China is Back, After 175 Years

For John, BLUF:  China is poking its Asian neighbors.

Manchester Guardian reporter Justin McCurry, in Tokyo, tells us, today, "China lays claim to Okinawa as territory dispute with Japan escalates".  It feels like "Crazy Season" in Northeast Asia.  There is North Korea, of course, but also a rising Japanese politician♠ saying that during Word War II "comfort girls" (mostly Korean women) were doing a necessary duty.  That reopened that contentious issue between Korea and Japan.  Further south, Taiwan and The Philippines are in a spat over a dead Taiwan fisherman and disputed islands.  Now Okinawa.

People's Liberation Army two-star general Luo Yuan…

…raised the territorial stakes again this week, saying the Ryukyus had started paying tribute to China in 1372, half a millennium before they were seized by Japan.

"Let's for now not discuss whether [the Ryukyus] belong to China, they were certainly China's tributary state," Luo said in an interview with China News Service.  "I am not saying all former tributary states belong to China, but we can say with certainty that the Ryukyus do not belong to Japan," he added, in comments translated by the South China Morning Post.

China is feeling its oats and trying to reverse the Century of Humiliation.  The question is, what are the limits to such reversal?

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Toru Hashimoto, the populist mayor of Osaka.