US president Barack Obama's latest remarks on the Diaoyu islands (Senkaku to Japan, Diaoyutai to Taiwan), have prompted an angry response from China.
The United States and Japan issued a statement on Friday, a day after Obama and Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe held talks in Tokyo, and put the disputed East China Sea islands under the US-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security.
Ruan Zongze, vice president of the China Institute of International Studies, said the US is trying to help Japan to play a bigger role in the region to hedge China's rising influence. China's actions to protect its sovereignty over the islands, including coast guard patrols, have broken Japan's full control over the islands, he said.
Tao Wenzhao, a researcher at the Institute of American Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said that although US officials had made similar remarks before, it is the first time the US president has made such a comment.
Read the full story at Want China Times