Chinese, Japanese officials meet amid tensions with Taiwan

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese and Japanese officials are meeting in northern China amid renewed tensions over Beijing’s military threats against Taiwan and after Tokyo protested China’s missile launches at Japan’s exclusive economic zone during recent military exercises.

Wednesday’s meeting between Senior Foreign Affairs Advisor Yang Jiechi and Japan’s National Security Secretary Akiba Takeo followed China’s cancellation of a meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries after Japan signed a declaration of the Group of Seven industrialized countries. criticizing China’s threatening war games around Taiwan earlier this month.

Japan issued diplomatic protests over China’s missile launches into its exclusive economic zone during the drills, in which Chinese warplanes and navy ships crossed the middle of the Taiwan Strait, which has long been a buffer between the sides.

China claims Taiwan as its own territory, to be forcibly annexed if necessary. The former Japanese colony has been under Chinese military threat since Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government fled to the island in 1949 when Mao Zedong’s Communist Party took control of mainland China.

In his comments to Takeo, Yang said “the Taiwan issue has to do with the political basis of China-Japan relations and the basic trust and good faith between the two countries,” the official news agency reported on Thursday. Chinese Xinhua.

“Japan should… shape a correct perception of China, pursue a positive, pragmatic and rational China policy, and uphold the correct direction of peaceful development,” Yang was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

China’s nearly two-week military exercises around Taiwan followed US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island in defiance of threats from Beijing.

China announced more drills in response to a visit by another congressional delegation this week, but has not said when or where they will take place.

The exercises appear to have had little impact on Taiwan’s more than 23 million people, who overwhelmingly favor the status quo of de facto independence while maintaining strong economic ties with China.

Takeo met earlier this month with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan in Washington, during which they “reiterated the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and reinforced their resolve to stand united against Russia’s unjust and unprovoked war against Ukraine and united in support of the Ukrainian people,” the State Department said in a press release.

China’s threats against Taiwan have been compared to Russia’s invasion of its neighbor. Shortly before Moscow sent troops in February, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping met in Beijing, where they declared that their relationship had “no limits” and Russia supported China’s claim to Taiwan.

Many Chinese also resent Japan for its brutal invasion and occupation of parts of the country during the 1930s and 1940s, sentiments that were kept alive by Communist Party propaganda.

In an incident widely reported on social media, a Chinese woman wearing a traditional Japanese kimono was recently detained by police in the eastern city of Hangzhou for allegedly creating a riot. She was reportedly released without charge after writing an apology.

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