Adding to tensions in the Pacific between the US and China, the head of US forces in Japan said on Monday that US troops could be sent to defend the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. The islands, known as Diaoyus in China, are at the center of a maritime dispute between Tokyo and Beijing.
“Our arrival today was simply to demonstrate the ability to move a few people but the same capability could be used to deploy combat troops to defend the Senkaku Islands or respond to other crisis and contingencies,” Lt. Gen. Kevin Schneider said. The commander also rattled off a list of what he called “malign activities” by Beijing in the region.
Schneider made the comments from the deck of a Japanese destroyer in waters south of Japan, kicking off Keen Sword 21, a massive naval exercise conducted jointly by the US and Japan. The 10-day military exercises are held every other year. This year’s drills will involve 9,000 US troops, about 37,000 Japanese troops, and 20 ships and 170 aircraft.
A military confrontation between Japan and China over the Senkakus could draw in the US due to a mutual defense treaty between Washington and Tokyo.
The Senkakus is just one maritime dispute between China and its neighbors the US has involved itself in. The US has stepped up military activity in the South China Sea, where Beijing and several Southeast Asian countries have overlapping claims. In July, the US formally rejected most of Beijing’s claims to the waters.
The US, Japan, India, and Australia make up an informal alliance known as the Quad. The US is looking to turn this group into a more formal security alliance to counter Beijing in the region. Next month, Australia will join the other Quad countries in the annual Malabar naval exercises off of India’s coast for the first time since 2007. It will be the first time the four countries conduct multilateral military exercises together in recent years.
Nice of the U.S. to offer, bu China can do the job… oh, w8…
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/senkakudiaoyu-islands-conflict
The Japanese don’t appear to have much more than a ‘spoils of war’ claim backed by some make-believe history.
Even Japan’s ‘spoils of war’ claim has become muddled by their WWII defeat; by that notion the U.S. could claim the islands as they do not appear to have formally given it back to anyone.
what can china do ? protect the island from china ? your post makes no sense
The joke plays on the default Western assumption that the Senkakus need to be protected from China, not Western imperialism’s Japanese pretext, and that the U.S. as world cop does an honest and fair job of world policing.
You walked right into it, assuming China didn’t have a historically and morally sound claim over the islands and was somehow an aggressor party.
After WWII, the Senkakus should have been handed over to mainland China or the Republic of China on Taiwan. Handing the Senkakus to the RoC before Japan got ideas about keeping their modern-era spoils of war, would have worked out well for the U.S..
mainland China was the Republic of China that had not yet established its capital inTaipei
Which is why returning the Senkakus to the Republic of China/Taiwan was the better move, geopolitically for the United States as well as the more moral/legal choice.
The U.S. administration of the Senkakus lasted from 1945-1972.
The Republic of China retreated to Taiwan in 1949. The Chinese civil war is not over, just suspended.
Detente with the People’s Republic of China began in 1972. The PRC broke with Russia to join the West.
Japan’s loyalty was always assured. So was Taiwan’s. Mainland China, not so much.
However, Taiwan will never side with Japanese sovereignty over the Senkakus and the mainland Chinese can always point to the Senkakus as U.S. support for anti-Chinese aggression.
scrapping
over
what
they dont own
but
they
sure do
fight
like kids
over marbles
in the playground
and its
stupid
as hell….
uninhabited and irrelevant unless there is oil/gas nearby
A good practice for the next war we lose after 20 years (and counting).
the US is cruising for a bruising
opposite. China will be crushed.
Hahahaha…please..the US does not win any war’s, especially against small countries..aka: Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Libya…China will crush the paper tiger…don’t be so foolish LOL!
… The U.S. fights wars to rob the public purse for the MIC, not to ‘win’.
Winning to the MIC is keeping the game going for as long as possible.
China will make the foolish American military the amateurs they have always been…
The U.S. occupied Vietnam for over a decade from an ocean away, winning every battle before losing the war to economics and social dysfunction.
Vietnam compelled China to declare victory and leave in just just three weeks and six days.
Chinese only seem to excel at fighting other Chinese.
This islands are much closer to mainland China than Japan. The US ignored the 1945 Potsdam accords when it gave these islands back to Japan.
Correct. Now there are 34,000+ Marines on that little Island. Crimes by the Marines are not tried there, but are sent home to face a little hand slapping.
Great video, thanks.
Okinawa seems to be like South Korea for the U.S. military; a tripwire guaranteeing U.S. involvement to avenge casualties.
Seeing a pattern here since at least the 1942 martyrdom in the Phillippines,
The propaganda value of a bloody but ‘noble’ defeat demanding avenging, cannot be underestimated.
Come on all you big strong men
Uncle Sam needs your help again
He’s got himself in a terrible jam
Over some fucking Islands that don’t mean a damn
Guarding America’s borders is racist/unconstitutional, but sending US troops to fight over rocks in the Pacific Ocean off China/Japan makes perfect sense.
Nope. “Guarding America’s borders” is code for unconstitutionally regulating immigration, and sending US troops to fight over rocks in the Pacific is just as stupid and evil.
As the Republic of China, Taiwan’s claims for those islands and other islands in the South China Sea, are the same as the Peoples Republic of China.
Why do we want to takes sides against Taiwan?
It’s none of our business, in any case.
The first battle between the US and China was in the Korean war. This looks like another step in that direction.