East Asia’s Nationalist Fantasy Islands
China, Korea, and Japan, whose economic interests are closely entwined, have every reason to avoid a serious conflict over rocky islets in the East China Sea and the Sea of Japan. And yet, for entirely domestic reasons, all three are manipulating recent history to arouse passions that can only cause more damage.
https://prosyn.org/CaRZJkB
TOKYO – They don’t look like much, those few uninhabited rocks in the East China Sea between Okinawa and Taiwan, and a couple of tiny islets in the Sea of Japan, inhabited by a few token fishermen and some South Korean Coast Guard officials. The former, called the Senkaku Islands in Japan, and the Diaoyu Islands in China, are claimed by China, Japan, and Taiwan; the latter, called Takeshima in Japan, and Dokdo in Korea, are claimed by South Korea and Japan.