China's Assistant Foreign Minister, Hu Zhengyue--who seems hold the bash-Japan brief--expressed umbrage that some Japanese officials somewhere had made inappropriate statements to the media concerning the Diaoyutai/Senkaku dispute, Apparently there will be no fence-mending meeting between Wen Jiabao and Naoto Kan at the ASEAN get-together in Hanoi What China is probably really angry about is... Read More

Update: I am willing to grant that China disrupted rare earth shipments to Japan over the Diaoyutai/Senkaku incident. That's a distinction I should have made in the Asia Times article, and I regret not doing so. Given the quota system/smuggling structure of China's rare earth trade, it would be easy to slow or stop exports... Read More

 A lot of matches are flying around the Chinese tinderbox.   Fortunately, most parties involved seem more interested in scoring political points than making a genuine and risky effort to push back China. However, as the example of Sarajevo tells us, sometimes wars happen when nations become prisoners of their own posturing.   So it's worthwhile to... Read More