China blasts new remarks by Japan's prime minister on Taiwan's legal status

Beijing said on Thursday that it firmly opposes Tokyo's attempt to hype and trumpet the so-called notion of the undetermined status of Taiwan, which "just compounds its wrongdoing".

On Wednesday, during a one-on-one parliamentary debate with opposition party leaders, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said, "We are not in a position to determine Taiwan's legal status or recognition."

Observers said Takaichi failed to cite the four landmark China-Japan political documents that clearly state Tokyo's commitment to the one-China principle.

Instead, she cited the so-called "Treaty of San Francisco", which was signed in 1951 in the absence of China and has never been recognized by Beijing. She said that under the treaty, "our country has renounced all rights and claims regarding Taiwan".

Guo Jiakun, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said at a daily news briefing in Beijing on Thursday that in doing so, Takaichi once again showed that she "remains unwilling to own up to the wrongdoing and turn back from the erroneous course, and continues to damage the political foundation of China-Japan relations established under the spirit of the four political documents".

Guo added that Takaichi "disregards the authority of the United Nations and openly challenges the postwar international order and the basic norms of international law".

He said that anything set out in the treaty, including on the sovereignty over Taiwan or the handling of the territory and sovereign rights of China as a nonsignatory, is entirely illegal and null and void.

The treaty also "violates the UN Charter and the basic principles of international law", he added.

Lyu Chao, dean of Liaoning University's Institute of America and East Asia Studies, said the Japanese side has been busy looking for excuses in an attempt to cool down the heated situation, which Beijing will never accept.

These excuses are "actually perpetuating the erroneous view of supporting Japan's military intervention in case of a 'Taiwan contingency'," Lyu said.

Takaichi publicly suggested in Japan's parliament on Nov 7 the possibility of the country's military intervention in Taiwan. Tokyo has refused to retract her comments.

After the debate on Wednesday with Takaichi, Yoshihiko Noda, head of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, told reporters that Takaichi has "de facto retracted" her Nov 7 Taiwan remarks by "no longer mentioning" them.

In a rebuttal, Guo, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said that "no longer mentioning" and "retracting" are two separate kinds of actions that are "totally different in nature".

It is a case of "burying one's head in the sand" for Japan to attempt to downplay and gloss over Takaichi's extremely erroneous remarks by "no longer mentioning" them, Guo added.

'A fool's fantasy'

When asked about Japan's plan to deploy midrange missiles on an island just 110 kilometers from China's Taiwan, Senior Colonel Jiang Bin, a spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense, said that Tokyo "will surely pay a heavy price" if it dares to invite or incite trouble.

In response to claims by some Japanese Self-Defense Forces personnel that Japan and the United States could sink China's third aircraft carrier, the CNS Fujian, if it became involved, Jiang called the claim "a fool's fantasy" and said it was completely unrealistic.

zhangyunbi@chinadaily.com.cn