BEIJING: China has taken its widening spat with Japan to the United Nations, accusing Tokyo of threatening \u201can armed intervention\u201d over Taiwan and vowing to defend itself in its strongest language yet in the two-week-old dispute.<\/p>\n
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi committed \u201ca grave violation of international law\u201d and diplomatic norms when she said a Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Tokyo, China\u2019s UN Ambassador Fu Cong wrote in a letter on Friday to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Japan dares to attempt an armed intervention in the cross-Strait situation, it would be an act of aggression,\u201d Fu wrote, according to a statement from China\u2019s UN mission. \u201cChina will resolutely exercise its right of self-defense under the UN Charter and international law and firmly defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Biggest bilateral crisis in years<\/p>\n
Beijing views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has not ruled out the use of force to take control of the island. Taiwan\u2019s government rejects Beijing\u2019s claims and says only the island\u2019s people can decide their future.<\/p>\n
Japan\u2019s Foreign Ministry and Prime Minister\u2019s Office could not immediately be reached on Saturday for comment on Fu\u2019s letter, the strongest criticism of Takaichi yet from a senior Chinese official in the biggest bilateral crisis in years.<\/p>\n
Takaichi, a conservative nationalist who took office last month, ditched the ambiguity that Japan and the US have long used regarding Taiwan when she told a questioner in parliament on November 7 that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan \u2014 which lies just over 100 km (60 miles) from Japanese territory \u2014 could be deemed \u201ca situation threatening Japan\u2019s survival.\u201d<\/p>\n
That is a legal designation that allows a Japanese prime minister to deploy the nation\u2019s military.<\/p>\n
Takaichi\u2019s remarks sparked the tit-for-tat dispute with China that has spilled beyond diplomacy in recent days, with China saying it has \u201cseverely damaged\u201d trade cooperation, while concerts of Japanese musicians in China have been abruptly canceled.<\/p>\n
Fu demanded that Japan \u201cstop making provocations and crossing the line, and retract its erroneous remarks,\u201d which he said were \u201copenly challenging China\u2019s core interests.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ahead of this year\u2019s 80th anniversary of Japan\u2019s World War Two defeat, Beijing has increasingly invoked Tokyo\u2019s wartime atrocities and China\u2019s postwar role in setting up the UN as it criticizes its Asian neighbor and seeks to reshape the international governance system.<\/p>\n
China, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, has repeatedly emphasized two postwar declarations envisioning that Taiwan and other territories that had been occupied by Japan would be \u201crestored\u201d to Chinese rule.<\/p>\n
The Potsdam and Cairo declarations form the basis for China\u2019s legal claims of sovereignty over Taiwan, though many governments view them as statements of intent, not legally binding accords.<\/p>\n
Moreover, the declarations were signed by the Republic of China government, which fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong\u2019s communists. Taiwan held China\u2019s UN seat until 1971, when it was transferred to the Beijing government of the People\u2019s Republic of China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BEIJING: China has taken its widening spat with Japan to the United Nations, accusing Tokyo of threatening \u201can armed intervention\u201d over Taiwan and vowing to defend itself in its strongest language yet in the two-week-old dispute. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi committed \u201ca grave violation of international law\u201d and diplomatic norms when she said a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":90010,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89996"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90011,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89996\/revisions\/90011"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}