Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Officials rebuke China before talks
U.S. envoys used a visit to Tokyo to criticize “destabilizing actions” by China in its military forays in the region.
TOKYO — Just days before the Biden administration’s first face-to-face encounter with China, two senior U.S. envoys used a visit to Tokyo on Tuesday to set a confrontational tone for the talks, rebuking what they called “coercion” and “destabilizing actions” by China in its increasingly aggressive military forays in the region.
Following a flurry of meetings, U.S. and Japanese officials issued a two-page statement that left little doubt that President Joe Biden would defy China in territorial disputes, challenges to democracy and other regional crises. Its robust censure of Beijing represented the kind of vigorous approach that Japan has been seeking from the United States after four years of skepticism worldwide about whether the U.S. would remain a reliable ally.
Accusing Beijing of violating the “international order” with maritime claims and activities, the statement defended Japan’s right to administer the uninhabited Senkaku Islands, which are also claimed by China. It also called for stability in the Taiwan Strait, as some U.S. military officials see a growing chance that China will move to assert sovereignty over self-governing Taiwan in the coming years.
After Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi referred to an “increasingly tense security environment” at the start of a meeting Tuesday, the two U.S. officials — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken — offered reassurance.
“We will push back when necessary when China uses coercion or aggression to try to get its way,” Blinken said. Austin noted Beijing’s “destabilizing actions” in the South and East China Seas, saying, “Our goal is to make sure that we maintain a competitive edge over China or anyone else that would want to threaten us or our alliance.”
Taken together, the Americans’ statements amounted to the most explicit admonishment in recent years by U.S. diplomats of Chinese provocations toward Japan and the rest of the region. They offered a taste of what is likely to come Thursday, when Blinken is to meet in Alaska with two Chinese officials in the Biden administration’s opening bid to define the limits of its relationship with Beijing.
For Japan, the meetings offered comfort for those who had worried that Biden might back down from the Trump administration’s tough stance against Beijing.
Toshiyuki Ito, a retired vice admiral who is now a professor of crisis management and international relations at Kanazawa Institute of Technology, said the visit by Blinken and Austin signaled that “America has changed from ‘America First’ to putting importance on the alliance.”
Near the top of the agenda for Japan was the Senkaku, a string of rocky outcrops in the East China Sea.
For years, China has sent boats into or near Japan’s territorial waters around the disputed islands, known as the Diaoyu in China.
U.S. officials have voiced concern that Chinese and Japanese coast guard forces could be drawn into a shooting match as they patrol the island chain and are authorized by their governments to use deadly force to defend them. Last year, Chinese ships spent a total of 333 days in Japan’s contiguous waters, the longest time on record, according to the Japanese Defense Ministry.
A senior U.S. defense official also noted repeated incursions by Chinese military aircraft into Japan’s “air defense identification zone” — an area that extends hundreds of miles from the Japanese mainland and includes the Senkakus — which are often met by Japanese fighter jets.
Tensions have also recently flared in the Taiwan Strait. In January, China flew four warplanes over the waterway, in what was interpreted as a show of force just after Biden took office.