"The Shape of Japan: Japan's Controversial Territorial Claims Against China, Taiwan, Russia, and the Koreas," by Professor Alexis Dudden On the one hand there is nothing unusual about Japan’s territorial claims: they are a piece of an aspirational foreign and domestic vision for the nation’s future. On the other hand, Tokyo’s claims to three small islands that it disputes with its neighboring countries speaks to a challenge of a more complicated nature, and one that it is important for Washington’s policy planners not simply to brush away if only because it directly impacts American security assurances to Japan.