Japan, France and the US are to hold joint military drills on land and sea for the first time in May next year as the Chinese military steps up activity in the region, the Sankei Shimbun said yesterday.
The exercises, to be conducted on one of Japan’s uninhabited outlying islands, are to focus on providing relief efforts during a natural disaster, but parts could also form the basis for a defense against attack, the paper said, without citing sources.
The Japanese Ministry of Defense was not immediately available to respond to a request for confirmation.
The joint exercises aim to counter China, which claims Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea, the paper said.
“We want to demonstrate our presence to the region and send a message about Japan-France cooperation,” Admiral Pierre Vandier, chief of staff of the French Navy, told the Sankei in a separate interview.
“This is a message aimed at China. This is a message about multilateral partnerships and the freedom of passage,” he said.
China has said its intentions in the region are peaceful.
However, Japan has grown particularly concerned about a rise in Chinese naval activity around the disputed islands in the East China Sea that Tokyo calls the Senkakus, while Beijing refers to them as the Diaoyu Islands (釣魚島). Taiwan also claims the islands.
Separately yesterday, the Asahi Shimbun reported that the Japanese government is considering the resumption of inbound tourism on a limited basis from the spring, as Tokyo prepares to host a delayed summer Olympics.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s administration is leaning toward allowing small tour groups from Asian countries where COVID-19 infections are well under control, such as Taiwan and China, the Asahi reported without citing sources.
Under the new plan, tourists would have to test negative for the coronavirus and submit a detailed travel itinerary before entering, the Asahi said.
Taiwan’s exports soared to an all-time high of US$61.8 billion last month, surging 49.7 percent from a year earlier, as the global frenzy for artificial intelligence (AI) applications and new consumer electronics powered shipments of high-tech goods, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. It was the first time exports had exceeded the US$60 billion mark, fueled by the global boom in AI development that has significantly boosted Taiwanese companies across the international supply chain, Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) told a media briefing. “There is a consensus among major AI players that the upcycle is still in its early stage,”
‘SECRETS’: While saying China would not attack during his presidency, Donald Trump declined to say how Washington would respond if Beijing were to take military action US President Donald Trump said that China would not take military action against Taiwan while he is president, as the Chinese leaders “know the consequences.” Trump made the statement during an interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes program that aired on Sunday, a few days after his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in South Korea. “He [Xi] has openly said, and his people have openly said at meetings, ‘we would never do anything while President Trump is president,’ because they know the consequences,” Trump said in the interview. However, he repeatedly declined to say exactly how Washington would respond in
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said yesterday that China using armed force against Taiwan could constitute a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, allowing the country to mobilize the Japanese armed forces under its security laws. Takaichi made the remarks during a parliamentary session yesterday while responding to a question about whether a "Taiwan contingency" involving a Chinese naval blockade would qualify as a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, according to a report by Japan’s Asahi Shimbun. "If warships are used and other armed actions are involved, I believe this could constitute a survival- threatening
WARFARE: All sectors of society should recognize, unite, and collectively resist and condemn Beijing’s cross-border suppression, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said The number of Taiwanese detained because of legal affairs by Chinese authorities has tripled this year, as Beijing intensified its intimidation and division of Taiwanese by combining lawfare and cognitive warfare, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) made the statement in response to questions by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Puma Shen (沈柏洋) about the government’s response to counter Chinese public opinion warfare, lawfare and psychological warfare. Shen said he is also being investigated by China for promoting “Taiwanese independence.” He was referring to a report published on Tuesday last week by China’s state-run Xinhua news agency,
RSS