Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her spokesmen were evasive Friday when asked about reports that the US and Japan will announce Saturday that they jointly regard Taiwan as a mutual security concern, a move seen as potentially committing both countries to act in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan.
The plan was first revealed in the Friday edition of the Washington Post in a report from Tokyo.
The Post report said that in the most significant change to the US-Japan Security Alliance in a decade, "Japan will join the Bush administration in identifying security in the Taiwan Strait as a `common strategic objective.'"
The decision is scheduled to be announced, the report said, after a meeting in Washington of the two countries' foreign and defense ministers -- ? Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura and Minister of State for Defense Yoshinori Ono.
Rice and Machimura were to hold a half-hour bilateral meeting yesterday morning followed by a meeting of all four officials constituting the US-Japan Security Consultative Committee. It is the first meeting of the consultative organization since Dec. 16, 2002.
Asked Friday about the meeting and the report, Rice said only that the discussion will be about "how we continue to promote peace and security in the region."
"Of course, the cross-straits [sic] issue is an issue of concern in the Asia Pacific," Rice said. "The policy of the US is quite clear. We have a one-China policy we recognize on the basis of the three communiques. We also have responsibilities under the Taiwan Relations Act."
She also said Washington has cautioned both sides against attempts to change the status quo unilaterally.
"And our efforts to maintain stability in the region count very much on American adherence and that of our allies, of which Japan is certainly an ally, that the cross-straits [sic] problem would be resolved peacefully," Rice said, in response to a reporter's question during a press conference with Dutch foreign minister Bernard Bot in the State Department.
She also said that the US and Japan "enjoy very deep and broad relations in an alliance to try and help bring and maintain peace and stability in the Asia Pacific region."
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that yesterday's meeting "will have a full and complete discussion of security in the region, as well as US-Japan relations."
"We are not extending the US-Japan Mutual Security Treaty," Boucher insisted. "We're having discussions within the scope of that treaty about areas in the region ... and more generally in terms of our interests there."
In terms of individual issues, Boucher said "Taiwan Straits [sic], perhaps, will come up." Pressed about what Japan may do, Boucher retorted, "as far as issues of what exact role they play depends on the Japanese government, and they'll have to answer those."
The Washington Post report quotes Japanese officials as noting that the country's constitution limits the level of assistance that Japan could offer in the event of a US confrontation with China over Taiwan.
However, it says yesterday's joint statement "could help lay the groundwork for the Japanese to extend as much cooperation as they legally can, including logistical support such as transportation and medical rescue operations behind the lines of combat."
It also quotes Shinzo Abe, the acting secretary general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party as saying, "It would be wrong for us to send a signal to China that the US and Japan will watch and tolerate China's military invasion of Taiwan."
"If the situation surrounding Japan threatens our security, Japan can provide US forces with support," Abe was quoted as saying.
The US-Japan meeting comes as Tokyo is reconsidering its defense posture and the use of its self-defense forces, and as Washington is rethinking its force posture in East Asia to put more reliance on such allies as Japan.
This week, the Japanese Cabinet approved and sent to the Diet a bill to ease the rules for using missile defense against incoming ballistic missiles.
Such a defense would employ warships equipped with the Aegis missile interception system and PAC 3 surface-to-air missiles.
While Taiwan's Legislative Yuan is still dealing with whether to approve funds for a massive US arms sales deal including the PAC 3's, Washington has refused to sell the Aegis-equipped warships to Taiwan in deference to China's objections.
Under current law, Japan cannot send its Aegis vessels to the Taiwan Strait area to come to Taiwan's defense, but Tokyo has been involved in an internal debate in recent years over whether or not to relax that restriction.
Also see stories:
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
A former television news host and six military personnel — active and retired — have been indicted on espionage charges, Kaohsiung prosecutors said yesterday. Lin Chen-you (林宸佑), a former CTi News host and YouTuber, last year allegedly made videos at the direction of a Chinese agent criticizing the Democratic Progressive Party’s recall campaign, the Ciaotou District Prosecutors’ Office told a news conference in Kaohsiung. He allegedly received 4,325 tether coins for the videos from an unidentified person surnamed Huang (黃), believed to be an agent of a hostile foreign power, they said. Lin, also known as Ma Te (馬德), has a show named
RSS