Since the Japanese government’s purchase of three of the Senkaku islands in September, China has launched a concerted effort to alter the status quo in the East China Sea. First, in anticipation of the purchase, Beijing promulgated a new law to bolster what it believes are the legal underpinnings of its claims to the islands. More dangerously, it has carried out more frequent patrols in waters around the islands, regularly sending government ships into Japan’s claimed exclusive economic zone, and sometimes into Japanese-claimed territorial waters.
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