Big steps by big players ...

In the past 48 hours, some rather large developments among the world's big players. Agreements large and small regarding nuclear power and climate change, along with a unilateral decision on ocean boundaries. Whether these developments pan out, represent progress or rather a kicking of the can down the road, or even constitute taking steps backward, remain to be seen.

Iran and the Big Six sign "historic" nuclear deal

An early CNN reports, "A historic deal was struck early Sunday between Iran and six world powers over Tehran's nuclear program that freezes the country's nuclear development program in exchange for lifting some sanction while a more formal agreement is worked out. The agreement -- described as an "initial, six-month" deal -- includes "substantial limitations that will help prevent Iran from creating a nuclear weapon," U.S. President Barack Obama said in a nationally televised address.

The deal, which capped days of marathon talks, addresses Iran's ability to enrich uranium, what to do about its existing enriched uranium stockpiles, the number and potential of its centrifuges and Tehran's "ability to produce weapons-grade plutonium using the Arak reactor," according to a statement released by the White House. Iran also agreed to provide "increased transparency and intrusive monitoring of its nuclear program," it said.

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From the UK Daily Telegraph ...
John Kerry meets with EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Catherine Ashton and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at the Iran Nuclear talks in Geneva, Switzerland. Photo: JASON REED/AP

The world's media will cover this story repeatedly over the next few days. Let's hope it is meaningful.

UN climate change conference pulls out a fragile agreement

One day ago, the French AFP reports, ""Just in the nick of time, the negotiators in Warsaw delivered enough to keep the process moving," said climate analyst Jennifer Morgan of the World Resources Institute. But climate economist Nicholas Stern warned that "the actions that have been agreed are simply inadequate when compared with the scale and urgency of the risks that the world faces from rising levels of greenhouse gases, and the dangers of irreversible impacts."

Rich and poor nations have been at loggerheads ever since the talks opened on November 11 over who should do what to curb the march of planet warming. In particular, they clashed over sharing responsibility for curbing climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions, and about funding for vulnerable countries....

Emerging economies like China and India objected to any reference in the Warsaw text to "commitments" that would be equally binding to rich and poor states and failed to consider historical greenhouse gas emissions. Developing nations, their growth largely powered by fossil fuel combustion, blame the West's long emissions history for the peril facing the planet, and insist their wealthier counterparts carry a larger responsibility to fix the problem. The West, though, insists emerging economies must do their fair share, given that China is now the world's biggest emitter of CO2, with India in fourth place after the United States and Europe."

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From the UN news centre, "Ban Ki-moon addresses UN climate change conference in Warsaw, urging negotiators to rise to the challenge and pave the way to a binding climate deal by 2015. UN Photo/Evan Schneider"

China defines its new Pacific Ocean defense zone

From Pakistan's International News, we read, "The Chinese Defence Ministry on Saturday issued a map of an East China Sea Air Defence Identification Zone that includes a chain of disputed islands also claimed by Japan, triggering a protest from Tokyo. Beijing also issued a set of rules for the zone, saying all aircraft must notify Chinese authorities and are subject to emergency military measures if they do not identify themselves or obey orders from Beijing. It said it would “identify, monitor, control and react” to any air threats or unidentified flying objects coming from the sea. The rules went into effect on Saturday.

In Tokyo, Junichi Ihara, head of the Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, protested by phone to Chinas acting ambassador to Japan, Han Zhiqiang, saying the zone is “totally unacceptable,” according to a ministry statement. Ihara also criticised China for “one-sidedly” setting up the zone and escalating bilateral tensions over the islands. Both Beijing and Tokyo claim the islets, called Diaoyu in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese. Protests erupted throughout China last year to denounce the Japanese government’s purchase of the islands from private ownership."

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From the BBC, a graphic showing the new China defense line ...

Teatree notes that this zone in the East China Sea is not referring to Chinese claims in the South China Sea, where the Philippines and Vietnam and others are resisting Chinese claims. And to top off THAT area, it didn't help tensions when China initially offered less aid to The Philippines regarding the typhoon, than did the Swedish store business, Ikea.

Japan elects 7th Prime Minister in six years

Japan, intertwined with the geopolitics of its neighbors - China, and the two Koreas.

On Sunday, Japanese voters re-elected a former prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to the highest post by giving the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), a landslide victory. After three years in opposition, the LDP won 293 seats in the 480-seat lower house of parliament. As leader of the LDP, Abe, who was Prime Minister for one year in 2006-2007, will take up the reins again.

Mr. Shinzo Abe in ...

According to the Japan Today news agency, "The results were a sharp rebuke for Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s ruling Democratic Party of Japan, reflecting widespread unhappiness for its failure to keep campaign promises and get the stagnant economy going during its three years in power."

Mr Yoshihiko Noda out ...

As to possible consequences of the election, one likely change in agenda stems from the LDP being the most pro-nuclear power party in Japan. After the 2011 earthquake and tsunami which crippled a nuclear power station and spread radiation across a swath of the landscape, Japan's government was planning to move away from nuclear power. That direction may now be reviewed.

Also, incoming Prime Minister Abe "is talking tough toward China, and the LDP platform calls developing fisheries and setting up a permanent outpost in the Senkaku/Daioyu islands, a move that would infuriate Beijing."

The article goes on to note that the "LDP will stick with its long-time partner New Komeito, backed by a large Buddhist organization, to form a coalition government, party officials said. Together, they will control more than 320 seats, NHK projected - a two-thirds majority that would make it easier for the government to pass legislation ..."

Natsuo Yamaguchi, leader of the New Komeito party, may find his own visibility rising.

Abe himself was sober as he talked with the press on Monday. "Abe told a packed news conference ... that Japan is facing a series of crises - from the weak economy to security issues to reconstruction after the tsunami disaster. "Our mission is to overcome these crises," he said. He said his party's victory was less a vote of confidence from voters and more a repudiation of the "mistaken leadership" of the Democrats. "The public will be scrutinizing us."

Part of that public scrutinizing the new leadership will be the aging population - Japan's demographics are somewhat unique in that the component of its population 60 and over is as high as any nation on earth. From wikipedia, "Japan's elderly population, aged 65 or older, comprised 20% of the nation's population in June 2006,a percentage that is forecast to increase to 38% by 2055."

So, we'll watch Japan over the next several months. It has the 3rd largest economy in the world, behind the US and China, and a major player along the Pacific Rim.

By Japan's annual Cherry Blossom festival - in March 2013 - the world will see how Abe has formulated new directions for this nation.

More Pacific island tensions - this time between China and Japan

Lots of issues out there - the ongoing Yemen conflict, a new President elected in Somalia, Syria's continued bloodletting, the newest projection of when Iran might get a nuclear bomb, etc.

But a trend perhaps more newsworthy is the growing series of tensions over islands between Asian neighbors. Most, but not all have to do with China and its robust claims to a variety of island chains. The latest is a spat between Japan and China.

The Christian Science Monitor seems to be covering the story quite comprehensively, so much of the following comes from that news source.

The dispute, the article begins, between China and Japan is over the Senkaku Islands, five islets and three rocky outcroppings, and revolves around who got there first. China calls them the Diaoyu Islands and dates its authority there to the 14th century. Japan annexed them in 1895 after finding them uninhabited.

Japan's foreign ministry cites surveys in 1885 confirming they were "uninhabited" with "no trace of having been under the control of China." The government of Japan in January 1895 decided to incorporate the islands and to place a marker on one of them declaring them to be part of Japan. On the other hand, the Chinese claim that the islands appear on Ming Dynasty maps.

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The Senkaku islands - as Japan names them, or the Diaoyu islands according to the Chinese - are at the center of this latest tension.

We might first jump back to the aftermath of World War II when Japan was a defeated nation, and China was in the latter stages of a civil war between Mao's forces and those of the Nationalist government. US forces had driven the Japanese from the island prefecture of Okinawa in June 1945 in one of the last Pacific island battles of World War II. The islands, 220 miles southwest of Okinawa, had been governed by Okinawa under the Japanese.

As de facto holders of a variety of islands and territories after the end of the war, apparently neither the Communist government on the mainland nor the "Nationalist" Chinese government having retreating to the island province of Taiwan, objected when the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951 placed the islands under US administrative control.

The two Chinese governments - in Beijing and Taiwan - got interested in 1970 after a United Nations study showed there might be oil and gas in the seabed around the islands. The island cluster is 76 miles from Taiwan, 92 miles from the closest Japanese island, and 100 miles from the coast of China.

Oil and gas fields that are becoming increasingly viable for drilling may have something to do with the current escalation of tensions

Japan regained governing control in 1972 under the "reversion" of Okinawa to Japan. Since then, Japanese Coast Guard boats have been on regular patrol to prevent intrusion, mostly by Chinese fishing boats.

The original official "owner" was a Japanese man who set up a fish plant in the late 1800s, employing about 200 workers in the factory. The business survived for 50 years but finally failed in 1940 while Japanese forces were reigning supreme over much of China, the Korean Peninsula, and Southeast Asia more than a year before bombing Pearl Harbor. His family sold the islands to another Japanese family, and up to the present time, this new Kurihara family has been leasing the islands to the Japanese government.

Jumping forward to today, the islands are covered by jungle. There are no rivers, and fresh water from rainfall is at a premium. Certain wildlife exists, including rare species of moles and ants, however small goats, introduced more than 30 years ago, have multiplied and become a threat to vegetation.

Not much on these islands themselves

Apparently a proposal from Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara to buy the islands from the Kurihara family for the capital city's ownership was made - a gesture that not only upset the Chinese, but the Japanese government as well. And it is not just mainland China in this case who has its hackles raised. China and Taiwan are equally adamant about the Chinese claim to the islands. Nevertheless, the Japanese government on Tuesday, in order to clarify ownership - NOT to end disputed claims of sovereignty - signed a contract with the Kurihara family, the private owner of the islands.

While in this case, it appears Japan has brought forward an action that has upset an uneasy but quiet status quo, China has much of South Asia in a buzz over its own expansive claims of ownership further to the south. And China's anger over the Japanese purchase has resulted in Chinese patrol ships being sent to the islands waters - not exactly a cooling-of-tensions type of move.

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For further reading the Christian Science Monitor has an article titled, "Top 5 East Asia island disputes" at
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2011/0803/East-Asia-s-top-5-island-disputes/Takeshima-Dokdo-islands-claimed-by-Japan-and-South-Korea