US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel on Friday stressed the importance of increased deterrence and his country’s commitment to its key ally as he visited two southwestern Japanese islands at the forefront of Tokyo’s tensions with Beijing.
Emanuel first visited Yonaguni, Japan’s westernmost island just east of Taiwan, before traveling to Ishigaki, home to Japan Coast Guard patrol boats defending the disputed East China Sea islands and Japanese fishers from armed China Coast Guard ships that routinely enter Japanese waters.
Japan has been making a southwest shift of its defense posture, and is further accelerating its military buildup under a 2022 security strategy that focuses on counterstrike capability with long-range cruise missiles.
Photo: AP
Escorted by Yonaguni Mayor Kenichi Itokazu, Emanuel — the first US ambassador to visit the island — looked toward Taiwan, only 110km away. He met with Japan Self Defense Force service members at a local base installed in 2016 and where a missile defense system is planned.
The ambassador said the main purpose of his visit was to show US support for the local fishing community.
He also met with a local fisher who was among those affected by China’s increasingly assertive actions in the regional seas.
China fired five missiles into Japan’s exclusive economic zone in 2022 after then-US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei.
Emanuel said the fisher told him he could not sell his fish for about a week after the Chinese action.
“If they don’t have deterrence, that’s going to be worse,” Emanuel said from Ishigaki. “If you have a very robust deterrence, it ensures that there is peace, ensures that there is security, ensures economic prosperity. Without that, it’s more likely to be a green light to those that want to use economic coercion and confrontation as their only means of expression.”
Yonaguni fishers support the local economy and help reinforce Japanese territorial rights, he said.
“That’s what a real win looks like — economic security,” he wrote on X.
In Ishigaki, the Japan Coast Guard protects fishing boats in the disputed waters around the Japanese-controlled Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台列嶼), also known as the Senkaku Islands in Japanese, in the East China Sea. The islands are also claimed by Taiwan and China, the coast guard of which often faces off with their Japanese counterparts.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi welcomed the ambassador’s trip to the islands, saying it was “meaningful” for the ambassador to improve his understanding of Tokyo’s efforts in reinforcing its security in the southwestern region, where additional military units and missile defense systems are being deployed.
While local officials back the reinforcement of Japanese troops on the islands, local residents staged a small protest amid concerns they might be the first to be affected in a possible US-China conflict.
Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki has said he supports the security alliance with the US, but has called for a reduction in the number of US troops on the island.
About half of the 50,000 US troops in Japan are based in Okinawa.
Tamaki also criticized the use of Yonaguni’s commercial airport by a US military aircraft used by the ambassador.
‘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
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
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
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
RSS