Chronologies
Japan - China
Chronology from Jan 2017 to May 2017
: Chinese and Japanese diplomats agree to use political and diplomatic means to deal with the danger of North Korea’s development of weapons of mass destruction.
: LDP Secretary General Nikai Toshihiro announces he will attend Silk Road meeting in China in May.
: China protests when 95 Japanese lawmakers and a Cabinet member visit the Yasukuni Shrine’s Spring Festival.
: Xinhua complains about revised Japanese textbook guidelines allowing “beneficial” or “appropriate” content from Mein Kampf.
: Japanese Defense Ministry says Chinese planes accounted for 73 percent of the record number of SDF scrambles against foreign aircraft approaching Japanese air space in 2016.
: Japanese police put two Chinese women on a wanted list after acts of vandalism were committed at several shrines and temples they visited.
: Premier Li Keqiang says that China prioritizes relations with Japan.
: Food products mislabeled as Japanese discovered in Chinese cities.
: Leading Japanese commentator expresses concern that President Trump will use the US-Japanese Mutual Security Treaty as leverage for trade concessions from China, thus weakening the alliance.
: Yomiuri urges Japanese government to address potential “gray zone crisis” as China seeks to take the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands.
: Prime Minister Abe refers to Taiwan as an important partner.
: Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) panel urges Japan to acquire pre-emptive strike capabilities and to give immediate consideration to introducing THAAD.
: SDF ships will begin to protect US military vessels for the first time in peacetime, to improve deterrence against North Korea’s missile development and China’s expansion of its maritime environment.
: US military analyst urges Japan to undertake construction and station personnel on the Senkaku Islands regardless of Chinese objections.
: Diet passes 2017 defense budget, up 1.4 percent, or less than 0.926 percent of GDP.
: China complains after a Japanese Cabinet member visits Taiwan.
: Global Times notes that Japan’s commissioning of a large helicopter-carrying destroyer would increase its navy’s strike capability.
: Japan government expresses concerns over financially troubled Japanese giant Toshiba selling its computer chip business to China’s Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd.
: CCTV castigates Japanese design firm Muji for selling items manufactured in Tokyo and banned since the 2011 nuclear meltdown, although the products were actually manufactured in Osaka and Fukui, both being even further from the meltdown than Tokyo.
: Japan’s Kyodo reports an internal Chinese military magazine has declared that it has established dominance in the South China Sea, and that it has normalized patrols around the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands since 2011.
: CCTV reports that food products from the area near the Fukushima nuclear meltdown are being sold in China, resulting in a removal of products from the shelves despite a refutation issued by the importer.
: Singapore’s Channel News Asia reports that France, in a clear message to China, sent an amphibious carrier to lead exercise drills with UK troop-carrying helicopters and Japanese and US personnel around Tinian Island in the western Pacific.
: Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop supports Japan’s right to sail through the South China Sea.
: China announces 7 percent defense budget increase to $152 billion, or 1.3 percent of GDP.
: Global Times describes closer relations between Vietnam and Japan as a strategic partnership built on empty rhetoric.
: Japanese Coast Guard announces it will install video transmission devices on all 12 of its large patrol vessels charged with monitoring the security situation around the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands, enabling the Office of the Prime Minister as well as high-ranking JCG officials to watch the videos in real time.
: Japanese Coast Guard announces that China conducted 63 seabed surveys inside Japan’s East China Sea EEZ over the five years from 2012 to 2016 without prior authorization.
: According to the Chinese Tourism Academy, Japan is the third most visited country for Chinese citizens, after Thailand and South Korea. Chinese buyers are also increasingly active in the Japanese housing market.
: Japanese national engaged in bilateral youth exchange programs is arrested in Beijing on spying charges.
: Xinhua reports that Prime Minister Abe underwent a grilling from opposition parties over his name being used to solicit funds for building a nationalist elementary school.
: China’s Foreign Ministry lodges solemn representations to its Japanese counterpart over National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS) 2017 report for sending the wrong messages to Taiwan “independence secessionist forces.”
: CCTV announces that a Japanese legislator suggested that the dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands be referred to an international arbitration tribunal as well as the issue of deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to Japan.
: People’s Daily announces that Chinese textbooks will henceforth state that the starting time for the War of Resistance to Japanese Aggression will be moved from 1937 to 1931 “to fully reflect the crimes committed by Japanese troops during the conflict.”
: China’s minister of education complains about Japan’s revised curriculum guidelines.
: China Daily cites Ruth Benedict’s Chrysanthemum and the Sword as finding the roots of Japanese duplicity as a results of fear of the unknown and of failure.
: China Global Television Network (CGTV) announces that three Chinese Coast Guard vessels sailed around the Diaoyu Islands.
: Global Times reports that Chinese and South Korean athletes changed hotel accommodations in response to the APA hotel group’s placing of a book denying that the Nanjing Massacre actually happened.
: China’s Ministry of Defense says that Japanese Self-Defense Forces participation in US freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea would cross a “red line.” Japanese Defense Minister Inada Tomomi reiterates that the SDF would not deploy to the South China Sea with the US Navy.
: Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology reports a 2.4-fold increase in cyberattacks in 2016 over 2015, the majority originating from China.
: Japan-China Friendship Association is officially established in Okinawa.
: China complains after US Secretary of Defense James Mattis confirms that the US-Japan Mutual Security Treaty covers the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands.
: China warns Japan against interfering in Taiwan affairs after hearing that the militaries of the two were conducting a simulated exercise.
: London’s Daily Mail reveals that the Japanese government was paying a British think tank to express concerns about China’s involvement in the UK’s Hinkley Point nuclear plant; Xinhua terms this a despicable anti-China scandal.
: China objects to the APA hotel group’s placing in guest rooms a book that denies that the Nanjing massacre ever happened.
: Japan’s Education Ministry announces a revised curriculum for elementary schools that says the Takeshima and Senkaku islands are an inherent part of Japan’s territory and adding to junior high school curricula that there is no territorial dispute with regard to the Senkaku Islands.
: Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries reveals that 67 unregistered Chinese boats fished near Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) off Hokkaido and the Sanriku region in 2016, up 50 percent over 2015, many of them using illegal methods.
: Two Japanese think tanks call for the government to further increase defense spending in response to US President Donald Trump’s call for Japan to cover more of the costs of keeping US troops there.
: First US F-35B joint strike fighters arrive at Iwakuni Marine Corps Air Station “in support of the defense of Japan and the regional security of the Pacific.”
: Sankei Shimbun, citing unspecified Japanese government sources, states that Chinese government ships entered the waters continuous to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands more than 1,000 times since the Japanese government bought three of the five from private Japanese owners in 2012.