ChinaFile Recommends
01.22.13The Next War?
TomDispatch
China, Japan, and various other Asian countries insist a group of tiny islands are theirs alone. Toss in national pride and you have the potential for one of the dumber, more destructive face-offs in recent history.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.21.13China Says U.S. Culpable in Japan Island Dispute
Associated Press
China says the U.S. has "undeniable historical responsibility" in Beijing's dispute with Japan over islands in the East China Sea.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.19.13Infographic Map: Territorial Disputes Involving Japan
New York Times
Territorial disputes linked to Japan’s 20th-century military expansion across Asia, which ended in World War II, persist today.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.19.13Abe Adviser: Japan, China Need “Rules of the Game”
Reuters
China scrambled two J-10 fighters last week after two Japanese F-15s followed a Chinese military aircraft on a "routine patrol".
ChinaFile Recommends
01.17.13The Drums of War: China and Japan Square Up
Economist
Watch Chinese TV these days and you might conclude that the outbreak of war with Japan over what it calls the Senkaku and China the Diaoyu islands is imminent.
ChinaFile Recommends
12.13.12Beijing’s Test of Tokyo
Council on Foreign Relations
China and Japan have been drawing lines in the waters around the Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu Islands for the Chinese) almost daily since the Japanese government under Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda purchased these islands from a private owner on...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.20.12Op-Ed: Japan-China Relations at a Crossroads
New York Times
Japan's foreign minister argues that there is no doubt that the Senkaku Islands, known as the Diaoyu in China, are a part of Japan.
Sinica Podcast
11.16.12
The State of the Navy
from Sinica Podcast
After two weeks focusing on developments at the Eighteenth Party Congress, and with the next generation of China’s leadership now public news for the world to digest, this week on Sinica we take a break from China’s leadership transition and turn...
ChinaFile Recommends
09.27.12Protests Roiling, China’s Mainstream Media Showed an Alternate Reality
It’s already entered the annals of China’s brief but rich Internet history: On Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter, posts showing massive anti-Japan protests in China went viral on September 15th and 16th. Out in the real world, protestors across dozens of...
Sinica Podcast
09.21.12
The Island Imbroglio
from Sinica Podcast
As Xi Jinping has stepped back into the public eye this week, the reappearance of China’s heir apparent has been upstaged by large demonstrations across the country as tensions mount over territorial claims to the Diaoyu (or Senkaku) Islands. As...
The NYRB China Archive
09.20.12Beijing’s Dangerous Game
from New York Review of Books
Over the past few days, angry crowds in more than thirty Chinese cities have trashed Japanese stores, overturned Japanese cars, shouted “Down with Japan,” and carried banners that demand Chinese sovereignty over the uninhabited Diaoyu Islands in the...
ChinaFile Recommends
09.19.12State Media Call For “Rational” Patriotism
China Media Project
After two days of violent anti-Japanese protests in China stemming from a territorial dispute over a chain of islands in the East China Sea, media in China are now calling on the public to remain calm and “rational,” apparently concerned about how...
ChinaFile Recommends
09.18.12China Warns of ‘Further Actions’ as Anti-Japan Protests Resume
New York Times
China drove home its opposition to Japanese control of a contested group of islands on Tuesday, with angry protests in dozens of cities and a warning from its defense minister that “further actions” were possible.
ChinaFile Recommends
09.18.12Seriously Hooked on Nationalism
Rectified.name
This is the worst kind of dispute because everybody’s right and nobody’s right. Japan and China have more than their share of nationalist nitwits, but nobody actually lives on these rocks and it’s not like you can go and ask the goats what...
ChinaFile Recommends
09.17.12Anti-Japan Protests in China Turn Violent, Cooler Heads Prevail Online
On Saturday protestors in dozens of Chinese cities took to the streets to voice their anger at the Japanese government’s nationalization of the Diaoyu Islands (Senkaku Islands in Japanese) in the East China Sea as a flagrant violation of Chinese...
Caixin Media
09.17.12
How a Protest in Beijing Stuck to the Script
On the afternoon of September 16, rows of policemen and security personnel in black T-shirts lined Beijing’s Liangmaqiao Road near the Japanese embassy during protests over the Diaoyu Islands controversy. Security guards were visible everywhere,...
Caixin Media
09.14.12
Why War is Not a Possibility
There won’t be a war in East Asia.The United States has five military alliances in the western Pacific. Its allies are South Korea, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, and Singapore. And American battleships are busy patrolling the seas.Without a go-...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.23.12Diaoyu in Our Heart: The Revealing Contradictions of Chinese Nationalism
Atlantic
There was another side to the anti-Japanese demonstrations that rocked Chinese cities this weekend, reacting to Japanese activists who had landed on a disputed island chain in the East China Sea. As Chinese protesters asserted their national...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.22.12Thucydides’s Trap Has Been Sprung in the Pacific
Financial Times
China’s increasingly aggressive posture towards the South China Sea and the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea is less important in itself than as a sign of things to come. For six decades after the second world war, an American “Pax Pacifica”...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.21.12Simmering Chinese Anger at Japan Is Now on the Boil
New York Times
In angry mass protests and subdued smaller gatherings, Chinese citizens have taken to the streets to protest the landing by Japanese activists on some barren islands that are claimed by both countries. Protesters in about a dozen cities on...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.20.12China Conflicted Over Anti-Japan Protests
WSJ: China Real Time Report
Popular Chinese websites on Monday ran photos from anti-Japan protests across the nation, showing images of flipped-over and smashed Japanese-model cars in apparent reaction to a China-Japan dispute over a clutch of rocky islands.But in a country...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.20.12Anti-Japan Protests Erupt in China Over Disputed Island
New York Times
Anti-Japanese protests spread across China over the weekend, and the landing of Japanese activists on a disputed island on Sunday sharply intensified tensions between the two countries.
ChinaFile Recommends
08.18.12Hong Kong After Island Landing: Who You Calling Unpatriotic?
WSJ: China Real Time Report
We don’t need patriotism lessons, Hong Kongers say—and yesterday’s successful landing on the contested Senkaku Islands proves it. On Thursday, local newspapers across the city carried full-page spreads showing photos of Hong Kong activists...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.16.12Chinese Media Praises Landing of Activists on Diaoyu Islands
Ministry of Tofu
Wednesday afternoon, 14 activists from Hong Kong successfully landed on one of a set of disputed islands, over which Japan, China and Taiwan all claim sovereignty, and planted Chinese flags on the island as a gesture of declaring ownership. Chinese...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.05.12China-Japan Diaoyu Dispute, Now an iPad Game
WSJ: China Real Time Report
Forget about Angry Birds. One new videogame for China’s iPad users is all about the angry words flung back and forth between China and Japan over a series of small islands in the East China Sea. The new game, called Defend the Diaoyu Islands,...