China has lashed out at Japan over an official defense report by Tokyo, calling it untruthful and wrongly labeling Beijing a threat, state media reported on Friday.
The new Japanese defense white paper is the first since a long-simmering dispute with Taiwan and China over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea heated up last year.
It “deliberately ignores facts and plays up ‘China’s military threat.’” the state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Chinese Ministry of Defense spokesman Geng Yansheng (耿雁生) as saying.
The document, approved by Tokyo on Tuesday, is an annual report on Japan’s defense capabilities and regional security.
It rebuked Beijing for behavior Tokyo said could trigger an incident.
“China ... has taken action described as coercive, which includes risky behavior,” the report said.
Examples included intrusions into Japan’s territorial waters and violation of airspace “and even dangerous actions that could cause a contingency,” it said.
China has the world’s largest military and has dramatically increased its capabilities in recent years, with its first aircraft carrier going into service last year.
Geng called China’s conduct legitimate in safeguarding national sovereignty and said that Japan’s paper made groundless accusations.
He also described China as being on a peaceful development path.
Japan administers the Senkaku Islands, though they are also claimed by China and Taiwan, which calls them the Diaoyu Islands (釣魚台).
Tensions have spiked in the past year and have led to Chinese and Japanese ships and aircraft playing cat and mouse with each other.
The white paper said Japanese fighters were scrambled more than 300 times against Chinese planes flying near Japan’s airspace in the year to March, a new record.
It reiterated accusations a Chinese frigate locked weapons-targeting radar on a Japanese destroyer in January — a claim Beijing has previously denied.
Since coming to power in December last year, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has cast doubt on Japan’s commitment to pacifism enshrined in a constitution imposed on the country by the US after the World War II.
Abe’s calls for constitutional revision have raised the ire of neighboring China, South Korea and North Korea, where memories of Japanese military and colonial occupation remain sensitive.
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
RSS