China has launched four days of live-fire naval exercises in the East China Sea that coincide with the anniversary of Japan’s defeat in WWII. The exercises come after Japanese Cabinet ministers visited Tokyo’s most controversial war shrine.
China and South Korea, which both suffered under Japan’s
militarist expansion in the 1930s and 40s, have expressed concern
at Japanese Cabinet ministers’ visit to the Tokyo Yasukuni Shrine
as glorification of the country's militaristic past and
aggression. Established in 1869 and funded by the Imperial
Japanese government until 1945, the shrine has been dedicated to
the nation's 2.5 million war dead, including – controversially –
1,000 convicted war criminals.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry summoned Japan's envoy and issued a
statement condemning the visits by nearly 100 Japanese lawmakers,
saying they "fundamentally attempt to deny and gloss over
Japan's history of invasion."
According to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post, the
East China Sea drills will be conducted off the coast of Zhejiang
province by the East Sea Fleet, which oversees the waters around
the disputed Diaoyu Islands.
Earlier this month, on August 8, four Chinese coast guard vessels
stayed a record 28 hours in waters near islands claimed by Japan
and China. Japan summoned the Chinese envoy in Tokyo to lodge a
formal protest. The latest intrusion into Japanese territorial
waters near the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea by Chinese
ships was twice as long as the last one, on February 4. Chinese
ships have been entering the disputed area regularly since last
September, when the Japanese government bought the islands.
China and Japan have long struggled for the ownership of
supposedly oil-rich islands located in the East China Sea. The
islands are known as the Diaoyu to the Chinese, and Senkaku to
the Japanese. The dispute over the islands and the maritime
boundaries around them has continued for years. The Senkaku
Islands have been controlled by Japan since 1895, but China
insists that it has historic rights to them dating back to the
16th century.
The standoff escalated after Tokyo announced the purchase of
three of the islands from a private Japanese owner in September
of last year. After that, China witnessed mass anti-Japanese
demonstrations. A diplomatic scandal led to problems in bilateral
economic relations, with Japanese businesses withdrawing
investment. Several Japanese companies in China suspended their
work for security reasons, and Chinese Customs’ clearance of
goods slowed from Japan.
The tiny archipelago of islands, which is halfway between both
countries, are currently uninhabited, but the ground below could
house significant mineral resources.
"It is expected that there will be more drills in the East
China Sea to build up the combat capabilities of the Chinese
Army," Ni Lexiong , director of the Sea Power and Defense
Policy Research Institute at the Shanghai University of Political
Science and Law, told the South China Morning Post. "It is
also possible that China's aircraft carrier will participate in
some of these drills."
China News Service reported that Liaoning, the country's first
aircraft carrier, which it refitted after buying a Soviet-era
vessel from Ukraine, has also been dispatched from its home port
of Qingdao, in Shandong province, for training of ship-borne
aircraft in the East China Sea. The ship is reportedly sailing to
the northern Bohai Sea, off Liaoning province, where a separate
round of military exercises was launched on Thursday.