Japan has joined a growing list of countries that are challenging China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea.

On Tuesday, Japan presented a one-page diplomatic note to the United Nations rejecting China’s baseline claims and denouncing its efforts to limit the freedom of navigation and overflight.

Japan’s note is the latest in series of recent criticisms of China’s position, joining submissions to the U.N. from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and the United States.

This backlash suggests that China’s excessive claims and its assertive behavior are setting off alarm bells in a growing number of capitals—both in Southeast Asia and beyond.

“By joining the United States and several European and Asian nations in formally protesting China’s claims, Japan is joining a diplomatic (and maybe operational) effort to reject specific elements of China’s South China Sea claims,” said Isaac Kardon, an assistant professor at the U.S. Naval War College.

In its submission, Japan explicitly rejects China’s claim that the “drawing of territorial sea baselines by China on relevant islands and reefs in the South China Sea conforms to UNCLOS and general international law.”

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea is an international treaty that covers maritime jurisdictions, the use of sea resources, and the freedom of navigation and overflight. Baselines are imaginary lines on a map connecting the outermost points of the features of an archipelago and are meant to circumscribe the territory that belongs to it.

Japanese Ground Home Defence Forces Amphibious Assault Vehicles (AAV) maneouver along the beach of a Philippine navy training center facing the South China Sea in annual U.S.-Philippine marines exercises. San Antonio town, Zambales province, Oct. 6, 2018.

Deeper Southeast Asia ties

Although Japan is not among the claimants in the South China Sea, this is not its first foray into those turbulent waters.

Japan has deepened security ties with several of the Southeast Asian claimant nations in recent years, and in October 2020 carried out anti-submarine exercises in the South China Sea.

Japanese companies have signed onto joint offshore energy projects with Vietnam, and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga recently set a defense export agreement with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

Similarly, the Philippines has acquired coast guard vessels and radar systems from Japan. And Japanese vessels have participated in exercises in the South China Sea with forces from the United States and the Philippines.

Japan’s decision to challenge China’s position in the South China Sea is also likely related to its dispute with China over the Japanese-occupied Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.

“The timing of the note is crucial,” Pooja Bhatt, a PhD candidate at Jawaharlal Nehru University, said, “as it was released a few hours prior to a reportedly high-level consultation on maritime issues between China and Japan where the latter lodged a diplomatic protest over increasing Chinese belligerence near the Senkaku Islands.”

More broadly, Bhatt said Japan’s action reflected a trend of non-claimant states that “seek safety and freedom of trade and navigation” and hope to “uphold the rule of law and internationally accepted norms in the high seas of the South China Sea just like any other global commons.”

Because “the waters of the South China Sea beyond the territorial sea are high seas that impact global peace and security,” Bhatt explained, claimant and non-claimant states “are increasingly vocal to register their concern through diplomatic notes to the United Nations at the multilateral level.”

At odds with UNCLOS

For example, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom submitted joint notes to the United Nations in September 2020. They contended that China’s baseline claims and historic rights claims were inconsistent with UNCLOS.

China claims straight baselines around the Paracel Islands, an area in the northern South China Sea disputed by Vietnam, China, and Taiwan. Assessments of these claims have long concluded that China’s baselines in the Paracels are at odds with UNCLOS requirements. China has not yet claimed baselines around the Spratly Islands, the site of overlapping claims between China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, Taiwan, and Malaysia.

In July 2016, an UNCLOS tribunal ruled that China “is constituted principally by territory on the mainland of Asia and cannot meet the definition of an archipelagic State,” which means that any future straight baseline claims around the Spratly Islands will not find any support under international law. The arbitral award also invalidated China’s historic rights claims within its so-called “nine-dash line.”

The UNCLOS tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague issued this arbitral award in response to a legal challenge brought against China in 2013 by the Philippines. China refused to participate in the arbitration, rejected the PCA’s ruling, and has continued to defend its baseline claims.

In the years since the UNCLOS tribunal ruling, the legal battle over China’s South China Sea claims has continued. According to Kardon, Japan’s recent note to the U.N. is part of “a series of such diplomatic notes that began with Malaysia’s December 2019 submission of extended continental shelf claims to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.”

China responded by asking the Commission to “not consider” Malaysia’s submission. “This provided another target for claimants and other interested parties to voice formal objections to specific aspects of China’s claims,” Kardon said.

Japan’s note to the United Nations is a response to China’s retort to the joint notes that France, Germany, and the United Kingdom submitted in September 2020.

Japan’s note also expresses concern about China’s position on freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea – specifically over what are called “low-tide elevations,” features exposed at low tide but submerged at high tide that do not generate a territorial sea.

Japan specifically accuses China of protesting “the overflight of Japanese aircraft in the airspace surrounding Mischief Reef” – a low-tide elevation in the Spratly Islands that China transformed into a major outpost through land reclamation.

Source: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/japan-southchinasea-01222021155503.html

The post Japan Becomes Latest Nation to Contest Beijing’s Claims in the South China Sea first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Tourists in October on the Yankito Plateau on Iturup Island, the largest one of the Kuril Islands, known in Japan as the Northern Territories (Yuri Smityuk/TASS via Getty Images)

The decades-old dispute between Russia and Japan over the status of the Kuril Islands is far from over. Tokyo, which refers to the islands as the Northern Territories, still insists on a peace treaty with Moscow that would result in Russia’s return of at least two out of four islands to Japan, while the Kremlin keeps militarizing the disputed territory.

The chain of islands ­– stretching between the Japanese island of Hokkaido at the southern end and the Russian Kamchatka Peninsula in the north – was conquered by the Soviet Union at the end of the Second World War. Ever since, Moscow has considered the Kuril Islands an integral part of Russia. Japan thinks otherwise.

The four islands are variously known in Russia and Japan as either Shikotan, Habomai Islets/Khabomai, Kunashiri/Kunashir and Etorofu/Iturup. In 1956, the Soviet Union and Japan signed a joint declaration providing for the end of the state of war, and for restoration of diplomatic relations between USSR and Japan. The document also included a transfer of Habomai and Shikotan to Japan. But a dispute has lingered with no formal peace treaty between the two nations. Russia is the successor state of the Soviet Union, and it leaders have said on several occasions that they were ready to have territorial talks with Japan on the basis of the joint declaration.

The most recent talks between Russia and Japan over the status of the islands were held in early 2019. Japan’s then prime minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to accelerate negotiations based on the 1956 document, which stated that the Habomai islets and Shikotan would be handed back to Japan, and the question of Kunashiri and Etorofu was to be settled during negotiations for a peace treaty.

Indications that the Kremlin was willing to discuss the status of Habomai islets and Shikotan was seen by some Russian nationalists as a treason, particularly in Sakhalin Oblast, the region which comprises the island of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Recent constitutional changes in Russia suggest this view has only hardened. Even though the two islands represent only 7% of the land in question, the new Russian constitution enacted in July this year includes a ban on “any alienation of Russian territories”. This would seem to preclude the return of even one square metre of Russian territory to Japan.

Japanese leaders, on the other hand, claim that the Russian Federation, as the legal successor to the Soviet Union, is obliged to scrupulously observe all of past obligations, including the unfulfilled subparagraph on the territorial issue. Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga recently said Tokyo plans to finalize the talks on the dispute.

“We need to achieve closure in the talks on the Northern Territories, instead of postponing it for future generations,” Suga said, and pointed out that he will strive for “comprehensive development of relations with Russia, including the signing of a peace agreement”.

All this ambition seems likely to go unfulfilled. And such a conclusion doesn’t only spring from more than 60 years of diplomatic stalemate, but also the stubborn facts of control on the ground.

Russian troops periodically conduct military drills on the disputed islands and may indeed go further. The Kremlin reportedly plans to deploy T-72B3 battle tanks to the Kuril Islands, where they can be used to destroy enemy assault forces and small enemy ships. In October, Russia deployed S-300V4 air defense missile systems to the territory for the first time to conduct military exercises. Although no one really expects Japan would invade the islands, Moscow clearly wants to make a show it does not intend to hand them over, either. With thousands of US troops already stationed in Japan, it’s not beyond some Russian analysts to speculate that Washington could establish naval bases in the Kuril Islands once Moscow and Tokyo resolve their territorial dispute.

Plus there is the potential wealth. The islands are surrounded by rich fishing grounds and are thought to have offshore reserves of oil and gas – although the value of such hydrocarbon claims are speculative. In addition, rare rhenium deposits have been found near the Kudriavy volcano on Etorofu.

Finally, a potential return of the Kuril Islands to Japan would be interpreted as a clear sign of Russian weakness, which means that Moscow could also face strong pressure from the West to return Crimea to Ukraine. Such a process would not only mean Russian humiliation in the global arena, but could also result in a serious political crisis that could lead to a breakup of the Russian Federation.

The prospective blow to Russian prestige therefore makes the territory is too important for the Kremlin to hand it over to Japan.

Source: https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/why-russia-will-not-return-kuril-islands-japan

The post Why Russia will not return the Kuril Islands to Japan first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The Japan Meteorological Agency said the quake struck Tuesday night at 10:22, or 9:22 a.m. EDT, 30 miles southwest of Sakata and more than 6 miles below the surface. Sakata is about 200 miles north of Tokyo.

Officials in Murakami, a city of 60,000 people in Niigata Prefecture, told Japan’s Kyodo news service the quake rumbled for about a minute.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said several minor injuries were reported in Niigata and Yamagata, but no serious ones. He urged residents to be prepared for possible aftershocks.

City officials were moving coastal residents to higher ground as a precaution, Tsuruoka city crisis management official Takehiko Takahashi said.

Some train lines suspended operations, and Tohoku Electric said about 8,200 homes and businesses were without power. No problems were reported at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, a nuclear plant in the region.

NHK TV station showed broken glasses and dishes scattered on the floor of a bar in Tsuruoka after customers rushed out, leaving behind their half-eaten food on the counter.

The tsunami advisory was for Yamagata, Niigata and Ishikawa prefectures. Japan Meteorological Agency said the first small wave of tsunami reached Awashima Island in Niigata Prefecture at 11:05 p.m. The wave reached Sakata in Yamagata Prefecture a short time later before the tsunami advisory was lifted.

Earthquakes are not uncommon in Japan, and the coastal region in Niigata has been shaken by major quakes in the past. A magnitude 6.6 quake in 2007 killed 11 people and injured 1,000.

In 2011, Japan was rocked by the magnitude 9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake. It triggered a massive tsunami that flooded more than 200 square miles of coastal land. More than 15,000 died in the disaster, and two nuclear power plants were severely damaged and have not been in operation since.

Contributing: The Associated Press

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/06/18/tsunami-warning-earthquake-rocks-japan/1485687001/

The post Earthquake rocks Japan, triggering fears of tsunami first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

KURASHIKI, Japan – Intense heat and water shortages raised fears of disease outbreaks in flood-hit western Japan on Thursday as the death toll from the worst weather disaster in 36 years neared 200.

More than 200,000 households had no water a week after torrential rains caused floods and set off landslides across western Japan, bringing death and destruction to decades-old communities built on mountain slopes and flood plains.

The death toll rose to 195, with several dozen people still missing, the government said on Thursday.

With daily temperatures above 30 Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) and high humidity, life in school gymnasiums and other evacuation centres, where families spread out on mats on the floors, began to take a toll.

Television footage showed one elderly woman trying to sleep by kneeling with her upper body on the seat of a folding chair, arms over her eyes to keep out the light.

With few portable fans in the evacuation centres, many survivors tried to cool themselves with paper fans.

The limited water supply meant that people are not getting enough fluids and in danger of suffering from heatstroke, authorities said. People are also reluctant to use what water they do have to wash their hands, raising fears of epidemics.

“Without water, we can’t really clean anything up. We can’t wash anything,” one man told NHK television.

The government has sent water trucks to the disaster area, but supplies remain limited.

More than 70,000 military, police and firefighters toiled through the debris in a grim search for the missing.

Some teams shovelled dirt into sacks and piled the bags into trucks. Others used diggers and chainsaws to work through landslides and splintered buildings.

Many areas were buried deep in mud that smelled like sewage and had hardened in the heat, making the search more difficult.

Disasters set off by torrential rains have become more frequent in Japan, perhaps due to global warming, experts say. Dozens of people died after similar rains caused flooding around the same time last year.

“It’s an undeniable fact that this sort of disaster due to torrential, unprecedented rain is becoming more frequent in recent years,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a news conference in Tokyo.

“Preserving the lives and peaceful existence of our citizens is the government’s biggest duty. We recognise that there’s a need to look into steps we can take to reduce the damage from disasters like this even a little bit,” he added.

Source: http://ewn.co.za/2018/07/12/japan-flood-toll-nears-200-sun-scorches-thousands-battling-thirst

The post Japan flood tool nears 200, sun scorches thousands battling thirst first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The ballistic missile was launched at 6:57 a.m. Friday Seoul time (5:57 p.m. Thursday ET) from the Sunan area of Pyongyang. It flew in an eastern direction around 2,300 miles and passed over Japanese airspace, a South Korean military official said.

The launch comes weeks after North Korea in late August fired a missile that traveled over Japanese airspace.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said in a televised address that the single missile launched Friday flew over Hokkaido. There were no reports of any objects falling in Japanese territory or any other damage, Suga said.

“We as a nation simply cannot accept these repeated provocative acts [by] North Korea, and we have lodged our firm protest and while communicating the strong anger from the Japanese public. We expressed our condemnation using the strongest of terms,” Suga said. He said the missile landed around 1,242 miles east of Cape Erimo.

U.S. Pacific Command also confirmed the launch and said it believed the missile was an intermediate-range ballistic missile.

North Korea has conducted several ballistic missile tests this year in defiance of U.N. resolutions, including two intercontinental ballistic missile tests that experts said suggest that a missile could reach parts of the United States. North Korea earlier this month conducted its sixth nuclear test.

The United Nations said the Security Council would meet to discuss North Korea in a closed session on Friday afternoon.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement: “These continued provocations only deepen North Korea’s diplomatic and economic isolation.” He said U.N. resolutions, including recent sanctions, “represent the floor, not the ceiling, of the actions we should take.”

Tillerson also said that “China supplies North Korea with most of its oil. Russia is the largest employer of North Korean forced labor” and both nations “must indicate their intolerance for these reckless missile launches by taking direct actions of their own.”

The news of the new launch came after three military officials told NBC News that North Korea may have be preparing to test an intercontinental ballistic missile in the coming days, defying sanctions imposed by the United Nations this week.

In the previous 72 hours, U.S. intelligence had observed North Korea moving mobile missile launchers and preparing sites that have been used for previous launches, according to the officials, who requested anonymity.

The activity was a strong indication that North Korea’s ballistic missile program is proceeding on its internal schedule and that the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, is unfazed by the international condemnation of country’s Sept. 3 nuclear test.

Last week, the Trump administration proposed crippling sanctions on North Korea in response to Kim’s underground test of a nuclear device that North Korea claimed was a powerful hydrogen bomb.

However, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was forced to water down her proposals to win the support of Russia and China.

After the Security Council adopted the sanctions with a unanimous vote, Trump officials heralded them as the toughest international action approved by the United Nations to date, while expressing some doubt that they would persuade Kim to stop his pursuit of nuclear weapons and an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The resolution “does continue to send a consistent message to the regime of North Korea and, importantly, to those who continue to enable North Korea’s activities that the international community does have a common view on the seriousness of North Korea’s proliferation program,” said Tillerson, who was in London on Thursday meeting with French and British officials — conversations that included counteracting North Korea’s nuclear proliferation.

Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Mattis was in Omaha on Thursday visiting U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), and evaluating the nation’s nuclear posture.

“These are the most severe sanctions yet laid on North Korea,” Mattis said Tuesday. “We’ll see what choices the North Koreans make. “The United Nations Security Council spoke with one voice, again recognizing the global threat that DPRK, North Korea constitutes,” he said.

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/north-korea-possibly-preparing-intercontinental-ballistic-missile-test-n801401

The post North Korea Fires Ballistic Missile Over Japanese Airspace Again first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.