(news.com.au) – The Senkaku Islands are tiny rocky spurs, part of a scattering of islands between the northern tip of Taiwan and the Japanese home islands. They are rapidly turning into a flashpoint for war. Beijing claims the islands as part of its historical inheritance — as it does neighboring Taiwan, despite failing to seize the protectorate during the Chinese Civil War. Taiwan, however, was a Japanese protectorate before

World War II. It’s a messy historical scenario, thought resolved through United Nations conventions and treaties established after the conflict. But ongoing aggressive incursions by Chinese fishing boats — organized as a state militia — and a freshly militarised coast guard has seen tensions in the East China Sea flare. Now, Japan and the United States are drawing up battle plans to enable their forces to fight together against any Chinese incursion. READ MORE