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It's been a while since world news has burst into our little fashion bubble, but for those of you who don't follow the news very closely, there has been some MAJOR tension between China and Japan lately, with some people wondering if it may lead to actual military conflict.

The short version of what's going on is that there are a few small, pretty much uninhabited islands called the Diaoyu/Senkaku. You might wonder why these massive nations would care about some tiny islands, but the reason is that sea territory rights are dependent on land territory rights, so if a nation claims this island, they have rights extending 100 miles in any direction from that island, for example. These islands are far to the south of the Japanese mainland, so this extends their naval reach by an extraordinary amount. You can see a map here. (CNN)

Chinese fishing boats have been encroaching on the territory, so between China and Japan there is a lot of enmity right now - many foreigners in China, not just Japanese, have been warned to stay indoors and out of sight for fear that they will be attacked.

According to the news today, many Japanese businesses and factory operations have shut down in China. Most brands have at least some of their products produced in China in whole or in part and I can only think of one brand off the top of my head that claims to be completely Made in Japan, but I bet they still get materials from China. We can only wonder if this will effect prices, supply, or even cause a halt in new lines from our favorite brands.

You can read more background information in the follow articles if you are interested:
Why Asia is arguing over its islands (CNN)
How a remote rock split China and Japan (CNN)
Japan's New Chinese Ambassador Dies (CNN)
Cyber attacks hit 19 Japanese Websites (Kyodo News)
Japanese couple attacked in Hong Kong (HK Standard)

I'd love to hear thoughts from Lolitas living in China and Japan as to their thoughts on how this situation may affect Lolita, or even your thoughts in general as I'm sure it must be a stressful time for you.

I also want to make it clear that this is a very real, very serious issue - it's not just about difficulties for our Lolita brands - if the situation is not resolved soon it is going to have a big impact for the whole world on many levels because, as we all know, China is the number one manufacturing nation in the world. If this continues and spreads, combined with the terrible drought in the US, which is the grower of 90% of the world's soybean supply, the consequences could be devastating on a global scale.

Note to mods: Do you think it would be beneficial to add a "discussion:world events" tag? or is that too broad/likely to be abused? Just a thought. Also, sorry I'm posting so much lately ^^;