The long-running, multi-party dispute over control of islets in the South China Sea (SCS) is worsening both in rhetoric and provocative activity. Meeting in late May at the Shangri-La Dialogue on regional security, US and Chinese defense officials sparred over responsibility for the increased tension, though they stopped short of issuing threats. In fact, all sides to the dispute say they want to avoid violence, prefer a diplomatic resolution, and support freedom of navigation. Both the US and China insist that the dispute notwithstanding, their relationship overall is positive and enduring. But China, citing its indisputable sovereignty over the SCS, is backing its claim in ways that alarm the US and several Asian governments: construction of an air strip on the Spratly Islands, a land reclamation project that has artificially expanded its claimed territory, and most recently emplacement of two mobile artillery vehicles.

Fifty years have passed since relations between Japan and South Korea were “normalized.” Yet they remain in fact far from “normal.” Seventy years since the Japanese colonial empire collapsed the issue of the wartime “comfort women” system continues to bedevil relations and defy solution. It remains probably the most hotly contested among outstanding issues between the two countries, issues that include forced labor and a multitude of atrocities committed during the colonial era extending to 1945.