Japan is to deploy thousands of troops and build missile batteries on islands in the East China Sea, as officials confirmed for the first time that the defences were designed to check Chinese military influence in the region. In response to US pressure to play a bigger role in deterring increasingly assertive Chinese naval activity in the South China Sea and East China Sea, Tokyo is to position a line of anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile batteries along 200 islands stretching 870 miles (1,400km) from the Japanese mainland towards Taiwan. Read more
