The story from earlier: Japan seizes Chinese fishing vessel in EEZ, arrests captain amid rising tensions
The legality of the situation might not matter all too much. That especially since China and Japan are already in quite the state of conflict since Japan prime minister Takaichi took over. Her remarks on Japan potentially needing to intervene militarily on the Taiwan situation did not go down well with Beijing and that has since caused relations to sour dramatically in recent months.
Considering the backdrop, the latest development above surely won’t sit well with China. That no matter if Japan was acting within its own rights to take such action. In a time when the relationship between the two is rather sensitive, anything that can be spun into a controversial take will be used as some reasoning to strike back.
Since the start of the year, China has already moved to curb rare earth exports and also banning exports of goods with potential military uses to Japan. And as a reminder, China has also urged citizens not to travel to Japan to try and inflict economic pain on Japan amid lower tourism income.
With tensions remaining high in the East China Sea, expect Beijing to respond once again here. This looks to be the “new normal” in terms of China-Japan relations, even if it has only really escalated to this stage for a few months.
However, it is best to stay in the know with the headlines just in case it really bubbles up into something major – more so than it already is now.
