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A Chinese aircraft carrier task group led by Liaoning is currently conducting what Beijing has called a “routine” combat exercise east of Taiwan, while the U.S. military monitors the drill in the Pacific and deploys the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group to the South China Sea.

These are signs that the U.S., China, and Taiwan are locked in a “vicious cycle” as tensions continue to rise in the region, according to Ma Chen-kun, a professor with the Graduate Institute of China Military Affairs Studies at National Defense University in Taoyuan in northeastern Taiwan.

The Taiwan Strait now resembles the Balkans before the outbreak of the First World War, Ma added, saying the “window for peace”—a non-violent resolution to relations between China and Taiwan—was growing ever smaller.

“Although no country intends to trigger a war, the powder kegs of war are spread throughout the Taiwan Strait and the surrounding region,” he was quoted as saying.

His remarks came on the day Taiwan’s defense ministry reported four People’s Liberation Army aircraft sorties into the island’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), a self-declared buffer that is not regulated under international law. On Monday, as Liaoning and five accompanying Chinese warships entered the Western Pacific, the PLA flew 10 fighter jets and reconnaissance planes into the ADIZ.

Tuesday’s panel, which discussed Secretary of State Antony Blinken‘s visits to Asia and Europe, included Li Shih-hui, a professor at National Chengchi University (NCCU) in Taipei.

Blinken’s foreign visits to Tokyo, Seoul, and Brussels—the first diplomatic calls of the new administration—demonstrated President Joe Biden‘s foreign policy strategy of re-establishing the common interests of American and its allies, Li said.

By prioritizing its competition with Beijing and doing so from the perspectives of human rights and security, the Biden administration had created a contrast between the U.S. and China, highlighting the latter’s threat to regional order in Asia, the professor added.

The strategic significance of Taiwan has risen on the agenda in discussions between Washington and Tokyo, said Li, who is with NCCU’s Japan Studies program. The island’s increased visibility on the international stage was a “diplomatic breakthrough,” he added but said it had dragged Taiwan into the larger U.S.-China battle for supremacy.

Despite the support it has received for its technological advancements and human rights achievements, Taiwan needed to be agile and flexible in order to meet the strategic challenges ahead, Li concluded.

Amid warnings from Beijing, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on Sunday stressed the importance of Taiwan’s peace and stability to the region. He said he hoped to work with President Biden to lower cross-strait tensions.

“It is important for Japan and the United States to cooperate and use deterrence to create an environment where Taiwan and China can find a peaceful solution,” he said in a television interview.

Suga and Biden are scheduled to hold a summit in Washington on April 16, according to the White House.

The two leaders will reportedly mention peace across the Taiwan Strait as a mutual concern in a joint statement to be released following the Biden administration’s first in-person visit by a foreign leader.

Taiwan’s outlying Kinmen Islands, in the foreground, lie less than 3 miles from the deep-water port of Xiamen, a city in China’s eastern province of Fujian. The Taiwan Strait, just 80 miles wide at its narrowest point, separates China and Taiwan’s main island.AN RONG XU/GETTY IMAGES

Source: https://www.newsweek.com/taiwan-strait-powder-keg-that-could-set-off-world-war-military-expert-warns-1581277

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Japan‘s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and President Joe Biden will together stress the importance of stability in the Taiwan Strait following their summit in Washington next month, reports Nikkei Asia, but the rare joint statement “will definitely” harm relations between Tokyo and Beijing, China’s state-owned Global Times said in an op-ed on Tuesday.

“If the passage on Taiwan is included in the joint statement after the summit between Suga and Biden, the hit will be grave,” the author wrote in the nationalistic tabloid, saying Tokyo’s decision to take a position on Taiwan “impairs China’s national interests.”

“China will take countermeasures against it,” the author said, adding “Japan’s loss will sharply outweigh its gain” if it sides with Washington, which has issued statements in support of democratic Taiwan amid continued military pressure from Beijing since Biden took office.

Global Times, which presents some of the Chinese government’s most hawkish views, did not reveal how exactly Beijing would react if the upcoming U.S.-Japan statement calls attention to Taiwan’a security. Tuesday’s report by Nikkei Asia says Taipei has not been jointly mentioned by the two countries’ leaders for over half a century.

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“We believe, given the increasingly difficult security environment surrounding Japan, it is appropriate to make steady and realistic progress toward nuclear disarmament while maintaining and strengthening our deterrence capabilities to deal with threats,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said at a news conference.

“Japan shares the goal of this treaty, the abolition of nuclear weapons, … but as we differ in how to approach the issue, we will not become a signatory,” he said, referring to the pact that is set to take effect in January.

As the only country to have suffered a nuclear attack, Japan has sought to present itself as a leader in international efforts for nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.

But Japan also depends on the U.S. nuclear umbrella to protect it from threats including North Korean missiles, preventing it from endorsing an all-out ban on the production, use, and stockpiling of nuclear weapons.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is set to enter into force on Jan. 22 after Honduras on Saturday became the 50th country to ratify it. No nuclear powers have endorsed the pact.

Survivors of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and other antinuclear activists have urged the administration of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to sign onto the historic but largely symbolic treaty.

Source: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/10/26/national/japan-un-nuclear-ban-treaty/

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Yukio Okamoto, a diplomacy analyst and former advisor to past Japanese prime ministers, in 2015. KYODO VIA AP IMAGES

It was a shock for many of us in Japan’s diplomatic corps to hear that our former colleague and incisive commentator Yukio Okamoto, who always appeared robust and full of energy, had succumbed to pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus last month. Okamoto’s death is a tragic loss for everyone involved in U.S.-Japan affairs at a critical time in the two country’s relations.

Okamoto, who died on April 24 at age 74, followed a couple of years behind me as, successively, politico-military officer at the Japanese Embassy in Washington (1983-1985) and then as director of the Japan-U.S. security affairs desk and the Japan-U.S. political affairs desk in the North American Bureau of the foreign ministry (1988-1991). He continued his abiding commitment to the Japan-U.S. alliance for decades after he established his own consultancy, earning the nickname “Mr. Nichibei Kankei” (Mr. Japan-U.S. Relations). In his comments to the public broadcaster NHK, Richard Armitage, a former U.S. deputy secretary of state and assistant secretary of defense, who had worked closely with Okamoto over the years, called him a “giant” and a true patriot.

Okamoto was far from the image of a conventional buttoned-up diplomat. He preferred acting on the spot to being desk-bound. While he was heading the Japan-U.S. political desk at the foreign ministry, the only sign of his presence was said to be his suit jacket draped over the back of his chair. Even his superiors did not know where he had gone AWOL, possibly running around the halls of the National Diet members’ office buildings or somewhere meeting his American contacts or opinion-makers in business, academia, and other circles.

As far as national security was concerned, Okamoto was considered a hawk or a conservative realist. In Japan, the domestic debate over the country’s place in the world was largely influenced by the idealistic pacifism and anti-militaristic tendencies caused by defeat in World War II. But Okamoto was consistently an advocate of a proactive Japanese role under the Japan-U.S. alliance and in the context of global peace and security.

In February 1986, there was a serious test of how Japan might inject itself into the early phase of the negotiations on the reduction of intermediate-range nuclear forces between the United States and the Soviet Union. Edward Rowny, U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s special envoy to the arms talks, came to Tokyo to broach to the Japanese leaders the U.S. proposal, in response to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s Jan. 15 disarmament proposal, to remove all Soviet SS-20 missiles from Europe (west of the Ural Mountains) and reduce the SS-20s in Asia by half.

This would create new and difficult circumstances for Japan, because the SS-20s remaining in Asia would pose a serious threat to the country, affecting the credibility of the U.S. nuclear deterrent. Okamoto and three other colleagues in the foreign ministry subsequently dubbed the “Gang of Four” by their American counterparts, crafted in a rush the Japanese counterproposal, which was to concentrate all the SS-20s in the central Soviet Union (Barnaul, southwest Siberia) so that Japan and Western Europe would share the risk equally in the sense that they would both be within the striking range of the missile.

Okamoto immediately flew to Washington to brief Bob Linhard, the assistant to the president on arms control, on the Japanese counterproposal contained in Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone’s letter to Reagan. Some years later, Okamoto said that his American counterpart found the sharply focused specificity, as opposed to a simple “no,” of the Japanese counterproposal “very refreshing.” Influenced by the Japanese idea, Reagan presented to Gorbachev a revised version of his 1981 zero option, calling for the “elimination [by 1990] of U.S. Pershing II, GLCMs, and Soviet SS-20 missiles not only in Europe but in Asia as well.” In July 1987, the Soviets accepted the double global option to eliminate all intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe and Asia and all short-range missiles worldwide, leading to the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in December 1987.

Japan was ill-prepared to tackle the challenge posed by the Gulf War of 1990.

Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu’s government at the time was still conditioned to avoid entrapment in America’s wars and was not ready to send Japan Self-Defense Forces troops to help the United States and the other coalition members. Japan instead chose to contribute by way of providing $13 billion in total to the war efforts, doled out in several installments and derided as too little, too late by the U.S. Congress and media. Amid this challenge, Okamoto spearheaded the efforts among working-level officials to supply as much materiel as possible to aid the U.S. military indirectly. He rushed into the Japan Seamen’s Union office and successfully persuaded them to dispatch ships to supply four-wheel-drive vehicles to the U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf area.

Kunihiko Miyake, a diplomat focused on the Middle East, was working with Okamoto at the time on Japan’s materiel support to the U.S. military. Miyake admired Okamoto, 10 years senior to him, as a man of ideas, action, and persuasive power. In 1991, Okamoto surprised his colleagues by leaving his foreign ministry job to start his own political and economic consultancy. In a recent radio interview, Miyake surmised that Okamoto must have decided to make the best use of his talents by thinking and acting outside the “box” of the bureaucracy.

Even in the private sector, Okamoto’s work was dedicated to Japan’s positive role in the world. In 2003 and 2004, as Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s special advisor, Okamoto played a key role in overseeing preparations for Japan’s assistance to Iraq’s reconstruction efforts following the U.S. invasion. This included the dispatching of Japan Self-Defense Forces troops there for humanitarian reconstruction assistance. Thus he was actively involved in translating into reality what he had been advocating since the Gulf War over a decade earlier, namely, Japanese forces playing a proactive role for international security. Miyake, then acting head of mission in Baghdad, again worked closely with Okamoto, whom he saw as a mentor and role model, amid the tension and turbulence. Following in Okamoto’s footsteps, he also resigned from the foreign ministry shortly afterward and is now active as a foreign-policy commentator.

One of the most painful issues in U.S.-Japan relations has long been the status of Okinawa, where the presence of U.S. troops is controversial among locals. Okamoto was appointed by Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto as special assistant on issues related to the island from 1996 to 1998. He felt deep empathy for the burden borne by the people of Okinawa.

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US President Donald Trump has been adamant about reducing its trade deficit with other nations, while two-thirds of Japan’s trade surplus with the US comprises vehicle sales [File: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg]

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TOKYO — 

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday became the first foreign leader to meet with Japan’s Emperor Naruhito, who ascended to the throne May 1.

Trump, who began a four-day visit to Japan on Saturday, started his formal visit on Monday, meeting with Naruhito and Empress Masako.

Trump and first lady Melania Trump took part in an elaborate welcoming ceremony at the Imperial Palace shortly after 9 a.m. local time.

The U.S. delegation was greeted at the palace by several dozen elementary schoolchildren waving Japanese and American flags. A military band played the U.S. “Star Spangled Banner” and Kimigayo anthems.

Later Monday, Trump will attend meetings at the Japanese state guest house, where he and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are expected to discuss trade and defense matters.

No quick breakthrough on trade is expected although both leaders have expressed a desire for a bilateral trade pact after Trump pulled the United States out of the comprehensive 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Tokyo had spearheaded with Washington under Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama.

Abe and Trump will hold a joint news conference Monday afternoon.

The emperor is hosting an imperial banquet at the palace Monday night.

On Sunday, Trump and National Security Advisor John Bolton were publicly at odds about the seriousness of the threat currently posed by North Korea.

In a Sunday morning tweet from Tokyo, Trump issued a retort to Bolton who the previous day here had told reporters that there was “no doubt” North Korea’s recent test firing of short-range ballistic missiles violated a United Nations resolution.

Bolton’s remark was the first by a U.S. official describing the North Korean launches as a violation of U.N. resolutions.

“North Korea fired off some small weapons which disturbed some of my people and others, but not me,” said Trump in his tweet.

Trump’s tweet on North Korea caused confusion and consternation, not only within the administration but also among America’s allies in the region, acknowledged senior White House officials traveling with the president

Some analysts say the missile launches are indeed a concern.

“It’s pretty clear the missile launch was a violation of U.N. sanctions, whatever the range. The reality is that U.S. forces and civilians in South Korea and Japan are already in range of North Koreans missiles, so accepting shorter or mid-range missiles puts the United States at risk, not to mention our allies Japan and the Republic of Korea,” Kevin Maher, a Washington security consultant and a former head of the State Department’s Office of Japan Affairs, tells VOA. “These realities are inconvenient if the objective is to show a personal relationship with the dictator Kim Jung UN will stop North Korea’s continuing nuclear and missile programs.”

The U.S. president also expressed confidence the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, “will keep his promise to me” in moving towards denuclearization.

Trump in the tweet also said he smiled when Kim called former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden “a low IQ individual.”

The initial presidential tweet misspelled the Democratic Party presidential contender’s name as “Bidan” and was later replaced. And it was not Kim who made the disparaging remark about Biden, rather an unsigned commentary carried by North Korea’s central news agency, which referred to the American politician as a “fool of low IQ” and an “imbecile bereft of elementary quality as a human being.”

Trump concluded his tweet by stating that perhaps Kim was trying “to send me a signal” — apparently a reference that the leader in Pyongyang prefers to negotiate with the current American president over the opposition party’s top-polling contender.

Trump and Kim have held two summits – in Singapore and Hanoi. Neither has led to any significant breakthroughs although the meetings were seen as reducing tensions between the two countries which have no diplomatic relations and their leaders had never met before.

The United States and North Korea were belligerents in a three-year war in the early 1950’s which devastated the Korean peninsula. It ended with an armistice, but no peace treaty has ever been signed.

Bolton, who 13 months ago replaced retired Army General H.R. McMaster as the president’s national security adviser, is known as a hardliner who distrusts Pyongyang’s intentions.

North Korea has a long track record of violating international agreements and has repeatedly defied U.N. sanctions against its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

Before Trump departs Japan on Tuesday, he is to visit the naval base at Yokosuka to tour a Japanese helicopter carrier and address American service personnel in conjunction with the U.S. Memorial Day holiday (observed on Monday).

Source: https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-meets-japan-emperor-naruhito-at-imperial-palace/4933728.html

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TOKYO – US Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday (Nov 13) reaffirmed the need to work with Japan to maintain the sanctions campaign on North Korea until its denuclearisation, while also keeping up pressure on Tokyo to reduce its trade surplus with the United States.

The Vice President’s remarks on North Korea, made in Tokyo with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe beside him, came a day after a report by a US think-tank, Center for Strategic and International Studies, showed that Pyongyang was secretly moving ahead with its ballistic missile program with 16 hidden bases.

South Korea’s presidential office on Tuesday sought to play down the think-tank’s report, saying that the information was “not new” and that the New York Times had gone too far in labelling the North’s continued activity as a “great deception”.

“The sanctions will remain in full force until we achieve the final, fully-verified denuclearisation of North Korea,” Mr Pence said. “The United States, Japan and the world will accept nothing less.”

The denuclearisation process is at a crossroads amid pushback from China, Russia and South Korea on the question of sanctions. All three have now called for a gradual easing of sanctions, saying they are not constructive towards denuclearisation since US President Donald Trump met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore in June.

A planned meeting between US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and North Korean officials in New York on Nov 8  was cancelled without any given reason. South Korea’s unification minister Cho Myoung-gyon departed Seoul on Tuesday for a five-day visit to the US.

Mr Abe, on his part, said: “North Korea has its own abundant resources and diligent workforce, and its denuclearisation will herald the dawn of a bright future. And on the premise of resolving the various problems, Japan and the US will continue to work together.”

Japan was Mr Pence’s first stop on a four-country tour of the region, which also takes him to Singapore and Papua New Guinea where he, along with Mr Abe, will attend multilateral meetings held in conjunction with the Asean and Apec summits.

The two leaders will also make a brief stopover in Australia after the Singapore leg.

On the issue of trade, Mr Pence said the US was looking forward to ironing out a bilateral deal with Japan, with an eye on slashing Japan’s trade surplus of US$68.9 billion ($95.3b). Talks are due to begin in January.

“The US has had a trade imbalance with Japan for too long,” Mr Pence said. “American products and services too often face barriers to compete fairly in Japanese markets. The best opportunity for free, fair and reciprocal trade will come in a bilateral trade agreement.”

Japan has said that the new Trade Agreement on Goods will be limited in scope, and that it will not consider any terms that are “detrimental to national interest”, nor any terms that go beyond what was agreed under the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal that Mr Trump abandoned in his first act in office.

Mr Abe, speaking before Mr Pence, told the news conference that Japan will work with the US to “further expand bilateral trade and investment in a mutually beneficial manner.”

He also said he discussed the outcomes of his landmark visit to Beijing last month with Mr Pence, and that Japan and the US will cooperate to ensure constructive dialogue with China.

Meanwhile, the two leaders pledged to uphold their vision of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific, which Mr Abe described as one “where big and small countries can participate and all countries can flourish”.

The US, Japan, along with Australia, are reportedly teaming up to finance infrastructure in such areas as energy and digital connectivity, from liquefied natural gas terminals to undersea cables.

The US and Japan on Tuesday pledged to jointly earmark up to US$70 billion in support of the endeavour, which Mr Abe said showed their joint commitment to the “economic development of the Indo-Pacific region that is free, open and based on fair rules”.

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