A US military expert has written that if Chinese and Japanese
forces met in battle over the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), the
outcome would be difficult to predict. “Such a fight appeared
farfetched before 2010, when Japan’s Coast Guard apprehended
Chinese fishermen who rammed one of its vessels off the disputed
islands, but it appears more likely now,” James Holmes, an
associate professor of strategy at the US Naval War College,
wrote in Foreign Policy magazine this week. Holmes said that
China’s leaders are “clearly thinking about the unthinkable.”
However, Japan would not be a pushover, he wrote. He said the
Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) has accumulated
several pockets of material excellence, such as undersea
warfare, and their sailors were renowned for their
professionalism. “If commanders manage their human, material and
geographic advantages artfully, Tokyo could make a maritime war
with China a close-run thing — and perhaps even prevail,” Holmes
wrote. He said a straightforward China-on-Japan wa