I should address President Obama’s explicit statement in Japan that the Senkakus were covered by the US-Japan Security Treaty. Nothing particularly new here; Secretary of State Clinton affirmed coverage in 2010 and I think it’s been reaffirmed incessantly since then. Now, if President Obama had declared that the US regarded the Senkakus as Japanese sovereign... Read More

John Kerry recently concluded a friendly visit to Beijing, with both sides chatting about matters of mutual concern in a way that implied these two great powers have areas of shared concern and interest. Some observers might fear that peace might break out. Don’t worry. My personal opinion is that a dwindling group of PRC... Read More

US Says OK to Japanese Collective Self Defense The United States government, be it the White House, the security strategists, the civilian leadership, or the military brass apparently has no qualms about Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s decision to affirm Japan’s right to practice “collective self defense� or CSD. In the face of public disapproval, resistance... Read More

I am unwilling to join the rest of China pundits on the fainting couch, overcome with dismay and disapproval at the PRC’s unilateral declaration of an ADIZ. All the big kids have an ADIZ. The PRC has an ADIZ. I don’t think it’s going anywhere and we should get used to it. To me, the... Read More

That guidance (to paraphrase Hearst’s famous admonition to Frederic Remington on the occasion of the Spanish-American War, “You furnish the pictures, I’ll furnish the war,�) pretty much sums up the interaction of the government of Japan and the Western media on the matter of the Chinese Air Defense Identification Zone or ADIZ. I’m not going... Read More

After raking the Irish Times over the coals for screwing up the headline it tacked onto the Reuters story about the alleged intrusion of a Chinese military aircraft into Japanese airspace by calling a Y-8 turboprop a “fighter plane�, I was…interested? bemused? incensed? to see AP run its story with the fighter plane characterization in... Read More

It always seemed likely that, back in the Deng Xiaoping days, the PRC and Japan were eager to cut a deal for normalization of relations and, therefore, both sides would agree to put the Senkaku issue on the backburner. The “set aside the Senkakus� sentiment was certainly the governing spirit at a press conference during... Read More

[This article originally appeared at Asia Times Online on December 1, 2012.� It can be reposted if ATOl is credited and a link provided.] � Is the People's Republic of China (PRC) trying to implode the Japanese economy? It is starting to look that way. The PRC has counterprogramed the US pivot to Asia -... Read More