Tag: China

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China expands its territorial claim toward Japan: Next target is Senkaku

TOKYO, July 7, 2024—As expected and as if scripted, China has installed a buoy on Japan’s continental shelf in the Pacific, the Yoimiuri Shimbun daily reported July 5, in its methodical expansion into other countries’ sovereign waters. The next Chinese move, likely more aggressive, is set to be Senkaku Islands claimed by both countries where China also had floated buoys earlier and chasing after Japanese fishing boats as it is doing to Philippine fishermen.

Despite the escalating Chinese aggression, Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, said only that the Chinese act was ‘regrettable.’ A Chinese spokeswoman said July 5 that the area is an international water, not Japan’s, describing the buoy installation as legitimate by international law.

The buoy is located north of Okinotorishima Island, a tiny speck of rocks that emerged as a result of a deep ocean volcanic eruption about two decades ago that Japan registered as its territory with the United Nations and that China unilaterally denies as a rock and not an island.

More details as reported by the Yomiuri as follows:

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A Chinese government vessel in June installed a buoy on Japan’s continental shelf in the Shikoku Basin region, north of Japan’s southernmost Okinotorishima Island, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

While China has previously installed buoys in the East China Sea including an area near the Senkaku Islands in Okinawa Prefecture, it is quite unusual for the country to install a buoy in the waters under the jurisdiction of Japan on the Pacific Ocean. The government is examining the purpose and other details of the buoy.

The Xiangyanghong 22, a large Chinese working ship, in July 2023 installed an ocean survey buoy with a diameter of about 10 meters in Japan’s exclusive economic zone about 80 kilometers northwest of the Senkaku’s Uotsuri Island without permission. It is believed that wave and other data collected by the buoy is transmitted to China using satellites. The government has demanded the immediate removal of the buoy at summit meetings and foreign ministerial meetings between Japan and China, among other occasions, but China has not responded to the requests.

According to multiple government sources, Xiangyanghong 22 left Shanghai on June 5 this year and arrived in the Pacific Ocean via the Osumi Strait off the coast of Kagoshima Prefecture. It then installed the buoy in the Shikoku Basin region in mid-June. The buoy is reportedly smaller than the one installed in July 2023 and is equipped with a light emitting device that can be seen from ships traveling nearby at night.

The Shikoku Basin region is surrounded by Japan’s EEZ and covers an area almost equivalent to half the size of Japan, which is 378,000 square kilometers. Since there are no islands in or around the region, it is supposed to be outside the EEZ. However, the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) recognized the Shikoku Basin region as Japan’s continental shelf in 2012, with Okinotorishima Island as its base point. Under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, Japan exercises sovereign rights over the continental shelf for the purpose of exploring the sea bed and exploiting its natural resources.

Unlike EEZs, oceanographic surveys conducted in waters above continental selves do not require approval of coastal states. However, mineral resources including rare metals are said to be distributed in the seabed of the region, and if the recently installed buoy is related to the exploration of the seabed and other such activities, it is highly likely that it violates the U.N. convention.

On the other hand, China claims that Okinotorishima is not an island but a rock and that neither an EEZ nor a continental shelf can be established based on it. China has repeatedly conducted oceanographic surveys and military exercises in the western Pacific including areas near the island. Since it could install buoys in Japan’s EEZ in the Pacific Ocean side in the future, just like in the East China Sea, the government is stepping up vigilance and surveillance activities.

Hayashi: ‘Disappointed’

“It is regretful that China installed the buoy without explaining its purpose, plan and other details,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said at a press conference Friday.

Hayashi also said that Tokyo has asked Beijing to provide a transparent explanation about it. According to him, China has explained that the buoy is designed to observe tsunami and is not intended to violate Japan’s rights over the continental shelf.

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U.S. shows weakness everywhere as China gears further SE Asia expansion

TOKYO, Dec. 13, 2023—Joe Biden met China’s Xi Jingpin, Isrtael’s Benjamin Natanyahu, Ukraine’s Volodymyl Zelenskyy, India’s Narendra Modi, the Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos, Mexico’s Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and dozens of leaders from other countries this year for solving problems that the United States alone has the capacity to resolve: ending wars, preempting potential conflicts, human and drug trafficking, human rights, and climate change mitigation, among them. Understandably, China is watching Biden closely, and something might have clicked to Beijing… It’s the reason behind China’s fresh hegemony.

The White House’s Nov. 15, 2023 readout after the Biden-Xi meeting in San Francisco said the two leaders agreed to cooperate in combatting illicit drug manufacturing and trafficking, including fentanyl, resume high-level military communication, affirmed the need to address the risks of AI, and maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea and East China Sea.ß

Over the past two months since the Israel-Hamas war erupted, Biden told Natanyahu to prtect civilians in phone calls and meetings.

In September, Biden visited India for a one-on-one with Modi. They ‘reemphasized that the shared value of freedom, democracy, human rights, inclusion, pluralism and equal opportunities for all citizens are critical,’ according to the White House readout from that meeting. Before that, in May, Biden welcomed Marcos to the While House, with both leaders agreeing to hold joint military exercises, and Marcos offered to allow U.S. military presence in the Philippines as a show of his country’s counterforce against China. Biden and the Mexican president discussed illicit drugs and migration entering the United States n November.

In the COP28 climate change negotiations having been in session over more than the past week in Dubai, Biden did not show up, thus empowering the powerful OPEC and OPECplus economies to overwhelm outcries of Tuvalu and many other low-lying countries to keep global temperature rise to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

And this week, Ukraine’s Zelenskyy’s plea for more U.S. aide sounded hollow inside the Beltway as Republicans muffled Biden’s pledge for additional funding.

It’s probably no coincidence that heavily-armed Chinese coast guard ships blasted Philippines fishing boats with water cannons near the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, the area that Manila had long occupied for fishing.

Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican House representative, said in his blogpost that what’s happening in Washington looks like a revisit to post-WWI Europe, when the U.S. attitude toward Hitler was that what the Nazi’s were doing was remilitarizing the Rhineland was in Deutscheland, not in other territory. 

Obama deserves to be scorned for missing the opportunity ti staunch Russian expansion to Crimea, Kinzinger said, but ‘the very people who attacked him for weakness now advocate the same policy.’

The whole Biden White House ineptitude is being closed watched by…China as the U.S. weakness and the reason for Beijing to make a go at the Philippines fishing boats, and then other areas of the South and East China seas, possibly including Senkaku Islands claimed both by China and Japan as a precursor to China7s invasion of Taiwan.

All the more encouraging for the Chinese military brass, the Pentagon was forced to ground indefinitely the entire Osprey aircraft fleet following the crash accident near souther Japan in November. The Ospreys were positioned as a key defense fleet for the U.S. military wings.

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