China yesterday announced sanctions against a Japanese lawmaker over his visits to Taiwan, as Beijing and Tokyo locked horns in a months-long diplomatic row.
Relations between China and Japan have deteriorated since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggested in November last year that Tokyo could intervene militarily in any attempt by Beijing to seize Taiwan.
Keiji Furuya, a conservative lawmaker and Takaichi ally, was banned from entering China, Hong Kong and Macau from yesterday, a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement said.
Photo: AP
He made “multiple runs to Taiwan in defiance of China’s strong opposition ... seriously undermining China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the statement said.
People and groups in China are also banned from engaging with the Japanese lawmaker.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Mao Ning (毛寧) said that despite China’s calls to avoid Taiwan, Furuya had continued to “collude and stir up trouble with Taiwan,” and his sanctioning should “serve as a warning to others.”
The announcement came after Furuya met President William Lai (賴清德) in Taipei earlier this month, when the 73-year-old lawmaker said Takaichi’s comments on Taiwan “maintain the Japanese government’s previous position and are not problematic.”
In Tokyo, Furuya shrugged off China’s decision, saying that he has no assets in China and had not visited the nation in decades.
“The fact that they are imposing sanctions on something like this really makes me think: ‘That’s typical of China,’” he told reporters.
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