Japan yesterday pledged to help the Philippines defend its “remote islands,” as both governments expressed concern over China’s robust moves to stake its claims to disputed Asian waters.
Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said China’s contentious claim to nearly all of the South China Sea and its territorial dispute with Japan in the East China Sea were discussed during top-level talks in Manila.
“We agreed that we will further co-operate in terms of the defense of remote islands ... the defense of territorial seas as well as protection of maritime interests,” Onodera told a joint news conference.
“We face a very similar situation in the East China Sea of Japan. The Japan side is very concerned that this kind of situation in the South China Sea could affect the situation in the East China Sea,” he said, speaking through an interpreter.
Philippine Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin welcomed Japan’s offer of support for its poorly resourced military.
“We have agreed to continue our exchanges of information, exchanges of technology to help each other to make our defense relations stronger,” Gazmin said.
Onodera and Gazmin welcomed an increased military presence in Asia by their mutual ally, the US.
Onodera said Japan was intent on avoiding conflict with China.
“I would also like to emphasize that the current situation should not be changed with the use of force, but should be done through the rule of law,” Onodera said.
Meanwhile, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) yesterday said countries with territorial claims in the South China Sea that look for help from third parties will find their efforts “futile,” adding that the path of confrontation would be “doomed.”
Beijing’s assertion of sovereign-ty over a vast stretch of the South China Sea has set it directly against Vietnam and the Philippines, while Taiwan, Brunei and Malaysia also lay claim to other parts of the sea, making it Asia’s biggest potential military troublespot.
At stake are potentially massive offshore oil reserves. The seas also lie on shipping lanes and fishing grounds.
Wang did not name any third countries, but the US is a close ally of Taiwan and the Philippines, and has good or improving relations with the other nations laying claim to all or part of the South China Sea.
“If certain claimant countries choose confrontation, that path will be doomed,” Wang said after a speech at the annual Tsinghua World Peace Forum. “If such countries try to reinforce their poorly grounded claims through the help of external forces, that will be futile and will eventually prove to be a strategic miscalculation not worth the effort.”
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
MIXED SOURCING: While Taiwan is expanding domestic production, it also sources munitions overseas, as some, like M855 rounds, are cheaper than locally made ones Taiwan and the US plan to jointly produce 155mm artillery shells, as the munition is in high demand due to the Ukraine-Russia war and should be useful in Taiwan’s self-defense, Armaments Bureau Director-General Lieutenant General Lin Wen-hsiang (林文祥) told lawmakers in Taipei yesterday. Lin was responding to questions about Taiwan’s partnership with allies in producing munitions at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. Given the intense demand for 155mm artillery shells in Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion, and in light of Taiwan’s own defensive needs, Taipei and Washington plan to jointly produce 155mm shells, said Lin,
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