He is the 80-year old governor of Tokyo, the most powerful city on Earth. He wants to bring back the good old days when Japan ruled the Pacific. He denies that the Rape of Nanking ever occurred.
He wants to build a fort on the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands just to provoke a fight with China. The islands were captured by the US during WWII and administered by them, along with Okinawa, until 1972, and since then have been administered by Japan, but they are claimed by China and Taiwan. Nobody really cared about the islands until potential oil and gas reserves were found there in 1969. The US may be bound by treaty to defend Japan if China attempts to occupy the islands. The wisest course of action is just to preserve the status quo, make them wildlife refuges, and leave the dispute for future generations.
Both China and Japan may be using the dispute to distract their citizens from their economic woes.
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