Japan Archives | Page 2 of 2 | Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative

The Japan Coast Guard: Resourcing and Responsibility

By Nao Arakawa and Will Colson | April 1, 2015 | Categories: Coast Guard, Japan

Japan is stepping up its law enforcement activities around the Senkaku Islands and is making that change public. Since 2012, Japan has had its Coast Guard assume a more active role in patrolling the Senkaku Islands, albeit without substantially increasing the overall budget. This comes in reponse to increased Chinese incursions into the territorial waters […]

Fixed Budget, Dynamic Defense in Japan

By Michael Green | March 18, 2015 | Categories: Defense Budgets, Japan

As AMTI readers know well, tensions between Japan and China over the Senkaku Islands have been running high since 2010. Despite a partial thaw when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met with President Xi Jinping last December, Beijing continues to put steady pressure on Tokyo’s control of the islands with regular maritime and aerial incursions and […]

Positive Signs for Crisis Management in the East China Sea

By Tetsuo Kotani | February 4, 2015 | Categories: China, Confidence Building Measures, Japan

Following the first meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping in November 2014, Tokyo and Beijing have resumed official talks to turn the East China Sea into a zone of “peace, cooperation, and friendship.” On January 12, representative from each country’s defense ministry, navy, and air force met in Tokyo […]

De-escalating Territorial Conflict between China and Japan

By Zhu Feng | February 4, 2015 | Categories: China, Confidence Building Measures, Japan

The first month of 2015 has witnessed a slow thawing of China-Japan relations. Following up their Beijing summit meeting in November of 2014, the two Asian giants resumed two maritime security talks in January of 2015 – one between their two defense departments, and the other working level diplomatic talks between the governments. So far […]

Managing Crisis in the East China Sea

By Tetsuo Kotani | December 23, 2014 | Categories: China, Japan, Year in Review

In November, Tokyo and Beijing agreed to disagree on their views on territory and history to resume talks on crisis communication mechanisms in the East China Sea. Tokyo and Beijing reached a common understanding of its structure and methods that a hotline should employ. There is an urgent need for such a mechanism due to […]

A 2015 Resolution for Risk Reduction

By Rory Medcalf | December 23, 2014 | Categories: China, Japan, United States, Year in Review

In tracking Asia’s maritime tensions in 2015, what I will be looking for above all is evidence that China is actually following through on its newfound commitments to risk-reduction and crisis-management. For much of the time since Chinese maritime assertiveness increased, from 2009 onwards, the guiding attitude seemed to be that Chinese forces were willing […]

The Coming Year in Maritime Asia

By Gary Roughead | December 23, 2014 | Categories: China, Indo-Pacific Region, Japan, Year in Review

Maritime Asia will be active and more pacific in the coming year. Maritime trade will continue apace with tens of millions of shipping containers and millions of barrels of petroleum products moving on Asian sea lanes. That feeding of the Asian and global economies will be taken for granted, but there are three categories to […]

A Treaty to End WWII For Russia and Japan?

By Mira Rapp-Hooper | December 3, 2014 | Categories: Japan, Kuril Islands, Russia

Russian media reports that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged at a Monday meeting to do “whatever it takes” to settle the Kuril Islands issue to conclude a peace treaty with Russia. Russia and Japan have disagreed on the status of four islands since the end of World War II. In the 1951 San Francisco […]

Reviewing the First Year of China’s ADIZ: A Japanese Perspective

By Tetsuo Kotani | November 25, 2014 | Categories: ADIZ, China, East China Sea, Japan

When China’s Defense Ministry made an announcement of an “East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone” on November 23, 2013, the fundamental question was about its legal nature. The announcement provided that all aircraft, “regardless of its destination,” shall comply with the procedures within the ADIZ and that the Chinese military will take “defensive emergency […]

Xi Meets Abe: Skillful Diplomacy but Tensions Remain

By Michael Green | November 11, 2014 | Categories: China, Japan

On November 10, 2014, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and President Xi Jinping of China held a bilateral meeting on the margins of APEC in Beijing. Though a summit meeting between these two Asian giants should be a matter of course given their economic interdependence and rising geopolitical tensions, the Chinese side had refused […]