China returned this Wednesday, November 26, to accuse Japan of increasing regional tension with the announced deployment of missiles on islands close to Taiwan, warning that it will “crush” any attempt at external interference in what it considers an internal matter.
Spokesperson of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council (Chinese Executive), Peng Qing’en, called Tokyo’s decision a “extremely dangerous provocation” and accused Japan of being “creating tension and fueling military confrontation” in an area just 110 kilometers from Taiwan.
“We have the firm will, determination and ability to safeguard China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and crush any attempt at external interference,” Peng said at a press conference in Beijing.
The spokesman accused Tokyo of violating the spirit of the country’s pacifist Constitution and moving towards “military expansion”, driven by “right-wing forces seeking to free themselves from post-war restrictions”.
Peng recalled that the Potsdam Declaration (1945) prohibited Japanese rearmament, stressing that this development “aroused the concern of the international community”.
The specific date for the deployment of this anti-missile system on a chain of islands near Taiwan, capable of intercepting aerial threats at an altitude of around 50 kilometers, has not yet been decided, but it corresponds to 14 new surface-to-air anti-missile units that the Japanese Government plans to install by 2031 to triple the protection systems in an area of special strategic interest.
China’s reaction comes at a time of maximum diplomatic tension between Beijing and Tokyo, following recent statements by new Japanese Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, who declared that a Chinese attack against Taiwan could justify the intervention of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces.
China demanded the retraction of the head of the Japanese Government, summoned the Japanese ambassador and issued official warnings advising Chinese citizens against traveling to Japan, which caused hundreds of thousands of flight cancellations and affected the Japanese tourist and cultural sector.
Tokyo, in turn, argued that the deployment of surface-to-air missiles on the islands of the Nansei archipelago responds exclusively to defense purposes and is part of the security strategy adopted in 2022, in the midst of Tokyo’s historic shift towards rearmament.
The Japanese Ministry of Defense reported this week the incursion of a Chinese drone between the island of Yonaguni and Taiwan, which justified the sending of fighter jets.