US Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday told Japanese leaders that Washington’s treaty commitments to Japan’s security remain “iron-clad” and cover all territories under Tokyo’s administration, including islands in the East China Sea that Taiwan and China also claim.
Kerry renewed the security pledge related to the islets, known as the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in Taiwan and the Senkakus in Japan, at a New York news conference with Japan’s foreign and defense ministers to unveil updated US-Japan defense guidelines on the eve of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s official talks with US President Barack Obama.
“It’s an historic transition in the defense relationship between our two countries,” Kerry said.
Photo: AFP
The new guidelines for defense cooperation reflect Japan’s willingness to take on a more robust international role at a time of growing Chinese power and rising concerns about North Korea.
It follows a Japanese Cabinet resolution last year reinterpreting Japan’s pacifist post-World War II constitution to allow the exercise of the right to “collective self-defense.”
At the news conference, Kerry made it clear that Washington was ready to stick to its treaty obligations to come to Japan’s defense, an effort to reassure Tokyo in its maritime dispute with China.
In a pointed message to Beijing over its increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea as well, Kerry said the US rejects any suggestion that freedom of navigation and overflight “are privileges granted by big states to small ones subject to the whim and fancy of the big state.”
“Our treaty commitments to Japan’s security remains iron-clad and covers all territories under Japan’s administration, including the Senkaku Islands,” he said.
The guidelines allow for global cooperation militarily, ranging from defense against ballistic missiles, cyber and space attacks as well as maritime security.
They also eliminate geographic restrictions that had largely limited joint work to the defense of Japan and the surrounding area, a senior US official said.
“We will be able to do globally what we’ve been able to do in the defense of Japan and regionally,” the official said.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Hong Lei (洪磊) said that the security arrangement between the US and Japan should not harm the interests of third parties such as China and ensure regional stability.
“As for the Diaoyu Islands, our position is clear and consistent — they are China’s inherent territory. No matter what anyone says or does, it cannot change the reality that they belong to China,” Hong said in Beijing.
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