TonTraditionally, the Japanese government has formally kept a low profile in the conflict between China and Taiwan. Both Japan and China maintain important economic relations. Any public stance in support of democratic Taiwan will exacerbate tensions in the region. However, this year, obstacles will fall in Tokyo. On Tuesday, the government warned for the first time in a national defense white paper that the military tensions around Taiwan are increasing. It said there that it is more necessary than ever to carefully monitor the situation with a sense of crisis. Stabilizing the situation around Taiwan is of great significance to the security of Japan and the stability of the international community.
The Ministry of National Defense stated that the analysis did not assume a military conflict between China and Taiwan. Japan’s long-standing position is that China and Taiwan should resolve their differences through dialogue.But even before the analysis, the Deputy Head of Government and Minister of Finance had already Aso Stake out another line. Aso said last week that if a major incident involving Taiwan occurs, it is certain that such a situation will threaten Japan’s survival. “In this case, Japan and the United States must jointly defend Taiwan,” he was quoted as saying.
Tokyo worries about Beijing
According to the post-war peace constitution, the deployment of Japanese troops overseas will be a novelty. With the reinterpretation of the Constitution a few years ago, the government opened up the possibility of eagerly assisting friendly countries to protect Japan itself in the process of collective defense abroad. This has not happened so far. This will also cause great controversy among the people. Eighty-year-old Aso is now the highest-ranking politician in Japan so far. He clearly demonstrated the deployment of the Self-Defense Force to defend another country.
The fact that he used this option to Taiwan, thereby angering China, illustrates the Tokyo government’s concerns about developments. In the white paper, the Ministry of National Defense described China’s increasing military activities around Taiwan. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense stated that 380 Chinese fighter jets entered Taiwan’s southwestern airspace last year. The report also showed China’s military superiority over Taiwan in terms of equipment. Beijing’s ability to land and occupy the island is currently limited. But the military scale has turned to favor China.
Every Tuesday
The Ministry of Defense of Tokyo was vague about the report by the British Financial Times that the Japanese and American troops are ready to jointly defend Taiwan. “The Self-Defense Force prepares for various situations through exercises. We will not disclose which ones.” Recent joint exercises with the United States include the premiere on the Amami Oshima island north of Okinawa.
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There, on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, the US and Japanese forces purchased and tested surface-to-air missile systems. The responsible staff officer of the Self-Defense Force said that the exercise was not aimed at a specific country. But Amami is roughly in the middle of the island chain between Japan and Taiwan, which makes it difficult for China to enter the Pacific from the East China Sea.
Deputy Prime Minister Aso is known for his speech errors, but he is also known for saying things that other people in Tokyo dare not do. His statement is consistent with some other comments. In April this year, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and US President Biden mentioned Taiwan for the first time in a joint statement, emphasizing the importance of cross-strait peace and stability to the region.
Nobuo Kishi, brother of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, emphasized that Taiwan’s peace and stability are directly related to Japan. After visiting Yonaguni Island, the Japanese island 190 kilometers east of Taipei and the nearest to Taiwan, Kishi was quoted in the spring as saying that if Taiwan becomes “red”, Japan must be prepared. “We are not friends from Taiwan, we are brothers,” Nakayama Yasue, the second secretary of state of the Ministry of National Defense, said in an online lecture at the Hudson Institute in the United States at the end of June. Zhongshan also broke the taboo established by Beijing to designate Taiwan as a country. He said that now is the time to defend Taiwan as a democratic country.
This tone stands out from the symbolic politics of Japan’s sympathy for Taiwan under the leadership of Suga Yoshihide’s predecessor, Abe. For example, in 2017, Japan changed the name of the “Exchange Association” to Taipei and added the name of Taiwan to China’s protests. The association is the unofficial embassy of Japan in Taiwan. Tokyo’s clearer tone now shows that the government is not only in the US fleet. This also reflects Japan’s concern that Beijing has increased its presence not only around Taiwan, but also near the Senkaku Islands, which China claims in the name of the Diaoyu Islands. But the Tokyo government still dominates symbolic politics. In the ongoing vaccination dispute between Taipei and Beijing, the Japanese government Taiwan has donated 3.4 million doses of vaccine against the coronavirus.
