The question is not whether China, now the target of a full-court press by America, would want to challenge Japan over the islands. The question is when, and how? This is what keeps Japanese (and American) policymakers awake at night.
I have doubts about Japan's strategy of racing China to the islands--which is faltering--rather than defending the islands in the first place.
Which could be done with unmanned systems, I've long held.
As an aside, it's almost cute how Russians think that they are immune to the type of Chinese determination to regain almost literal rocks jutting out of the water. Or maybe the Russians are just whistling through the graveyard so they don't have to think about what is lurking out there.
UPDATE: If this doesn't stiffen your backbone to fight Chinese domination I don't know what will:
In the Chinese government's vast network of re-education camps in Xinjiang province, the daily horror of internment was infused with monotony and boredom. Detainees were forced to endure countless hours of indoctrination and language classes, perched on small stools. In some facilities, they had to watch TV propaganda broadcasts praising President Xi Jinping for hours on end.
The slightest infraction, such as a whispered conversation, was met with swift and harsh punishment.
But among the many months spent locked up, some former detainees report that one day was different: The day when they were forced to pick one or several infractions from a list they were handed. In essence, the detainees had to retroactively choose the crimes for which they had been imprisoned, often for months, in most cases without being told why they had been detained in the first place.
After picking a crime from the list came a sham trial, in which the detainees had no legal representation and were convicted without evidence or due process of any kind.
Communists are evil people.
