The need to reinforce patrol and monitoring activities on the water and in the air around the Senkaku Islands to respond to China's perilously provocative acts has grown.

Amazing. A terrorist bomb goes off in Boston, a fertilizer plant explodes in Texas and miraculously, the “simmering tensions” on the Korean Peninsula suddenly don't seem to matter any more. In fact, they have evaporated.

Once again, Malaysia is in election mode and once again, candidate lists are checked to see who might be running the country next.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung Se's response must have been unexpected for the Japanese government. Yun cancelled a trip to Japan that was scheduled for Friday and Saturday. This was a protest against visits by three Cabinet ministers, including Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso, to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. The South Korean Foreign Ministry says the Shinto shrine “glorifies Japan's wars of aggression.”

The Chinese administration of Xi Jinping has reiterated its intention to push ahead with a “strong army” policy. This policy centers on building China into a maritime power.

Increasing the number of foreign visitors and turning this into economic growth — this goal of making Japan a tourism-oriented nation will require combined efforts by the public and private sectors.

Tragedies often bring in their wake the realization of common vulnerabilities as well as greater clarity of vision. Hopefully, the tragedies that resulted from the bombing of the Boston Marathon will result in closer cooperation between governments in the ongoing war against the agents of terrorism.

It has been three weeks since North Korea closed its border to commuters and vehicles carrying textiles and other materials to South Korean factories operating in the Kaesong industrial complex. It does not even permit the shipment of foodstuffs to South Korean staff manning the factories, whose number is now cut to 190, one-third of the usual level.

One thing Chiang Kai-shek learned during his brief Moscow stay in 1924 was how to organize the Kuomintang along the Leninist line. A Leninist party is one consisting of mostly intellectual revolutionaries organized not democratically but as a bureaucratic or semi-military hierarchy.

Forgive me for first offering a caveat. The words that follow are not cool or objective in tone. That may sound odd, given that this column appears on page 4 of the China Post.