Japan’s latest defense white paper highlights Taiwan’s defense measures, as well as Tokyo’s and the international community’s concerns over stability in the Taiwan Strait.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s Cabinet yesterday approved the 500-page report — the second published under Japanese Minister of Defense Nobuo Kishi that gives substantial attention to the Taiwan issue.
Last year’s edition for the first time separated Taiwan from a chapter devoted to China and placed it in a section on China-US relations.
Photo: CNA
This year’s edition includes 10 pages on Taiwan, double the length of last year’s paper.
The paper introduces Taiwan’s defense situation and its approach to national defense, as well as the international situation Taipei is operating under, with a focus on Taiwan’s guidelines of “solid defense, layered deterrence” and asymmetric warfare.
The paper also mentions Taiwanese measures to mitigate the effects of Chinese cognitive warfare, including using a combined form of electronic and cyberwarfare capabilities to create “beachheads.”
The military balance continues to be tipped in China’s favor, but against a backdrop of the Russia-Ukraine war, Taiwan’s efforts to strengthen its defensive capabilities should be noted, it says.
The US, without deviating from its “one China” policy, has since the administration of former US president Donald Trump stepped up efforts to deepen US-Taiwan relations, a trend that has continued under US President Joe Biden. His administration defines Taiwan as a principal democratic, economic and security partner, and sends US ships through the Taiwan Strait while continuing sales of arms packages to Taiwan, the paper says.
In addition to the US, the international community — led by Europe — has also voiced concern over stability in the Taiwan Strait and has been reinforcing EU-Taiwan relations, it says.
“Taiwan is an extremely important partner for Japan,” it says. “The stability of the situation surrounding Taiwan is also critical for Japan’s security and must be closely monitored with a sense of urgency ... based on the recognition that changes to the status quo by coercion are globally shared challenges.”
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said that Taiwan welcomes the international community’s concerns and measures, which contribute positively toward maintaining regional peace and stability.
The ministry anticipates the possibility of working with like-minded countries, including Japan, to jointly defend democracy and uphold stability in the Taiwan Strait and the Indo-Pacific region, Ou said.
In a new chapter devoted to Russia’s war in Ukraine, the report said that Russia’s international isolation and fatigue from the war might increase the importance of Moscow’s political and military cooperation with China.
Military cooperation between the two countries should be closely watched, because it could have a “direct impact” on Japan’s security, the paper says.
The report comes as Kishida’s government pledges to bolster Japan’s military capability and budget under a revised national security strategy and basic defense guidelines that are planned for release later this year.
China yesterday said it firmly opposed the white paper and had sent stern representations to Tokyo.
“Japan’s new defense white paper makes accusations and smears China’s defense policy, market economic development and legitimate maritime activities,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) told a daily news briefing.
The report “exaggerates the so-called China threat” and interferes in China’s internal affairs on Taiwan, Wang said.
Additional reporting by AP and Reuters
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS