China's 100-day push near Senkaku Islands comes at unsettling time for Sino-Japanese ties | This is a very good albeit rather long article. It has comments from lots of your high profile experts and it’s absolutely worth keeping in your Senkaku folder. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/07/27/national/china-japan-senkaku-islands/

It also has a useful timeline of events. @jljzen is an excellent reporter and the piece is a reflection of that. But since this a topic I might have a thing or two to say - and ahead of some more specific writing im doing on it (stay tuned) - let me offer a couple of thoughts.

1. Slight correction: having looked at the question from economic, strategic, and political angles, let me go out on a limb and say it quite clear: the issue is almost exclusively political and about sovereignty and what it means to govs in Beijing and Tokyo;

The economic and strategic value is highly questionable - with the latter really depending on rather specific scenarios, not true in general. I explored this here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03068374.2013.876809 and Todd Hall has more recently made similar observations here: https://tnsr.org/2019/09/more-significance-than-value-explaining-developments-in-the-sino-japanese-contest-over-the-senkaku-diaoyu-islands/

Also, link between SCS and ECS is rightly highlighted - but again the question is not so much on Sea-lanes (that is a wartime problem, which very different from the average day issues). Rather, the issue is that most policy choices on capabilities and organisation...

Taken by the PRC since the late 2007/08 are not just an ECS matter. In fact, key moments and incidents in SCS related choices came back to bite the ECS status quo in the neck. The real link is in how operationally and tactically the two theatres are related;

Now. The key point in the article - which admittedly could go rather Un prices given the multiple points made in it - is the one about administrative control. This is key to the Japanese narrative and position. This is exactly what current Chinese activities are eroding.

In this respect, by the end of this fishing season we will know if that’s what PRC is after. If confirmed, it won’t take 10 or 20 years for the Chinese to claim control. Maybe people haven’t been paying attention but starting from 2012, the numbers and practices are piling up.

And operational conduct is now matching long-standing political and legal rhetoric. I’d expect the PRC to declare control - or indeed use the shadow of such a declaration as the new tool to keep the bilateral ties hostage - over the next couple of years, if levels of activity...

Remain consistent with 2019-20 pattern.

Now, remember when I said that sovereignty aspect is the one to pay attention to for the meaning it has to political masters? Well, that means that I cannot see the issue going away nicely anytime soon; rather becoming more problematic...

So what to do next? Well, one could correct Kissinger’s mistake of not recognising Japanese sovereignty when Okinawa was returned to Tokyo. Second, the JPN go might find more advantageous to change its position by recognising a dispute, and think about new legal framework to use.

Sorry for the two long threads. Over and out for now. Thank you everyone for the patience :)