ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the additional hot spots and issues of conflict in East Asia. The islands form the southern part of an archipelago, known as the Kuril Islands, which stretches from Hokkaido in northern Japan to the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. The Soviet Union did not sign the San Francisco Peace Treaty, but in 1956 Japan and the Soviet Union ended their state of war by signing the Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration. The island grouping at the centre of a dispute between Japan and South Korea is called Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese. Japanese also claim sovereignty over these islets that they call Takeshima. In 2017, the government in Seoul decided to permit the Americans to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system in South Korea. The Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute is the most serious of the territorial disputes and the one most likely to lead to military conflict.
