- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 360
A map was posted to give an idea just far from the Japanese mainland this island is, and how close it is Taiwan. Please also note another thread about Japanese rearmament.
Japan to arm remote western island, risking more China tension
Nobuhiro Kubo
Reuters
47 minutes ago
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan is sending 100 soldiers and radar to its westernmost outpost, a tropical island off Taiwan, in a deployment that risks angering China with ties between Asia's biggest economies already hurt by a dispute over nearby islands they both claim.
Japanese Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera will break ground on Saturday for a military lookout station on Yonaguni, which is home to 1,500 people and just 150 km (93 miles) from the disputed Japanese-held islands claimed by China.
The 30 sq km (11 sq mile) backwater - known for strong rice liquor, cattle, sugar cane and scuba diving - may seem an unlikely place for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to put boots on the ground.
Building the radar base on the island, which is much closer to China than to Japan's main islands, could extend Japanese monitoring to the Chinese mainland and track Chinese ships and aircraft circling the disputed crags, called the Senkaku by Japan and the Diaoyu by China.
(...EDITED)
Yahoo / Reuters
