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JAPAN, U.S. HOLDING SECURITY TALKS ON CHINA’S THREAT
- By The Financial District
- Mar 16, 2021
- 2 min read
Japanese and US foreign and defense ministers are set to closely coordinate on steps to strengthen the bilateral alliance at security talks Tuesday, March 16, 2021, in Tokyo as China puts forth increasingly coercive measures across the Indo-Pacific region, Junko Horiuchi reported for Kyodo News.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are in Japan for the first Cabinet-level overseas trip under President Joe Biden's administration, looking to work with Tokyo in addressing China, which Washington describes as "the biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century."
The US. secretaries and Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi will criticize China by name in a joint statement to be issued after the so-called two-plus-plus meeting, according to Japanese government sources.
It is rare for such a document to single out a country, a sign that Tokyo and Washington have raised their alert level over the threat Beijing poses militarily, economically, and to violations of human rights.
Specifically, the ministers will express concerns about China's implementation last month of a law that would enable Chinese coast guard ships to fire on vessels around the Senkaku Islands, a group of Japanese-controlled islets claimed by China, which calls them Diaoyu.
Chinese coast guard vessels have repeatedly intruded into Japanese waters around the islets in an apparent attempt to undermine Tokyo's control.
The statement is also expected to explicitly layout that the Senkaku Islands fall within the scope of Article 5 of the bilateral security treaty, meaning the US would defend Japan in the event of a conflict there, the sources said.
Following the two-plus-two meeting, the first of its kind since April 2019, the US secretaries will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.
The premier has been invited to the White House in the first half of April for talks with Biden as the first foreign leader to do so in person. In the two-plus-two talks, the ministers are also expected to express concerns about Beijing's widely reported human rights abuses against the Muslim Uyghur minority in China's far-western Xinjiang region.
