Shintaro Ishihara is at it again.  The mayor of Tokyo made this proposal giving a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C.

Ishihara, a known nationalist with eyes that sometimes blinks a mile a minute, just waded knee deep into poo when he said, "Tokyo has decided to buy the Senkaku Islands. Tokyo is going to protect the Senkakus.  Would anyone have a problem with an act by the Japanese to protect our own land?"

Tokyo has been negotiating with the private Japanese owners of the islands-known as the Senkaku in Japanese and the Diaoyu in Chinese.  Old blinky eyes added that the metropolitan government is close to reaching an agreement to buy them.  Both Japan and China claim the strategically coveted islands, located between Japan's southern Okinawa Prefecture and Taiwan.

Ishihara said he purchase is aimed at preventing China from taking "effective control" of the islands out of Japan's hands.  He didn't disclose the value of the purchase, but added that the matter has to be discussed by the metropolitan assembly.  A foreign ministry spokesman said Tuesday morning he couldn't comment on Ishihara's comments because the ministry hadn't confirmed them.

I see he is going to put Tokyo's tax money to "good" use.  Here is NHK's news report (the small change was made by me).