A military crisis at sea between China and Japan will seriously undermine Beijing's path of peaceful development and its "Belt and Road" initiative, according to an internal magazine of the People's Liberation Army obtained by Kyodo News.
The article, authored by two military officers at the Naval Military Research Institute and Dalian Naval Academy, strongly suggests that the likelihood of a China-Japan military crisis at sea is increasing due to long-standing disputes over the sovereignty of the Senkaku Islands, maritime demarcation in the East China Sea and the development of maritime resources in the area.
While China and Japan are working on improving bilateral relations, the article, which appeared in the April 2017 issue of the magazine, warns that a slight misjudgment of the above issues could easily lead to a maritime crisis.