The East China Sea, a territorial dispute place between China and Japan over the Senkaku or Diaoyu Isalnds, continue to raise tensions. Mari Yamaguchi, a reporter of abcNEWS delivered information that Japan ministry officials said that Kenji Wakamiya, Japan’s deputy defense minister met the mayor Yoshitaka Nakayama of a southern island to support the plan about deployment troops to region nearby disputed East China sea islands for emergency response in case of infiltration on nearby islands. Tensions in the East China Sea have been there and China’s aggressive play with declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone seems continuing. This is quite not good news for not only East Asia’s security but is also dangerous international economy and security. Japan is not having good relationship with China and South Korea as before because of historical issues and Diaoyu and Dokdo Islands disputes continue to bother the relationship. Many people who live in the East Asia foresee that militaries action will happen by accidental acceleration rather than a planned attack.
Tensions in the East China Sea have risen sharply after Japan planned to deploy couple hundreds of Japanese Self-Defense Forces. SDF has long been preparing for East China Sea possible conflict with China. The fact makes me very discomfort that they are already ready to fight. Now SDF can operate military action anytime they want because Prime Minister Shinzo Abe enacted new security laws. According to the yearbook of Military Spending and Regional Security in the Asia-Pacific, Japan has been steadily increasing their defense budget and their moves towards increasing military spending and rearmament represent the reality that they are concerning with security situation in the region. The data shows that China’s military spending is also keep increased year by year.
According to the Japanese defense ministry, “China flew eight bombers, two surveillance aircraft, and one early-warning aircraft near Okinawa. Beijing said the flyby was part of a scheduled exercise to improve the long-range combat capabilities of the people’s Liberation Army Air Force.” If the plan to deploy hundreds of ground soldiers on the island in 2019 became real, China would press harder on its territorial claims that might increase the accidental escalation.
As I learned from the class that despite the diplomatic and territorial problems between the two nations, the economic ties them. These two largest economies countries in Asia should find out the way to solve their conflicts and securities problems for peace in the East Asia, however it seems hard to be solved soon that the latest incident represents distrust and tension still remain in their relationship. China and Japan, both countries are rapidly increasing their number of army and armaments and widening their military activities at the sea, in the air and on the space. Security dilemma explain that South Korea and North Korea also put more budget to military. If a window got cracked once, it would get damage easier than earlier with an even weaker impact. How long economic relationship will tie East Asian countries together?
Sources
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/japan-deploy-troops-disputed-islands-35426489
http://thediplomat.com/2015/11/japan-set-to-boost-east-china-sea-troop-presence/
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/asia/china/AJ201511290019http://
http://www.defensenews.com/story/breaking-news/2015/04/27/us-japan-new-military-agreement/26443297/
http://thediplomat.com/2015/07/the-troubled-japan-south-korea-relationship/
Int'l Conflict & Security (RPOS 386) 
Great post! I certainly agree that historical precedence has a significant part to play in the recent hostilities amongst China, South Korea, and Japan. I also appreciate that you took into account the interdependent economic relationships between these countries, which, in my opinion, has been one factor in the prevention of a militarized skirmish thus far. Furthermore, I think that Japan’s new military expansion – for the first time in the 70 years since the Second World War (which is supported by the United States) – has only served to heighten historical animosity, aggressive rhetoric, as well as security concerns in the region. In my view, I see Japan’s recent militarization efforts as a subliminal advancement of U.S. interests and foreign policy against China and its mobilization efforts. Below is a Wall Street Journal article on the subject of Japan’s parliament-approved legislation to expand its international military powers – food for thought!
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-backs-japans-new-military-expansion-but-china-concerned-1442644956
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I think that the Chinese building the islands there and claiming them and the surrounding water as Chinese territory is very bold and aggressive. They are using those man made islands to advance control of the sea, one of the most important bodies of water in the world. China is a growing power and I think they want the world to know that, but the world needs to act to stop this blatant posturing.
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Thank you for your post.
The territorial dispute on sea is pretty common in the world. As you posted East Asia also have dispute on sea territory. Not only China but also Japan built man made islands to have advance on claiming sea. Japan also built artificial island in the Pacific Ocean. Their sea territory is unbelievably broad. In case of your post, it also contains history so it must be hard to solve. These are all started back into 1800s when Japan tries to expand their power to land. After Japan colonized China and Japan, lots of history were distorted and some are even burnt so we cannot even verify the history. Only some are hand down orally. I believe these problems in East Asia occurred due to not doing Japanese Post-War Settlements as Germany. Most of the war criminals in Japan weren’t punished severely because Japan joined Korea War as supporting Democracy. After this war, Japan’s image were completely changed without solving the problems left during the colonization. These kinds of territorial conflict will become more hard to solve as time pass. However, I have no idea which method will be best for East Asia countries.
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I agree with your ideas that China and Japan has economic ties and it prevented them from fighting each other. I personally think the reason that Japan has attempted to expand the roles of Self-Defense force is that recently China has been invading a lot of islands in sea and has created a lot of territorial problems between Asian Countries, such as the Philippines. It could be said that Japan has responded to these actions and prevented the causing more problems about territories with China. Also, though there are the notions of Security Dilemmas, China and Japan would not go into war between them because the losses that would be caused by the fighting seem to be really huge. If you go to Japan, you will realize that most of the commodities have been manufactured in China. In addition, the companies and corporations in Japan have big powers, so it could be assumed that these actors would oppose to the war. In this age, I assume that the probabilities of going into the conflicts between the East Asia Countries are low.
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this post is very interesting, its amazing how many stories there are that get no attention from the terrible media we have here in America. Anyway, I agree that japan and China absolutely need to solve their problems diplomatically I think a violent would have some drastic effects on the economy of both countries and of course by extension the U.S.
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