel was in Ulan Bator, a pact was cemented between Shenhua Group, China's top coal producer, for a joint venture with Mongolian partners to build a cross-border rail link to faciliate expanded exports. Shenhua Group, will own 49% of the project, with the remainder held by a consortium of Mongolian firms, including state-owned miner Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi, and the Hong Kong-listed Mongolian Mining Corporation. (Reuters, April 9)

As we've said before, China and Japan have got way too much invested in trade with each other to actually intend to go to war. But brinkmanship is a dangerous game, and there is plenty of potential here for things to spiral out of control very quickly. Japan's spring festival, which will likely see more high-profile homages to war criminals at Yasukuni, will actually overlap with President Obama's visit to the country this week. Hopefully, he will have a little talk with Abe, telling him that such behavior is not helpful. Of course, there is no reason whatsoever to hope that Obama will rein in Japan's military expansion, which the US is avidly facilitating…

Technically, this appears not to be true, as the Memorandum makes "assurances" rather than "guarantees"—an important distinction in diplomatic terms. The Memorandum is not a formal treaty, but a statement of shared principles—so, not actually binding. Under the Memorandum, Ukraine agreed to remove all Soviet-era nuclear weapons from its territory, send them to Russia to be dismantled, and sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). This was an extremely substantial arsenal of some 1,900 strategic warheads and hundreds of tactical nuclear weapons—more warheads than held by either the UK or China. Many of these were stored in the Crimea—one of the Soviets' most important weapons sites was at Krasnokamenka, in the Kiziltashsky region of Crimea, where a secret underground facility was used to assemble and store warheads. (RFE/RL, March 12; NYR Blog, March 4)

The first two points of the Budapest Memorandum make clear that Russia is, in fact, in violation:

1. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine…to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine;

2. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations;

But the fourth point also makes clear under what circumstances the relevant powers are obliged to act, and how:

4. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine, as a non-nuclear-weapon State party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used

The current situation, thankfully, falls short of an imminent threat of use of nuclear weapons. Not that that makes it OK.

Black Sea brinkmanship
The US is meanwhile initiating joint military exercises in the Black Sea—just across from the Crimean Peninsula. A US Navy destroyer will take part in the maneuvers with Romanian and Bulgarian warships. In Poland, US fighter jets are arriving at Lask air base for joint exercise. Washington stresses that both drills were planned before the Crimea crisis, but Polish officials say the scope of the air exercise was beefed up in response to Russia's Crimea intervention. (Reuters, March 10)

Both Japan and the US are being openly intransigent on the ADIZ. “The measures by the Chinese side have no validity whatsoever on Japan, and we demand China revoke any measures that could infringe upon the freedom of flight in international airspace,” said Prime Minister Shinzo Abe before the Diet. “It can invite an unexpected occurrence and it is a very dangerous thing as well.” The US Defense Department issued its own statement, saying: “The United States is deeply concerned by the People’s Republic of China announcement today that it is establishing an air defense identification zone in the East China Sea. We view this development as a destabilizing attempt to alter the status quo in the region. This unilateral action increases the risk of misunderstanding and miscalculations. This announcement by the People’s Republic of China will not in any way change how the United States conducts military operations in the region.” (China Matters blog, Nov. 25) Note, of course, that the US intention to ignore the Chinese ADIZ further “increases the risk of misunderstanding and miscalculations.”

Their logic is simple: they can do it while China can not, which could be described with a Chinese saying, “the magistrates are free to burn down houses while the common people are forbidden even to light lamps.”

It is known to all that the United States is among the first to set up an air defense zone in 1950, and later more than 20 countries have followed suit, which Washington has taken for granted…

Japan set up such a zone in the 1960s and it even one-sidedly allowed the zone to cover China’s Diaoyu Islands. But when China set up the zone covering the Diaoyu Islands, Tokyo immediately announced it “unacceptable” and Abe even called China’s move “dangerous.” It is totally absurd and unreasonable.

The US ADIZ presumably does not cover any disputed territory, although the Japanese one certainly does.

Hardlly coincidentally, all this is in the news just as China is about to launch its first-ever Moon mission. A rocket carrying a rover vehicle dubbed the “Jade Rabbit” is to blast off Dec. 2 from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan, in a mission named Chang’e 3. (AFP, Nov. 30) Fox News is of course openly playing up the space race angle, warning that the Jade Rabbit could interfere with NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE), which is already orbiting the Moon.

More ominously still, nationalism and militarism have become potent themes in Japanese parliamentary elections coming up this month, with Shinzo Abe’s rihgt-opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), itself challenged from the right by Shintaro Ishihara, now openly caling for amending the “peace constitution.” (Reuters, Dec. 2) And Abe isn’t above playing the China card in his bid to maintain nuclear power in Japan after the Fukushima disaster: “Assume that places like China continue with nuclear power, and only Japan stops. Then at that point if there’s an accident would Japan really be all right?” (SBS World News, Dec. 11)