New foreign minister calls for constructive and stable ties with China
Japan’s new foreign minister said it was important to have constructive and stable ties with China while calling for responsible behaviour from its giant neighbour.
Staunch US ally Japan has recently been more outspoken on questioning China’s assertiveness on issues such as the disputed South China Sea and self-ruled Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory.
“Ties between Japan and China are increasingly important not just for our two countries, but for the peace and prosperity of the region and the international community,” Yoshimasa Hayashi said in his first news conference, held yesterday.
“We need to assert and ask for responsible behaviour while at the same time, maintain dialogue and firmly cooperate on shared challenges,” he said.
He did not elaborate on what he meant by responsible behaviour.
Ties between Japan and China have been plagued for years by a territorial dispute over a group of tiny East China Sea islets as well as the legacy of Tokyo’s past military aggression.
Meanwhile, Japan’s ruling party plans to review its defence posture amid China’s military build-up and it aims to increase defence spending sharply.
Hayashi said time was not ripe to set a date for a visit to Japan by President Xi Jinping because of the coronavirus pandemic.
A state visit by Xi was originally scheduled for 2020 but was postponed because of Covid-19.
In the wake of other security challenges such as the threat posed by North Korea’s missile and nuclear programmes, Hayashi underscored the increasing importance of the alliance between Japan and the United States, calling it “the basis for peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region”.
On South Korea, Hayashi demanded “appropriate actions” by Seoul to resolve disputes over wartime labour and compensation based on Japan’s position so that the two countries could restore a “healthy relationship”.
Hayashi, a 60-year-old lower house lawmaker often seen as holding a “pro-China” stance, also said he has decided to quit as the head of a cross-party parliamentary group promoting Japan-China friendship, after serving for about four years, “to avoid causing unnecessary misunderstanding”.
There have been doubts among conservative lawmakers in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party that Hayashi, as the head of the group, could take a firm stand on China, media has said.
Yuko Obuchi, a former trade minister and daughter of former prime minister Keizo Obuchi, would take over as head of the group, the Kyodo news agency reported.
Hayashi had previously served as defence, agriculture, education, and economic and fiscal policy minister, and was named foreign minister by Fumio Kishida, who was re-elected as prime minister after his ruling coalition won a general election last month.
Hayashi graduated from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government before winning a House of Councillors seat in 1995.