Ishihara's dangerous dream

Politician wants to provoke a clash between China and the US so Japan can rise again as a political and military power

The seeds of the current crisis between China and Japan over the Diaoyu Islands originated with the national magistrate conference of Japan in April 2010 when the Japanese media tried hard to sensationalize the Chinese navy's normal activities.

Former Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara questioned then-Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama on whether the Japan-US Security Treaty was applicable to China's Diaoyu Islands (known as the Senkakus in Japan). After reiterating the agreement reached by the United States and Japan during the Liberal Democratic Party's regime that the security treaty applied to the islands, Hatoyama said Japan still needed to talk with China about the sovereignty of the islands.