 The latest China Security Report published by Japan’s National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS) in February aims to analyze China’s military and security affairs from a mid- to long-term perspective. It assesses the development of China’s foreign and security policy towards the United States and vice versa, and the overall China-US relationship in East Asia. […]
 Chinese New Year arrived on February 16, along with many messages from my Chinese friends wishing me peace and safety in the Year of Yi Chang, otherwise known as the Year of the Abnormal. The sexagenary cycle, sometimes called Stems-and-Branches, is a calendar consisting of 60 types of combinations that originated in Ancient […]
Despite the brief hiatus in tensions between Japan and China over the Senkakus—islands historically owned and administered by Japan but in recent decades claimed by China—the issue is flaring up again. Two Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) ships, including a submarine, entered the contiguous waters next to the islands and another island group in […]
Refusing to hide its ambition to take the Japanese sovereign territory of the Senkaku Islands (Okinawa Prefecture), China was not content with just sending Chinese Coast Guard vessels into the waters off Senkaku, so it also sent Chinese Navy vessels on January 10th to 11th, 2018. The Japan Self-Defense Forces observed […]
Many expected North Korea to conduct yet another missile test last December 17, the sixth anniversary of Kim Jong Il’s death. Such tests have, rather worryingly, become something of a regular occurrence for Japan, with a North Korean intermediate-range missile passing over Hokkaido in August and September. Although no such test happened, the United […]
