Japan accuses China of exploiting the global COVID-19 pandemic to advance it military, political and economic interests in Asia while relentlessly violating the integrity of its territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.
A defense white paper released Tuesday by the government of prime minister Abe Shinzo also blasted China for spreading propaganda and disinformation even as it provides medical aid to other countries fighting COVID-19.
It assails China for "continuing to attempt to alter the status quo in the East China Sea and the South China Sea." In unusually blunt language, the white paper describes China's "relentless" intrusions in waters around the Senkakus, which Japan and Taiwan also claim.
"Despite protests by our country, Chinese official ships repeatedly intruded into our territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands," said the report.
China has continuously asserted territorial claims in the South China Sea by establishing two administrative districts (Xisha and Nansha), illegally extending Chinese law over disputed islands claimed by the Philippines and Vietnam. To ensure it has the muscle to back up its territorial claims, China is now spending four times more on defense compared with Japan to expand and modernize its military.
For these reasons, Japan still sees China as the more serious and longer-term threat to its national security and national interests compared with North Korea. China's continuing aggression warrants close attention as "security issues," according to the white paper.
Japan now calls for "international cooperation and collaboration" to thwart China's geopolitical ambitions.
The release of the white paper Tcame only one day after the United States formally rejected all of China's maritime claims to ownership of practically the entire South China Sea.
On Monday, U.S. Secretary of state Mike Pompeo condemned China for its unlawful claim to own most of the South China Sea and for bullying other Asian nations with claims to those waters.
"Beijing's claims to offshore resources across most of the South China Sea are completely unlawful, as is its campaign of bullying to control them," said Pompeo.
He said the world won't allow China to treat the South China Sea as its maritime empire. He emphasized "the United States stands with its Southeast Asian allies and partners in protecting their sovereign rights to offshore resources consistent with their rights and obligations under international law."
Pompeo made the annoucement even as two powerful carrier strike groups (CSGs) centered around the nuclear powered supercarriers, USS Nimitz (CVN-68) and the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76), together patrol the South China Sea.
