China Makes Its Latest Power Play in the East China Sea

Arthur Herman, NRO
For five successive days Chinese fishing boats backed by Coast Guard vessels have all but surrounded the Senkakus, complicating Japanese access to its own islands; while the other day Japanese surveillance discovered an ocean-radar facility planted on one of China's nearby offshore natural-gas platforms. (Like the South China Sea, the East China Sea has extensive oil and natural-gas reserves.) That's a clear first step by China toward militarizing the Senkakus the way it's been asserting itself in the Spratlys.