Turmoil still bubbling up in
China with the USA voicing concern and trying to avoid taking sides:
 |
| Islands in the Rising Sun |
On Sunday, hundreds of Chinese protesters again faced off against riot police at the Japanese embassy in Beijing.
In Shenzhen, police fired tear gas to disperse a demonstration, while in the nearby city of Guanghzhou angry crowds burned Japanese flags.
One eyewitness in the city of Xi'an described to the BBC on Saturday how his camera was snatched from him and damaged because it was a Japanese brand.
"Japanese-made cars were randomly stopped, their drivers grabbed and thrown out... and the cars smashed and burned. The police and army seemed to do little to stop the riot," he said.
Tensions have been heightened this week after the purchase of some of the islands by the Japanese government from their private Japanese owners.
As the map shows, the islands are
close to the long tail of islands that mark the southern tip of the Japanese
island kingdom; a hop-skip-and-jump from Taiwan; and within spitting distance
of the Chinese mainland.
Keep
your eye on them.
thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteSpitting distance from the Chinese mainland? You may want to read the scale on that map. The Island string south of the main Japanese islands are all Japanese, note Okinawa, and actually end quite close to Taiwan. The Islands in question have been Japanese since 1895 and the Treaty of Shimonoseki which also ceded Formosa/Taiwan to Japan. The government of China signed that treaty. The US arbitrarily returned Taiwan to Nationalist Chinese rule. There really is no question regarding who owns those islands and that little gas field so interestingly noted on that map.
ReplyDeleteYou cannot expect Japan to negotiate away their territory in the face of military threat.