Beijing renews warning to Tokyo: don’t stir up trouble with Taiwan

Ties with Tokyo may be on the mend but Japan should not use Taiwan to stir up trouble in the region, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned on Friday.

While praising “a positive trend of improvement and development” in relations with Tokyo, Wang said there were still people in Japan colluding secretly with the “Taiwan independence” forces.

“We want to warn these people that instead of advocating ‘if there is trouble in Taiwan, there will be trouble in Japan’, it is better to remember that if you use Taiwan to cause trouble, you are actually causing trouble for Japan,” he said on the sidelines of the “two sessions” in Beijing.

Japan had occupied Taiwan since the end of the first Sino-Japanese war in 1895 but withdrew after losing in the second Sino-Japanese war in 1945, when the island was returned to China, then ruled by the Kuomintang. A four-year civil war then erupted between the KMT and the Communist Party, resulting in the KMT fleeing to Taiwan.

Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary. Most countries, including the United States, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the self-governed island by force and is committed to supplying it with weapons.

Improvements in relations with Beijing could offset some of the uncertainty Tokyo is facing in its relationship with Washington.

  

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