A series of diplomatic spats this week underscored rising security tensions across East Asia. North Korea fired a missile into the sea for the second time in a week over imminent US-South Korean military drills that Pyongyang says are an invasion rehearsal. Taiwan condemned planned joint Chinese-Indonesian navy exercises off the self-ruled island’s coast as “wilful and irresponsible.” And Japan lashed out at Russian President Vladimir Putin after he visited the Kuril Islands, including one Tokyo claims as its own.
Friction in the region has been exacerbated by the war in the Middle East, The Diplomat argued, as East Asian nations — heavily reliant on energy imports from the Gulf — are forced into “hard choices they have long deferred.”
