Nationalism and political tensions rising in north-east Asia
Japan and South Korea, allies of the United States since World
War II, are supposed to be part of an Asia-Pacific counter-
balance to China's growing power and its expansive maritime and
island claims in east Asia's seas. Instead, an upwelling of
nationalism as the region marked the anniversary last week of
the end a war that devastated the region showed how fragile
reconciliation is, even among nominal friends, decades after the
fighting ended with Japan's surrender to US and Allied forces.
Today, it seems that ultra-nationalism among the leading local
contestants in north-east Asia - China, Japan and South Korea -
is gaining strength, raising the risk of armed conflict. The
rhetoric was certainly strident as China demanded that Japan
immediately and unconditionally release 14 activists who had
sailed from Hong Kong and landed on the disputed Senkaku Islands
in the East China Sea. Japan had no sooner deported the 14, when
a group of Japanese nation