Japan backs Australia against China’s economic coercion

Singapore: Japan has backed Australia’s campaign against China’s economic coercion, warning the superpower’s strikes have undermined the international order.

The move from Japan sandwiches China between the world’s first and third-largest economies after the United States said in May that it would not leave Australia to face Beijing alone.

It followed two hours of virtual meetings on Wednesday between Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi and Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne and Defence Minister Peter Dutton.

Japan's Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi.Credit: AP

“We commit to opposing coercion and destabilising behaviour by economic means, which undermines the rules-based international system,” the four ministers said after the meeting.

The joint statement is the most comprehensive outline of priorities released by the foreign and defence ministers of the two countries in recent memory. It follows more than two years of escalating tension between Australia and China over national security and human rights that culminated in Canberra tearing up China’s Belt and Road investment agreement with Victoria and China suspending the China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue in May.

Beijing has hit Australia with trade strikes covering more than $20 billion in exports over its calls for a coronavirus inquiry, business investment restrictions and public statements on human rights crackdowns in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

Japan has maintained diplomatic relations with its neighbour despite decades of territorial and historical disputes but there is growing disquiet in Tokyo about China’s militarisation of islands in the South China Sea, rising nationalism under President Xi Jinping and Beijing’s aggressive form of diplomacy.

For the first time, Australia and Japan also jointly identified Taiwan as a key flashpoint in global affairs by “underscoring the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and encourage the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues”.

The Chinese Communist Party views Taiwan, a democratic island of 24 million people, as a renegade province that must be united with the mainland. Dutton said in April that the possibility of conflict over Taiwan should not be discounted after Home Affairs Secretary Michael Pezzullo warned the “drums of war” were beating.

The joint statement said Japan and Australia were united by shared values, including an “unwavering commitment to democracy, human rights, free trade and a rules-based international order”.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Defence Minister Peter Dutton, on screen, attend a video conference with Japan’s Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi on Wednesday.Credit: AP

They singled out Xinjiang and Hong Kong as two areas of serious concern within China’s borders and called for independent inspectors to be allowed in to assess allegations of human rights abuse against the Muslim-minority Uighurs.

In a nod to China’s rising ambitions in the Indo-Pacific, the ministers said they underscored the importance of “a strong and enduring presence of the United States that underpins the peace, stability and prosperity” of the region. They said coercive and destabilising behaviour had increased tensions in the East and South China Seas, where China has made territorial claims that have been objected to at the United Nations.

The number of armed Chinese Coast Guard patrol vessels, some equipped with large automatic guns, has more than tripled over the past decade, according to Japanese Coast Guard data, raising fears that an accidental confrontation could spiral into a broader conflict.

“In this context, we reiterate our concerns over China’s Coast Guard Law in the context of the South China Sea,” the joint statement said.

Beijing has accused the US of using “coercive diplomacy” to gather allies around its strategic goals in the region and warned other countries against interfering in its internal affairs in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and its claims in the South and East China Seas.

The Chinese government has spent that past week rallying support among its neighbours in the Association of South-east Asian Nations, pledging vaccine support and economic cooperation in a series of in-person meetings in Chongqing, south-western China.

“Over the past three decades, China-ASEAN cooperation has grown in leaps and bounds, becoming the most successful and dynamic example of cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will on Thursday land in Singapore for a meeting with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as Australia looks to leverage the city-state’s influence in ASEAN.

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