Posted on 02/08/2014 5:43:28 PM PST by traumer
Washington – Secretary of State John Kerry vowed Friday that the United States would defend Japan against attack, even in conflicts involving islands claimed by China and Taiwan, as tensions continue to boil between the Asian powers.
Kerry, who said he would visit China next week, met in Washington with Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and reaffirmed the 1960 treaty that commits the United States to protect its ally.
“That includes with respect to the South China Sea,” he said, before correcting himself to say the East China Sea, where China and Japan have conflicting claims.
Fears of conflict rose in November when China imposed an air defense identification zone over much of the East China Sea. Beijing says it now requires notification from planes crossing the Senkaku Islands, long administered by Tokyo.
“The United States neither recognizes nor accepts China’s declared East China Sea ADIZ and the United States has no intention of changing how we conduct operations in the region,” Kerry said.
(Excerpt) Read more at japantimes.co.jp ...
Not if Bath House has anything to do with it.
Hardly, we are still far from what it was during the Cold War.
These ocean rocks, in dispute for centuries, are not worth the bones of a single American serviceman.
Kerry’s promise plus $1.99 will get you a breakfast burrito.
If I were Japan...I’d be sweating bullets.
Look at the help and assistance our Ambassador, Chris Stevens got in BENGHAZI. And that was sovereign US soil.
Japan should be nervous.
Uh....in case you are just waking up....we’re not that far at all.
I’m sure that gives Japan great comfort since it’s coming from the Obama admin.
I think we are far from it, the tension in the mid 1980s was palpable in Western Europe, many of us expected the Soviets to move between 1984 and 1986, and that would have been the end of the world as we know it.
True. If Abe keeps rewarding historical revisionist nuts with high political positions, the backlash should be on his head alone.
From the same US State Dept that let it’s own Ambassador to Libya be murdered, and then lied about it for domestic politics.
With our present CIC it's probably pink or lavender.
If I were Japan, I’d be arming up as soon as possible. If they’re lucky, the US MAY sell them armaments, oil, and coal.
I don’t know. Several years back a prominent Japanese physicist was asked how long it would take for them to start producing nuclear warheads, if they decided to.
The answer was something along the lines of “if we’re told on Monday, then the first one by Thursday. Or maybe Friday.
Now that might just be bluster, but any reasonable analysis says the Japanese can have warheads in a timespan messured in weeks, not months.
THAT would pretty much make every other country in the region flip out. No one wants Japan to have nukes. But the ChiComs are going to assume the Japanese are bluffing, when they’re really playing chicken. I actually think we can trust Obama and Kerry on this ..
There was really only two times when war between Russia and the US was ever close during the cold war. First at Cuba with the missiles and then when the computer error led to a launch warning. Sure it seemed like things were much closer but not really.
IMO we are far far closer to a world war then at any time since Ferdinand was shot.
Yup—the diplomatic kiss of death. Japan is on its own.
You should have been there in the mid 80s to tell us we had nothing to worry about as we faced an astounding Soviet military, one built on attack.
Americans knew that we could be destroyed as a nation at any moment, we aren’t living on the edge like we did when the world was divided into two armed camps, and Europe and the United States were to be the first to be destroyed.
He’s writing up the citations for his new medals as we speak..
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