Japan to send 100 SDF troops, radar to remote western island

That'll be a fun posting. Bring lots of manga...

100 troops, 1500 ji-chans and ba-chans. Yeah.... that's gonna go well together.

What a great idea. Send the military as close as possible to China. Go Japan!

I think sending armed forces to the closest (borders) of each countries is a common practice....

It is high time they do this. Ideally, they should put a military presence on the Senkakus themselves; soon the Chinese government will do that for them.

Another waste of tax money. And lost sales.

Yup, that hundred soldiers should be enough to hold 'em off for a while...They won't get their hands on that rice liquor, cattle or sugarcane if Abe can help it.

100 only? that too against China? God Bless All !

Erm ... I know many of you guys have not moved on sicne WWII ... but it's not 1930 any more.

Do you understand what "radar", tethered to satellites and mainland command centers, actually means? I cannot see China managing a sneak attack ... not even with its militia of "fishing" vessels.

Cant see China managing a sneak attack with or without troops on that island. You can't seriously believe that radar on the island is going to significantly enhance existing capabilities already in place? Its not the 1930's anymore you don't need radar at remote locations. Political posturing that says: Go Japan!

That'll be a fun posting. Bring lots of manga...

Good diving there apparently. And hanazake. What could possibly go wrong? :-)

Highest peak appears to be Inbidake at 758 metres. The Senkakus are roughly 80 nautical miles away (about 150 km)...

Also comes with 2,000m asphalt/concrete airstrip. C-130 capable? Anything else?

Hmm, could this be construed as a self-defense move or a provocative move? Personally, I think Japanese military is hoping China does attack them so they can go to war. They don't seem to be too interested in a diplomatic solution. Of they were, they would not be provoking China by setting up a Jorge military presence so close to China, would they?

I'll go there if just to put up a USA / Irish Flag...oh, and to go DIVING of course. You can KEEP the Aoimori.

boweevilApr. 18, 2014 - 05:22PM JST

Its not the 1930's anymore you don't need radar at remote locations.

Why not?

DisillusionedApr. 18, 2014 - 05:52PM JST

What is your definition of provocation? Visiting a shrine at the mille of Tokyo or deploying 100 soldiers at an island 150 km away from Senkakus is hardly a provocation.

Whereas, sending armed ships to Senkakus or flying war planes over Senkakus is clear provocation.

"The 30-square-kilometer backwater... "

That's a bit of cheek and rather rude! Yonaguni is a dive destination. Cool formations on the seabed.

One little missile and its all gone.The island and Japan.

China's major concern is the disputed islands.

Since it is deployed on Japan's territories, China would just express regret as usual while probably increase patrol near the islands or such in response.

CHC30

They have these things called satellites...which are up in space...and they can be calibrated to track any kind of military movement...

boweevilApr. 18, 2014 - 06:25PM JST

They have these things called satellites

When it rains or when it clouds, China may come.

Japan is correct in placing troops on this island. This way they will have an early warning system in place incase Communist China decides to try and invade Japan's territory.

boweevilApr. 18, 2014 - 06:25PM JST CHC30 They have these things called satellites...which are up in space...and they can be calibrated to track any kind of military movement...

Satellites can do a whole lot of things, but nothing beats real live intelligence. The US has some of the best spy satellites, but this has not stopped them from building radar stations throughout the world.

WA4TKGApr. 18, 2014 - 05:56PM JST I'll go there if just to put up a USA / Irish Flag

In a practical sense the U.S. flag will already be put up there.

http://www.stripes.com/news/top-marine-in-japan-if-tasked-we-could-retake-the-senkakus-from-china-1.277555

If China thought it was gaining an advantage by conducting naval exercises all along the indian ocean and south east.

Guess what?

It shows that Japan is the better chess player, cause now it will more or less have a front seat view from satellites and radar into absolutely every military and fishing activity in the area including the ability of looking deep into mainland china anytime it wants.

Well done china for showing your hand against the philippines, Japan learnt from this and has tsken a powerful advantage with ghis wholly legal manuevre.

What a dangerous game! What exactly are we defending against? It doesn't sound very defensive, since we haven't been attacked. Sadly, I'm sure China will react to this poor action, with a poor reaction of their own.

Stuart haywardApr. 18, 2014 - 07:50PM JST

What a dangerous game! What exactly are we defending against?

Good question. We are defending "Rule of Law". China should know they cannot grab islands by sending armed boats to them. If they have any complaint, bring it to ICJ.

It doesn't sound very defensive, since we haven't been attacked.

Yonaguni island where the 100 soldiers are to be deployed is 150 km away from Senkakus. The move is nothing but defensive.

CH3CHO: please explain how China is grabbing these islands? BOTH sides send armed ships to this area but no one has attacked one another. Typically, defensive forces are used to defend, So far it appears that Japan is the only one threatening a Military action over this area. Though both sides are equally guilty of poor actions and reactions (fanning the flames!)

"Japan’s far-flung frontier"

Perhaps if Japan's frontier wasn't so far-flung, it might avoid some of these problems?

China cannot take the senkaku case to the ICJ. People should stop writing that China can do this. China CANNOT take the senkaku case to the ICJ because to take a case to the ICJ both parties have to be signatories to the relevant conventions and must both agree to take the case there. China has not signed up and Japan refuses to admit there is a dispute. Whatever else people think and write, please stop writing this crud about China going to the ICJ because it is not a possibility in this dispute. In a similar way, Japan cannot take the Takeshima case to the ICJ. It is simply not possible.

Whatever the Japanese goverment does regarding these disputes, it is going to be critized....If they send these troops to watch the islands,, the are "provoking" and if they don't do nothing, then they would be serving them in a silver platter...

I think every county has the right to protect its land and stands its ground.

I m Canadian and our government recently had to movilize military presence to our far north, middle of nowhere, to assert our border at the Arctic, as Russia and other Nordic countries are getting too close, eyeing the opening of the arctic passages...A submarine from Russia even had the guts to come to land and plant their flag...

And still, many Canadians protests sending troops and resources over there..but the message from the government is clear...Our arctic coastlines are not a "no man land" they are Canadian and we have to be physically "there" to stand our ground.

I think is only normal for Japan to also assert their presence in their own land.

Stuart haywardApr. 18, 2014 - 08:13PM JST

CH3CHO: please explain how China is grabbing these islands? BOTH sides send armed ships to this area but no one has attacked one another.

At the end of WW2 in 1945, the US occupied the Senkakus. The Senkakus were returned to Japan in 1972 with the rest of Okinawa islands. Since then, Japan has un-interrupted possession of the Senkakus. No Chinese official has ever landed on the Senkakus at least since the end of WW2, whereas Japanese officials have free access to them.

Under these circumstances, China is violating international law by sending its armed ships to the territorial water of the Senkakus.

sooner41 may be right. These simple facts are not known by foreigners.

It's amazing how people continue to misconstrue this, or perhaps it is just deliberately misconstrue it.

Here it is again ...

Japan does not "refuse to admit there is a dispute". Japan knows perfectly well China is on an envious land grab ever since the hydro-carbon resources were discovered under in the waters around the islands.

The word dispute is being used legalistically.

Japan has sovereignty of the island. It gained sovereignty peacefully and legally. It held on to sovereignty (an important legal concept) peacefully and legally. From the point of view of international law, there is nothing for Japan to dispute.

Japan cannot dispute its own ownership. It does own them. Legally, only another party can then do the legal disputing, arguing how it has sovereignty and presenting its evidence to the court. China cannot because it has somewhere between very little and no case ... except in the minds of medieval Middle Earth fantasists and document forgers (e.g. a forged letter, in bad form, with no colluding evidence from a dowager to a herbalist which is about all the CPC has to offer).

There is no blame on the Japanese side on this one. If China has a problem, it's its responsibility to go to the ICJ and only it can.

The problem is China, or rather the CPC's, refusal to accepting international law and the authority of the ICJ. Especially in a case where it is likely to lose.

Again, you deliberately falsify and invert your second statement regarding Takeshima.

Japan can and has tried to go the route of the law ... the problem there is South Korea refuses. Both parties agree and South Korea won't.

Again, there is no blame on the Japanese side. The South Koreans illegal occupied it by force and have since refused.

There you make two statement and they are both diametrically opposite to the facts of the matter and legal principle makes your intentions suspect, (assuming that you're not just simply uninformed).

As a footnote, I suspect old fashioned radar is not the only listening technology being deployed there.

hamptonApr. 18, 2014 - 08:48PM JST

China CANNOT take the senkaku case to the ICJ because to take a case to the ICJ both parties have to be signatories to the relevant conventions and must both agree to take the case there. China has not signed up

Just sign up. Japan has already signed up.

By signing up, China can show to the world that it respects the international laws. China should accept the Rule of Law, and all the small nations in the world can feel peace. However, China despises the Rule of Law and believes in Rule of Power. For the rest of the world, it is like looking an untrained tiger growing bigger and bigger. Tragedy is inevitable and who knows what will happen to the untrained tiger. To avoid a tragedy, China should show its respect to the Rule of Law.

Talk about paranoia...Seriously...the Chinese are going to come when it rains? You know, there is such a thing as a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more nervous you are about an event the more your actions are likely to lead to it happening. Both sides would do well to remember that... Neither side has the moral high ground in what is tantamount to tit for tat geopolitics.

hamptonApr. 18, 2014 - 08:48PM JST China cannot take the senkaku case to the ICJ. People should stop writing that China can do this. China CANNOT >take the senkaku case to the ICJ because to take a case to the ICJ both parties have to be signatories to the relevant >conventions and must both agree to take the case there. China has not signed up and Japan refuses to admit there is >a dispute

Sorry but that's pure nonsense. China can take Japan to the ICJ and in fact can attempt to settle all of it's "territorial disputes" with several Asian countries by simply becoming a signatory to the same agreement that Japan has signed. Funny how China which throws it's weight around as a member of the Perm UNSC refuses to accept the jurisdiction of the ICJ the legal arm of the UN. China refuses to sign on because to do so means that all the nations which are currently being bullied by China and it's aspirations to take over the entire East and South China Seas will also be able to take China to the ICJ. That Japan officially claims that there is "no dispute" as regards the Senkakus is completely irrelevant to bringing a case to the ICJ if both nations are parties to ICJ jurisdiction. The fact is that Japan is, and China isn't.

Talk about paranoia...Seriously...the Chinese are going to come when it rains?

It's one of the first thing taught at military academy, utilize the weather to hide your tracks.

As for surveillance satellites, they need to be parked in a low orbit which flies around the world at around 2 hours per orbit therefore you can only see a certain region for few minutes. On top a low orbit satellite's orbit decays in around five years so you need to launch one every five years or so. As for stationary orbiting satellites usually used for weather satellites they fly at around 30,000Km in which you can't really distinguish anything at that height.

Vegetius, Machiavelli and Sun Tsu basically taugh the same thing, "Si vis pacem, para bellum (If you want peace, prepare for war)"

@ boweevil

Sorry friend, in this case - and as in most of China's territorial dispute with other nations - Japan has the clear legal advantage and is doing absolutely nothing wrong.

China is being ridiculous, and behaving intolerably ... and as we type, the CPC is destroying 10,000 of maps in China, printed with their own permission in the 1950s and later, all of which recognised the Senkaku as Japanese. As do diplomatic letters, old Chinese newspapers etc etc etc.

It might be able to indoctrinate its own people out of fear, confusion and groupthink. It won't work on the rest of the world.

Never claimed Japan was doing anything illegal. I question the wisdom and efficacy of such a move. 100 troops and radar etc. what will that acheive.but ratchet up the tension with China? I have no dog in this fight. I don't champion the political attitudes of either country...both are negligent and incapable of honest introspection and possibly on course heading to calamity, precipitated by twitchy trigger fingers and self-fulfilling prophecies.

@Samurai Blue-

Peacemakers is a term used for nuclear missiles, an irony that follows the same pre-emptive call to war that you seem to espouse, and the only Latin that springs to mind for large swathes of humanity that have historically succumbed to the excesses of those who would spout it is 'Im Pace Resquiat...

"One little missile and its all gone.The island and Japan" as well as the nation that sent it.

Just wait in a few hours or days at the most there will be an angry Chinese reaction...and then a Japanese rebuttal.... and it wont get any better.

Like the old saying about Al-Qaeda iin Iraq. If the Chinese werent thinking about that island before. They'll be thinking about it now.

I was a little uncertain about the move, but then I read this part:

Japanese fighter jets scrambled against Chinese planes a record 415 times in the year through to March, up 36% from the previous year

415 times in a year? No wonder Japan's eager to defend it's territory against China. And seriously, how can anyone say that China isn't being the aggressor here? Japan has had to scramble jets against China 415 times in a year. More than once a day (on average). Not to mention the fact that the JMSDF often has to send ships to shadow Chinese vessels that show potential for threatening actions. So this is the right move. I just hope it doesn't have a negative impact on the island's economy.

For those who harp on about Japan "saying there is no dispute": Japan only says this because China refuses to become a signatory to ICJ and take the matter before them. If China did, then Japan would say there is a dispute, right up until ICJ rules in Japan's favour. But they don't, so there is no dispute.

@Fox Cloud Lelean

Sure, many Chinese military aircraft flying over international waters near the island chain, but legal. Remember, Japan does not own the international waters. If you didn't know, U.S. and all other countries including Japan do the same thing.

melonbarmonsterApr. 19, 2014 - 05:05AM JST Japan just need to disband it's military. As long as it doesn't fully own up to the racist, fascist era of its history any talk of military action or revision of pacifism clause of constitution is inappropriate and dangerous.

Yep, by far that is the funniest logic yet.

Maybe in some parallel Universe where Communist China is a good neighbor and not a thug your logic would be sound.

But, we live in this universe and in this universe Communist China sends it's surveillance ships, fishing fleets, Coast Guard and warships to try and take every nautical mile of the South China sea.

And if we used your very funny logic Communist China would own every single Island that is Japanese territory.

Japan, as any law bidding nation has the right to do whatever it wants on it's own territories and one of those rights is to place as many troops it wishes to place there.

When Article 9 is be no more I will pop a special bottle of champagne I have stored to celebrate occasion!

This is a very good move for Japan to counter China's A2/AD plans.

many Chinese military aircraft flying over international waters near the island chain, but legal

If it was as simple as you suggest, Japan wouldn't scramble jets, but it isn't. The Chinese aircraft in question are usually bombers, with fighter escorts to boot, often on a clear heading for Japanese airspace. That's an aggressive action, and so the JASDF scrambles to intercept. Japan is right to respond that way in those situations.

I've noticed that about half of my last comment is mysteriously missing. The part where I reiterate how the Senkakus are minor islands, which China themselves determined were part of Japan's sovereignty, up until the discovery of oil in the area. I know I typed it out because it took me ages doing so. It's a pretty important point since it invalidates China's claims on the islands, and it invalidates the counter arguments that some commenters make about Japan having the islands taken away as per the post war treaties, which in actuality is false. The Senkakus are minor islands, and China determined that they were Japan's.

CH3CHO: You only deflected my question with your response. Sending armed ships to this area is wrong but it does NOT equate to "grabbing" these islands (as you put it) It's sad to see Japan changing away from its peaceful stance or posture, to fear driven reaction. In just the last three weeks, we have decided to send military arms & equipment to our neighbors, Try to change the constitution (9th amendment) and now putting boots on the ground, though no one has attacked us. Do you really want to react with a military response to every perceived threat? Look how well that's working out for the U.S., non stop wars for how long now? Japan is a peaceful place, with great people and culture, I would hate to see that change for the worse.

Stuart hayward

Try to change the constitution (9th amendment) and now putting boots on the ground,

9th amendment??

Japan hadn't amended anything within our constitution yet, it's article 9. As for boots on the ground, they are Japanese soil and Japan can do anything with it. If it was the opposite and Japan even utter anything like that to PRC or ROK it would be like shaking a hornet's nest screaming "Don't meddle with internal affairs."

SamuralBlue: though I wasn't responding to you, I appreciate the article 9 correction. If you read my comment I didn't say that the constitution & article 9 have been changed yet, I said they are TRYING to change it. As for your other comment about Japan can do ANYTHING it wants, on its own soil, I agree. It's just my opinion that this and the other actions I mentioned, will NOT help for peace and will probably have the opposite affect. Lastly, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make about the PRC or ROK and how that is related to any of my comments to CH3CHO?

@Stuart hayward

"We ... us ...", ... who are you? I've never heard of a Japanese person with a name like Stuart Hayward. What's this use of collective terms, is it some kind of opinion forming strategy appealing to Japanese collectivism?

The "land grab" is China publicly claiming the Senkaku are legally Chinese. The aggression is the persistent intervention of military vessels, both marine and aviation, into Japanese airspace and waters and engaging in a vast and international diplomatic war.

Stuart haywardApr. 19, 2014 - 10:42AM JST

CH3CHO: You only deflected my question with your response. Sending armed ships to this area is wrong but it does NOT equate to "grabbing" these islands (as you put it)

It certainly does not. This is what I wrote.

CH3CHOApr. 18, 2014 - 08:00PM JST

China should know they cannot grab islands by sending armed boats to them. If they have any complaint, bring it to ICJ.

But, seriously, what is their intention of sending armed boats to the islands? It is nothing but use of threat to gain territory, which is prohibited by Article 2 of the UN charter. US or Soviet Union has not done that kind of things so explicitly since the introduction of the UN charter. I think China should be stripped of the standing membership of the security council.

They are valuable targets for Chinese missiles, aren't they?