More Senkaku Fallout

1)  China finds the excuse it needed to avoid signing a gas field treaty with Japan.

2)  What's your's is mine:  Beijing orders a Japanese coast guard ship to stop surveying — in Japan's own Exclusive Economic Zone.

3)  War & rumors of war:  Chinese dispatch quasi-military ship to the Senkaku islands.  At the same time a Hong Kong group will charter a Taiwanese fishing vessel to also make a trip to the Japanese-owned islands.  Convenient timing.

[That last story also mentions that Captain Ramboat's grandmother passed away in China during his incarceration for violating Japanese waters.  Which is sure to calm the passions of Chinese jingoists.]

4)  Taiwanese KMT legislator fans the flames: "“Without government support on both sides of the Strait, efforts by civilian associations of [Taiwan, China and Hong Kong] alone will not be enough and will be to no avail [for Taiwan to help seize the Senkaku Islands from Japan]."

Er, just what are the odds that that "civilian association" [Hong Kong's "Action Committee for Defending the Diaoyu Islands"] is actually a Chinese Communist Party front group?  Leading everybody down the garden path to war?

Chinese Ultranationalists Continue To Destabilize Region

Not content with Captain Ramboat's recent attempt to occupy Japanese territory, revanchists from Hong Kong plan a second expedition to the Senkaku Islands.  And in collusion with at least some elements of Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist government:

Taipei County Councilor King Chieh-shou (金介壽) said planning for the protest will be discussed this morning in Jhonghe City [emphasis added] at a forum on the territorial rights of the Diaoyutai Islands. Details regarding boat rental and activities of protest will be fleshed out at the meeting.


UPDATE:  Fascinating how newspaper accounts continue to maintain the fiction that Captain Ramboat "collided" with two Japanese vessels, after informing us that bow met stern.

(Oh no officer, I didn't assault that man.  His face just collided with my fist!)