Japan calls for 'sense of crisis' over China-Taiwan tensions

Tokyo

IN unusually blunt terms, Japan on Tuesday warned that military posturing by Beijing and Washington over Taiwan was posing a threat to its security.

"Stabilising the situation surrounding Taiwan is important for Japan's security and the stability of the international community," the Japanese Defence Ministry wrote in its annual white paper. "It is necessary that we pay close attention to the situation with a sense of crisis more than ever before."

The comments suggest that Japan, while still wary of being drawn into the rivalry between the United States and China, may be inching closer to Washington, which has urged it to confront Beijing's rising military aggression around the region.

For a long time, Japan has mostly refrained from wading into such disputes as it sought to balance its interests between the United States, its most important ally, and China, a critical trading partner. Concerns in Japan have grown as Washington and Beijing have ramped up both their rhetoric and military presence around Taiwan, the democratic, self-governed island that China claims as its territory.

Over the past year, China has repeatedly flown military aircraft into Taiwan's air defence identification zone, and the United States, in response, has sailed ships through the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwan lies close to the southern Japanese island of Okinawa.

In its white paper, the Japanese Defence Ministry warned that China's rapid expansion of its military threatened to upset the balance of power between Washington and Beijing and undermine peace in the region.

In particular, it noted that "the overall military balance between China and Taiwan is tilting to China's favour, and the gap appears to be growing year by year".

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's government which approved the paper, also warned that North Korea poses "grave and imminent threats to Japan's security" and criticised China's "insufficient transparency" regarding its military affairs.

Japan has been increasingly vocal about China's maritime expansion and military build-up, publicly protesting the presence of Chinese vessels around disputed islets known as the Senkaku by Tokyo and the Diaoyu by Beijing.

In Beijing, a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zhao Lijian, castigated Japan for what he described as "extremely wrong and irresponsible" comments.

"China will never allow any country to interfere in any way when it comes to Taiwan," he said at a regular news conference Tuesday. "Nothing is more conducive to regional peace and stability than the complete reunification of China." NYTIMES, AFP