Japan feels diplomatic squeeze as US-China tensions rise

Escalating tensions over Taiwan and Tokyo’s own territorial disputes with Beijing threaten decades of balanced diplomacy

Japanese agreement with US that China is a common threat shows a country under pressure because of its geographic importance, experts say

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Published: 1:12pm, 7 Apr 2021Updated: 7:35pm, 7 Apr 2021

China and Japan have decades of experience in managing their regular diplomatic crises, but escalating tensions over Taiwan and territorial disputes in the East China Sea are creating a new test for Asia’s most powerful giants.

Last month’s agreement between US and Japanese defence ministers to single out China as a common threat – and the earlier face-off in Alaska between senior Chinese and US diplomats – indicated rising US-China tensions were pushing Japan to side with the US because of its geographic importance in the region, experts said.

“It’s an unusual move for Japan to join with the US to single out China as a common threat in their ‘two-plus-two’ dialogues,” said Andrei Chang, editor-in-chief of the Canada-based Kanwa Defence Review.

Japan had long refrained from commenting on Taiwan – which Beijing sees as a breakaway province to be returned to the mainland, by force if necessary – instead encouraging “dialogue for a peaceful solution to cross-strait tensions”, Chang said, because of the consequences of offending a rising China.

But, in a joint statement on March 17, Japanese and US defence chiefs said they had agreed to closely cooperate in the event of a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait.

The Kyodo news agency reported that Tokyo had been reviewing the feasibility of issuing a Self-Defence Force (SDF) dispatch order to protect US military ships and planes in the event of a crisis between mainland China and Taiwan, given the strait’s geographical proximity and the possibility that an armed conflict there would affect the safety of Japanese citizens.