Japan has been expanding its self-defense forces, adding state-of-the-art F-35 fighter jets and turn warships into aircraft carriers for them. It is also building new destroyers, submarines and missiles, while observing its military spending remains pale compared to the increase in China’s military spending.
“Against Chinese action against the Senkaku Islands and other parts of the East China Sea … we must show that the government of Japan is resolutely defending our territory with a greater number of Japanese Coast Guard ships than the from China, ”Kishi said. “There is no territorial dispute related to the Senkaku Islands between Japan and other countries,” he added.
Tensions over the uninhabited rock chain (1,900 kilometers) southwest of Tokyo, but only a third of that distance from Shanghai, have remained simmering for years and claims over them go back centuries.
When tensions rose on the islands in 2012, it caused an abyss of nationalist sentiment in China. Public protests erupted in dozens of Chinese cities, with Japanese-branded car wrecks, vandalized Japanese shops and restaurants, and garbage at the Japanese embassy in Beijing.
At the governmental level, China has been as strident as Kishi is in claiming the island chain.
“Diaoyu Island and its affiliated islands are an inherent part of China’s territory, and it is our inherent right to conduct patrols and law enforcement activities in these waters,” the Foreign Ministry said. of China last year in a statement.
According to Japanese authorities, Chinese Coast Guard ships have ventured into Japanese territorial waters or less than 12 nautical miles from Japanese land, a total of 88 times between January 1 and late August. While in the contiguous area, waters between islands but not less than 12 miles from the coast, there have been 851 Chinese incursions.
Experts say China’s strategy is to place its forces in places in and around the disputed areas and exercise Beijing’s law and authority over them. This action makes the Chinese claims seem due.
“Exercising the rights of the coastal state is an important step in corroborating sovereignty through practice,” said Alessio Patalano, professor of warfare and strategy at King’s College London.
Kishi has noticed.
“There are actions that continue to challenge an integral part of Japan’s sovereign territory. These actions make it a consummate fact,” he said.
This “integral” Japanese territory extends even closer to another possible flashpoint of the Japan-China relationship.
The importance of Taiwan to Japan
The westernmost island of Japan is at the end of a series of Japanese possessions parallel to the Chinese coast and extending south about 1,125 kilometers (700 miles) from the main island of Kyushu, in through the military center of Okinawa and the tourist island of Ishigaki, to the small island of Yonaguni.
With its 11 square kilometers of rock and a population of less than 2,000, Yonaguni is just 110 kilometers from Taiwan, the democratically governed island over which Beijing claims sovereignty.
Taiwan and mainland China have been ruled separately since the end of a civil war more than seven decades ago.
Still, Beijing continues to see Taiwan as an inseparable part of its territory, even though the Chinese Communist Party has never ruled it.
China has intensified its military pressure on Taiwan. In June, it sent more than two dozen warplanes near the island, prompting Taiwan to alert its air defenses.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping says Taiwan must be brought under Beijing’s control and has not ruled out the use of force for this to happen.
That, Kishi said, has Tokyo in a state of constant surveillance.
At the time, Kishi said it should be controlled with “a sense of crisis.”
In his interview with CNN, he gave details.
“What is happening in Taiwan is directly related to Japan,” he said, noting that the island is straddling its country’s “energy lifeline”.
“Ninety percent of the energy Japan uses is imported through areas around Taiwan,” Kishi said.
It is a vulnerability that Tokyo needs to mitigate.
“What could happen in Taiwan could probably be a problem for Japan, and in that case, Japan will have to take the necessary response to this situation,” Kishi said, stressing that the tension should be spread through the dialogue and not violence.
But Tokyo doesn’t just use words to support its claims. He also strengthens his military defenses, puts missiles and troops at Yonaguni, and plans to do the same with nearby Ishigaki in the near future.
“This is to demonstrate our strong will to defend our southwestern area of Japanese territory,” Kishi said.
In this sense, Tokyo has a key ally in its corner, the United States.
U.S. President Joe Biden reaffirmed that security commitment shortly after his inauguration in January, with a White House statement specifically mentioning the Senkakus.
Kishi said this week that the alliance is being strengthened and, commenting on Senkakus’ situation, said Washington has its back to Tokyo.
“We will continue to conduct bilateral training with the U.S. and multilateral training with other partners to strengthen our stance and contribute to the peace and stability of this region,” he said, noting that naval exercises have been conducted or scheduled with partners such as France, the United Kingdom and Germany.
While aligning partners, Japan is also improving its own arsenal, including the development and acquisition of weapons systems that can attack areas far beyond Japanese territory.
Without saying which areas these more far-reaching systems could be targeted, the Japanese Defense Minister said it was important that the country’s army have the proper equipment to defend it from any threat.
CNN’s Eric Cheung, Emiko Jozuka and Junko Ogura contributed to this report.