Japan-China: The Japanese government formally protested to the Chinese government on 25 October the presence of Chinese patrol boats near the Senkaku Islands. Japanese authorities detected two Chinese patrol boats late Sunday in Japan's "contiguous zone" but did not cross into Japanese territorial waters, Kyodo reported, citing Japan's coast guard.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku said in the protest message that seeing Chinese patrol boats made his government feel "uncomfortable. He also said that Japan will step up its monitoring activities around the Islands, according to Kyodo.
China's foreign ministry claimed that its boats' patrols are both legal and based on need.
Comment from our friends at KGS NightWatch: Mainstream international press did not report the Chinese patrol boat activity nor at least three more anti-Japanese protests and demonstrations over the weekend. The confrontation over the Senkakus continues.
South Korea-US: For the record. A Pentagon spokesman today rejected claims by South Korean media that a planned U.S.-South Korea naval exercise had been postponed due to Chinese protests, Reuters reported. The spokesman told reporters that authorities in Washington and in Seoul were unable to reach a scheduling agreement, adding the exercises were intended to send a message to North Korea and should not be China's concern.
Comment from our friends at KGS NightWatch: The comment by the spokesman misses the point that the North has moved closer to China during the succession period than at any time since the government of Deng Xiaoping in the early 1980s. The US is much less significant than it was a year ago in North Korea's strategic calculations. Since China agreed to assume overwatch responsibility for the Kim regime this year, the Allies have succeeded in sending no significant "messages" to North Korea.
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