Japan and the US will declare in a joint agreement tomorrow that security in the Taiwan Strait is a "common strategic objective," The Washington Post said yesterday, citing a draft of the document it obtained.
The agreement will be announced after the US Secretaries of State, Condoleezza Rice, and of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, meet their Japanese counterparts in Washington today, the daily said in its article datelined in Tokyo.
"This is the first time that Japan has made its stance clear; in the past, Japan has been very indirect on the Taiwan issue," said Koh Se-kai, Taiwan's special representative to Japan. "We're relieved that Japan has become more assertive."
There was no immediate reaction from China.
The agreement to be announced tomorrow declaring security in the Taiwan Strait as a "common strategic objective" of Washington and Tokyo is the most significant alteration since 1996 of the US-Japanese Security Alliance, the daily said.
"It would be wrong for us to send a signal to China that the United States and Japan will watch and tolerate China's military invasion of Taiwan," said Shinzo Abe, the acting secretary general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, who is widely considered a likely successor to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
"If the situation surrounding Japan threatens our security, Japan can provide US forces with support," he added.
"We consider China a friendly country, but it is also unpredictable," an unidentified senior Japanese government official was quoted as saying in The Washington Post.
"If it takes aggressive action, Japan cannot just stand by and watch," he added.
The Ministry of National Defense (MND) yesterday welcomed the expected agreement.
"Although the MND hasn't received any information about such an agreement from the US or Japan, the MND welcomes any force which could stabilize the Taiwan Strait, " ministry spokesman Rear Admiral Liou Chih-chien (
Liou said that if the US and Japan really see security in the Taiwan Strait as a "common strategic objective," it would enhance Taiwan's determination to defend and deter a military attack from China.
Today's US-Japan talks are a necessary prelude to decisions on how to realign the nearly 50,000 US forces in Japan, part of a global transformation of the US military to cope with new threats such as terrorism.
Japan is leaning toward a bigger role as a strategic hub from which US forces can respond to threats in an "arc of instability" from the Middle East to the Koreas, a shift seen by many experts as an expansion of the alliance.
Both Washington and Tokyo are clearly eyeing Beijing's military buildup askance.
"Beijing's military modernization and military buildup is tilting the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait," CIA Director Porter Goss told a Senate panel on Wednesday. "Chinese capabilities threaten US forces in the region."
China quickly denounced the CIA assessment, saying the remarks sent the wrong signal to Taiwan.
Japan has also become increasingly outspoken in expressing its concerns about China's military modernization.
additional reporting by Rich Chang
The combined effect of the monsoon, the outer rim of Typhoon Fengshen and a low-pressure system is expected to bring significant rainfall this week to various parts of the nation, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The heaviest rain is expected to occur today and tomorrow, with torrential rain expected in Keelung’s north coast, Yilan and the mountainous regions of Taipei and New Taipei City, the CWA said. Rivers could rise rapidly, and residents should stay away from riverbanks and avoid going to the mountains or engaging in water activities, it said. Scattered showers are expected today in central and
COOPERATION: Taiwan is aligning closely with US strategic objectives on various matters, including China’s rare earths restrictions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan could deal with China’s tightened export controls on rare earth metals by turning to “urban mining,” a researcher said yesterday. Rare earth metals, which are used in semiconductors and other electronic components, could be recovered from industrial or electronic waste to reduce reliance on imports, National Cheng Kung University Department of Resources Engineering professor Lee Cheng-han (李政翰) said. Despite their name, rare earth elements are not actually rare — their abundance in the Earth’s crust is relatively high, but they are dispersed, making extraction and refining energy-intensive and environmentally damaging, he said, adding that many countries have opted to
FORCED LABOR: A US court listed three Taiwanese and nine firms based in Taiwan in its indictment, with eight of the companies registered at the same address Nine companies registered in Taiwan, as well as three Taiwanese, on Tuesday were named by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) as a result of a US federal court indictment. The indictment unsealed at the federal court in Brooklyn, New York, said that Chen Zhi (陳志), a dual Cambodian-British national, is being indicted for fraud conspiracy, money laundering and overseeing Prince Holding Group’s forced-labor scam camps in Cambodia. At its peak, the company allegedly made US$30 million per day, court documents showed. The US government has seized Chen’s noncustodial wallet, which contains
SUPPLY CHAIN: Taiwan’s advantages in the drone industry include rapid production capacity that is independent of Chinese-made parts, the economic ministry said The Executive Yuan yesterday approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion (US$1.44 billion) into domestic production of uncrewed aerial vehicles over the next six years, bringing Taiwan’s output value to more than NT$40 billion by 2030 and making the nation Asia’s democratic hub for the drone supply chain. The proposed budget has NT$33.8 billion in new allocations and NT$10.43 billion in existing funds, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said. Under the new development program, the public sector would purchase nearly 100,000 drones, of which 50,898 would be for civil and government use, while 48,750 would be for national defense, it said. The Ministry of
RSS