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Containing China. Another setback for the Peoples’ Co-Prosperity Sphere:

China issued a stiff protest Sunday over an updated U.S.-Japanese strategic agreement, saying its reference to Taiwan violates China’s national sovereignty and its criticism of China’s military buildup is “untenable.”

The strategic importance of Japan is fairly obvious from this map.

Note the extension of the Ryukyu Islands all the way to Taiwan, something most maps of Japan simply truncate. In actual fact, Japan fences off half of China from the Pacific, and its waters would be strategically vital in a naval war over Taiwan.

One wonders why the Bush Administration would allow the explicit mention of an issue as sensitive as Taiwan. The most likely explanation I can envision is that it’s tied to North Korea’s increasing belligerence, and China’s lackadaisical failure to control it. This is a shot across China’s bow, and it was almost certainly carefully coordinated between Japan and the United States.