US flies B52 aircraft over disputed islands in East China Sea in defiance of Chinese air defence rules - officials

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25110011

News only broke 10 minutes ago, could lead to something bigger.

Update:

China set up its air defence identification zone on Saturday.

A US colonel quoted by Reuters said the planes had followed "normal procedures, which include not filing flight plans, not radioing ahead".

The islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, are a source of rising tension between the two nations.

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Update again:

China is insisting that aircraft entering its air defence zone must obey its rules or face "emergency defensive measures".

"We have conducted operations in the area of the Senkakus," said US Colonel Steve Warren, adding that so far there had been no response from China.

The aircraft, which were unarmed, had taken off from Guam on Monday and the flight was part of a regular exercise in the area, a US defence official said.

China has $1.3 trillion worth of foreign currency. If china want then they can cripple US economy (at the same time taking themselves out). I guess this will settle soon and everything will go back to normal.

I don't like this. Hopefully it won't turn into anything, but taken into account that Japan actually needs these islands pretty badly and it doesn't seem like China's going to give up it might go bad. Just the slightest mistake at this point can end in a disaster. Hopefully they'll find a solution soon.

True, they could, but in doing so they would effectively end trade relations with America which would pull vast amounts of foreign trade, let alone that crippling the american economy would set everyone back by decades.

It's really not viable for leverage.

tut tut. Dont know why china is complaining. The islands belong to Japan.

Total number of islands 5 + 3 rocks, total area 7 square kilometres.

So who the hell cares who has them!

Japan should just let China have the uninhabited islands hell they are closer to China than Japan anyway. And after what Japan has done to China in the past, if I was Chinese I wouldn't be too keen on Japan being any closer either.

No, they belong to Taiwan (Republic of China).

Well thats an argument for the orientals to have

They are about equidistant from Taiwanese and Japanese territory.  China is roughly twice as far away.

You don't get it. It's what underwater they care about. Not the land. It's the oil. Japan have had power supply problems for a while, and then the fukoshima disaster happened, so they shut down a lot of Nuclear powerplants. So now the spend gigantic amouts of money buying power, money they do not have. That's why they want the islands.