Tokyo yesterday summoned the Chinese ambassador to Japan, as the two sides traded blame for a near collision involving fighter jets over the East China Sea, the second such incident to occur in less than a month.
In the latest confrontation in a long-running territorial dispute, Tokyo says two Chinese Su-27 jets flew as close as 30m to its aircraft in a spot where the two countries’ air defense zones overlap.
“It was an action that was extremely regrettable and which cannot be tolerated,” Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said on Wednesday.
It was the second time in less than three weeks that Tokyo has accused Beijing of playing chicken in the skies near the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) controlled by Japan, which calls them the Senkakus and disputes their sovereignty with Taiwan and China, both of which claim the chain.
Japanese Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Akitaka Saiki, called China’s ambassador to Japan Cheng Yonghua (程永華) to the ministry, where he said similar incidents “could lead to a real accident,” Kyodo news agency said.
China hit back, insisting that Japanese pilots had been at fault and that Tokyo was lying to the international community about Beijing’s behavior.
“The Chinese pilot’s operation was professional, standard and maintained restraint. The Japanese pilot’s practice was dangerous, and obviously provocative in nature,” the Chinese Ministry of Defense said on its Web site.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) said Japan has “hyped up this incident and the so-called ‘China threat.’”
“[Japan has] deliberately deceived the world. So we can’t help but wonder what is the true intention of Japan,” she added.
The site also carried video footage purporting to show two Japanese F-15 jets approaching a Chinese TU154 plane on Wednesday, disrupting its safe flight.
Japanese Minister of Defencse Itsunori Onodera said he saw the clip and “there was no truth behind what the Chinese side stated.”
The incident occurred as Japan and Australia held the fifth round of “2+2” talks between their defense and foreign affairs chiefs.
The two sides struck an agreement on a legal framework to conduct joint research and trade in defense equipment, with Australia yesterday backing Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s drive to expand the use of Japan’s military, hailing it as a “more normal defense posture,” which China says is really a bid to remilitarize Japan.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
NO CONFIDENCE MOTION? The premier said that being toppled by the legislature for defending the Constitution would be a democratic badge of honor for him Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday announced that the Cabinet would not countersign the amendments to the local revenue-sharing law passed by the Legislative Yuan last month. Cho said the decision not to countersign the amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) was made in accordance with the Constitution. “The decision aims to safeguard our Constitution,” he said. The Constitution stipulates the president shall, in accordance with law, promulgate laws and issue mandates with the countersignature of the head of the Executive Yuan, or with the countersignatures of both the head of the Executive Yuan and ministers or
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS