One Flew Over the Senkaku's Nest - Nationalist maps of Asia

China just tested Japan's nerves by patrolling its newly redefined "East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone"*. 

The "battleships" game between Japan and China around the Senkaku-Diaoyu islands has moved to a new level: the skies. Next step? Space, probably in an episode titled "The Empire Strikes Back".

Of course, China's air defense zone includes Ieodo, a (contested) Korean (submerged) territory we already mentioned, and Seoul is not very happy about that (see "China Claims Buffer Airspace from Korea, Japan" - The Chosun Ilbo 20131125).

Actually, across the region, the Facebook status of most islets - sometimes whole archipelagos - reads "it's complicated". And ultra-nationalists like Shinzo Abe love to fan the flames because they feed upon them. I won't replay all the previous moves of this sick and silly games, but here are a couple of them:

• "France claims the British Isles at the United Nations",
• "Shinzo Abe: an offensive Defense White Paper ahead of the elections... and Constitutional Revolution",
• "Dokdo, Senkaku, Ieodo, Kuril,... Hashima?",
• "Ieodo: I smell a fish"
• ...

And just to help you get it, here are simplified versions of a few nationalist maps of Asia:

Note that Shinzo Abe only claims part of the old Japanese Empire. Even hardcore fascists have soft spots, it seems.

Seoul Village 2013
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* see for instance "Chinese pilots patrol controversial air zone over the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands" (The Telegraph 2013112)