Is Japan’s treaty-day Taiwan Strait warship transit a new flashpoint with China?

Tensions in East Asia reached a fresh peak with a Japanese warship’s transit of the Taiwan Strait on a historically freighted date for China. According to the PLA Eastern Theatre Command, the Japanese destroyer JS Ikazuchi spent 14 hours navigating the sensitive waterway on Friday, the anniversary of the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki or Treaty of Maguan, an unequal treaty that forced the then-ruling Qing dynasty administration to cede Taiwan to Japanese colonial rule. In a commentary on Saturday,...