China, Japan Officials Meet Amid Taiwan Tensions – The Diplomat

Tokyo Report | Diplomacy | East Asia

Chinese language and Japanese officers met in northern China amid renewed tensions over Beijing’s army threats towards Taiwan and after Tokyo protested China’s firing of missiles into Japan’s unique financial zone throughout latest army drills.

The assembly Wednesday between senior overseas affairs advisor Yang Jiechi and the top of Japan’s Nationwide Safety Secretariat, Takeo Akiba, adopted China’s cancellation of a gathering between the overseas ministers of the 2 nations after Japan signed on to a press release from the Group of Seven industrialized nations criticizing China’s threatening warfare video games surrounding Taiwan earlier this month.

Japan issued diplomatic protests over China’s firing of missiles into its unique financial zone in the course of the drills, which noticed Chinese language warplanes and navy ships cross the center zone of the Taiwan Strait that has lengthy been a buffer between the perimeters.

China claims Taiwan as its personal territory, to be annexed by drive if obligatory. The previous Japanese colony has been beneath Chinese language army risk since Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist authorities fled to the island in 1949 as Mao Zedong’s Communist Social gathering seized management of the Chinese language mainland.

In his feedback to Takeo, Yang stated that “the Taiwan query bears on the political basis of China-Japan relations and the essential belief and good religion between the 2 nations,” China’s official Xinhua Information Company reported Thursday.

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“Japan ought to … form up a proper notion of China, pursue a optimistic, pragmatic and rational China coverage, and uphold the precise path of peaceable improvement,” Xinhua quoted Yang as saying.

China’s almost two weeks of army workout routines surrounding Taiwan adopted U.S. Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s go to to the island in defiance of Beijing’s threats.

China introduced additional drills in response to the go to by one other congressional delegation this week, however has not stated when or the place they may happen.

The workout routines seem to have had little affect amongst Taiwan’s greater than 23 million individuals, who overwhelmingly favor the established order of de facto independence whereas sustaining sturdy financial ties with China.

Takeo met earlier this month with U.S. Nationwide Safety Advisor Jake Sullivan in Washington, throughout which they “reiterated the significance of sustaining peace and stability throughout the Taiwan Strait and strengthened their resolve to face united towards Russia’s unjust and unprovoked warfare on Ukraine and united in assist of the Ukrainian individuals,” the State Division stated in a information launch.

China’s threats towards Taiwan have been likened to Russia’s invasion of its neighbor. Shortly earlier than Moscow dispatched troops in February, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese language counterpart Xi Jinping met in Beijing, the place they declared their relationship had “no limits” and Russia supported China’s declare to Taiwan.

Many Chinese language additionally resent Japan over its brutal invasion and occupation of components of the nation in the course of the Nineteen Thirties and Forties, sentiments saved alive by Communist Social gathering propaganda.

In an incident reported extensively on social media, a Chinese language girl sporting a standard Japanese kimono costume was lately detained by police within the japanese metropolis of Hangzhou for allegedly making a disturbance. She was reportedly launched with out cost after writing an apology.

Yang Jiechi has performed an vital function in China-Japan relations in recent times. Again in 2014, when the connection was in a deep freeze following then-Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s go to to a controversial shrine for Japanese warfare useless, Yang and his Japanese counterpart reached a “4 level consensus” that allowed for the resumption of normal government-to-government contact.