Tokyo and Beijing plan to hold a security dialogue, possibly later this month, sources from the two governments have said, amid diplomatic tensions over suspected Chinese spy balloons flown over Japan in the past few years.
The dialogue in Japan would take place after the Japanese Defense Ministry said earlier in the week that at least three unidentified flying objects spotted over the country’s territorial airspace from 2019 to 2021 are “strongly suspected” to have been Chinese unmanned spy balloons.
It would involve the countries’ senior foreign affairs and defense officials, including Senior Deputy Foreign Minister Shigeo Yamada, the sources said Friday. The previous meeting took place in Beijing in February 2019.
China has criticized Japan for “making up stories to smear and attack” Beijing without clear evidence, urging Tokyo to refrain from following the United States in “hyping up” the balloon incident.
The announcement by Japan on Tuesday came as the ministry reanalyzed past cases of unidentified flying objects after the United States downed a Chinese balloon on Feb. 4 off the coast of South Carolina, renewing tensions between Washington and Beijing.
In an effort to dispel concerns over how Japan should respond in the event a Chinese spy balloon is sighted, the government has decided to ease the requirements for the Self-Defense Forces to use weapons against unmanned flying objects that violate its airspace.
Potential topics in the dialogue include Japan’s long-term policy guidelines in its new National Security Strategy, which was updated in December, and the situation over Taiwan, a self-ruled democratic island that China views as part of its territory, the sources said.
The two East Asian powers have also been at loggerheads over issues such as Beijing’s claim to the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, with Chinese coast guard vessels repeatedly entering Japanese waters around the Tokyo-controlled uninhabited islets. Beijing calls the islands Diaoyu.
In a meeting in November in Bangkok, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed to boost communication through the security dialogue and resume a hotline between defense officials at an early date, according to the Japanese government.
(japantimes.co.jp)
