TOKYO (Bloomberg): A Japanese official blasted China’s claims that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has altered Japan’s position on a Taiwan crisis as "entirely baseless,” calling for more dialogue to stop ties between Asia’s top economies spiraling.
China vowed to take resolute self-defense against Japan if it "dared to intervene militarily in the Taiwan Strait” in a letter delivered Friday to the United Nations. Beijing is seeking to rally international support for its position in a spat over the self-ruled chip hub it views as its territory.
"I’m aware of this letter,” Maki Kobayashi, a senior Japanese government spokeswoman, told Bloomberg News. "The claim our country has altered its position is entirely baseless,” she said, speaking Saturday on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Johannesburg.
China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment made outside working hours.
A crucial sticking point is the fundamental mismatch between how both sides understand Takaichi’s remarks.
For China, her comments publicly linking a Taiwan Strait crisis with the possible deployment of Japanese troops deviated from decades of strategic ambiguity. Tokyo maintains her response to a hypothetical question didn’t change its stance.
"We’ve repeatedly explained to the Chinese side the gist of the remarks and our consistent position,” Kobayashi said, adding Tokyo was "committed to dialogue” with its neighbor.
The G-20 won’t be a venue for that. China has said there are no plans for Takaichi to meet Premier Li Qiang, who is representing his country at the gathering, although on Saturday they were stood just three people apart for a group photo. Underscoring the acrimony, Chinese state media pointed out Takaichi was "about an hour late” to the summit, after she missed the red carpet arrivals.
China has also reportedly canceled a trilateral meeting with the culture ministers of South Korea and Japan that was scheduled for this month.
In the absence of diplomacy, a war of words is intensifying. On Friday, the Chinese embassy in Japan posted on X that China would have the right to carry out "direct military action” without needing authorization from the UN Security Council if Japan took any step toward renewed aggression. That post cited UN Charter clauses regarding "enemy states” during the Second World War, without further elaboration.
It’s unclear where the off-ramp lies in a fallout that’s already seen some Chinese tourists cancel trips to Japan, and Beijing impose curbs on seafood imports from its neighbor. While Takaichi has said she’s learned her lesson and will refrain from specifying a possible scenario in which Japan could deploy troops in future, she’s refused to recant.
Raising the stakes, China is Japan’s biggest trade partner, and a supplier of minerals crucial to its auto industry.
"China is an important source of importation of rare earths,” Kobayashi acknowledged, while saying Tokyo had worked to decease that reliance. "Peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait are vital for national security.”
--With assistance from Colum Murphy, Jing Li and Antony Sguazzin.
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