Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to reset relations after an escalation in bilateral tensions, invoking a 2006 visit to Beijing during his first administration.
“Since there are issues, it is all the more important to have a leaders’ meeting,” Abe said in an interview in the prime minister’s official residence in Tokyo. “I visited China as prime minister and met with [former Chinese president] Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and we shared the view that we should develop our ties based on a strategic, mutually beneficial relationship. Now is the time to go back to that starting point.”
Abe’s call on Friday is his most explicit yet for a summit since China’s declaration last month of an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) that overlaps with Japan’s over the East China Sea.
Photo:Bloomberg
Abe has yet to hold a summit with either Xi or South Korean President Park Geun-hye, amid continuing territorial disputes with both neighbors. The impasse is a contrast from Abe’s 2006-2007 term in office, when he repaired ties with China that had frayed under his predecessor, former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi — whose visits to a national war shrine stirred Chinese resentment.
Asked whether China is open to a summit with Japan, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei (洪磊) told reporters in Beijing on Friday that “the problem is Japan cannot look straight at history and reality, and do the right thing on certain issues. So we once again ask Japan to look at history and reality, and pursue the same direction as China.”
The US urged China on Friday to set up an emergency hotline with Japan and South Korea to avoid confusion in its ADIZ.
Washington does not recognize Beijing’s ADIZ and has called on China not to press ahead with its implementation.
“As we work through this process, they need to do a few things right now to immediately lower tensions,” US Department of State deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said.
“China should work with other countries, including Japan and South Korea, to establish confidence-building measures, including emergency communications channels to address the dangers that its recent announcement has created,” she added.
Meanwhile, Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop defied a stern rebuke from Beijing yesterday to repeat concerns that the ADIZ has increased regional tensions.
“Australia is concerned about peace and stability in our region, and we don’t want to see any escalation of tensions, we want to see a de-escalation,” she told reporters in Beijing when asked about Australia’s stance on the ADIZ.
Her remarks came after China’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) on Friday reproached Bishop for Australia’s critical stance on the ADIZ.
Wang accused Australia of “jeopardizing bilateral mutual trust,” and said “the entire Chinese society and the general public are deeply dissatisfied” with Australia’s comments, Australian broadcaster ABC reported.
Bishop dismissed suggestions that the ADIZ dispute had damaged relations and said that negotiations on several issues, including a free-trade deal between the two countries, had been “productive.”
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
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
RSS