Reports are emerging that in the process of enhancing its short- and medium-range ballistic missile forces, China is also developing the world's first anti-ship ballistic missile, similar to the DF-21, a ballistic missile with a range of 1800 kilometers. (Whether the new version will have a similar range remains to be seen — it may …
Continue reading What will be the impact of the Chinese ASBM on the US-Japan alliance?
I have held off from commenting on the murder of Takahashi Masaaki, a taxi driver in Yokosuka by Olatunbosun Ugbogu, a deserter from the US Navy because the details were murky.But now that Ugbogu is in Japanese custody and US Navy and State Department officials have made their initial apologies, including a visit by Rear …
In the span of a weekend, two events have cast doubts on the durability of US deployments in Japan.The first, obviously, is the alleged rape of a middle-school student by a thirty-eight-year-old Marine committed in Okinawa. The incident has prompted protests to the US consul-general and Marine commander in Okinawa, and promises on the part …
The Danger Room's Noah Shactman points to a report by the Federation of American Scientists that notes that China's submarine fleet — a favorite bugbear of China hawks (see this report, for example) — was little more active in 2007 than it was in previous years.Without dismissing China's military modernization, reports like this are important …
Despite the extension of the Diet session, Ozawa Ichiro, DPJ president, will still be going to China with nearly fifty DPJ members of the Diet from 6 to 8 December. Mr. Ozawa will meet with Hu Jintao and mark the thirty-fifth anniversary of the normalization of Sino-Japanese relations.Mr. Ozawa's visit comes just as turbulence in …
Following the ASAT test conducted in January of this year, the behavior of the PLA is once again providing China hawks in the US with reason to bang the war drums (or perhaps just the containment cymbals, not that those are any less distressing). The latest incident, of course, involves China's last-minute rejection of a …
Tobias S. Harris 