A Small Dose of Sanity

Japan is willing to offer Taiwan fishing rights around the Senkaku Islands to keep Taiwan from agitating over the issue of ownership in a manner that favors China, which is aggressively claiming the islands:

Japan is ready to open a contested tract of the East China Sea to fishing boats from Taiwan, officials in Taipei say, a rare concession in a bitter territorial dispute that involves heavyweight China and has the United States on guard.

Good. It is absolutely nuts for Taiwan to allow the island issue to alienate Japan. Taiwan needs Japan if Taiwan wants to keep China at bay. Even if Japan doesn't fight (and Japan is edging that way), America needs to use bases in Japan to help Taiwan. Stoking hostility between Japan and Taiwan over the islands only benefits China.