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The article focuses on the approval of the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES) in the East and South China Seas in 2014. Topics include the Chinese government's implementation of an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) over the East China Sea, the dispute between Japan and China over the ownership of the Senkaku Islands, and tensions in the South China Sea.

Rare earth elements (REE) captured a startled world's attention during the 2010 Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands crisis, when it appeared that China withheld access to them during its border dispute with Japan. China asserts that its sovereign right to environmental regulation and national production quotas is unassailable. However, China's trade measures appear to be inconsistent with WTO rules, as well as with environmental protection and conservation, since they incentivize illegal mining and smuggling practices. In an upcoming case (DS431), the United States, the European Union, Japan and 16 third parties will argue before the WTO that China's trade measures on rare earths, tungsten and molybdenum constitute discriminatory behaviour and are illegal. This raises the question of whether China is inappropriately using the environment as a defence against allegations that its rare earth trade policies are in violation of its WTO obligations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]