Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during a news conference at the prime minister's official residence in Tokyo on November 2, 2023. Photo: VCG
Japan PM Kishida in Philippines to boost defence, security ties
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will visit the Philippines and Malaysia from November 3 to 5. This is his first visit to these two Southeast Asian countries since taking office as the prime minister. The "gift packs" he will take with him were revealed in advance by the Japanese media. Unlike previous Japanese prime ministers' visits that often focused on promoting economic diplomacy, this time the "gift packs" mainly contained "lethal weapons," which not only appear ominous but also strongly suggest that Kishida's trip will be a "troublemaking journey."
According to reports from multiple Japanese media outlets, Kishida's visit is primarily focused on strengthening defense and security cooperation with the Philippines and Malaysia. It is worth noting that Japan will, for the first time, provide the Philippines with coastal surveillance radar under Japan's Official Security Assistance (OSA) mechanism approved in April. Malaysia, which has traditionally emphasized cooperation with China, has kept certain vigilance, with reports suggesting that discussions have been progressing slowly, and Kishida would likely explain it to Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and attempt to gain his support for the initiative. It is evident that the Philippines is the main target of Japan's breakthrough in this visit, and public attention is also more focused on defense cooperation between Japan and the Philippines.
According to Japan's design, the OSA aims to provide defense equipment to the armed forces of the so-called "like-minded" countries, which, in simpler terms, is military assistance. It is distinct from Japan's previous emphasis on the Official Development Assistance (ODA) in its diplomacy. Although it differs by only one letter, it represents a significant shift in nature. Moving from the ODA, which had a character of atonement for World War II and was focused on helping improve the livelihoods of recipient countries and enhancing economic and trade relations, to the militarily-oriented OSA signifies that Japanese diplomacy, and even Japan's national character, has crossed a threshold set by Japan's Peace Constitution.
In fact, both the establishment and utilization of the OSA mechanism and Kishida's "troublemaking journey" are not isolated singular events. They are manifestations of the regional impact of Japan's national security strategy transformation represented by the three strategic documents at the end of last year. In its new national security strategy, Japan positions China as an "unprecedented and greatest strategic challenge" and seeks to jointly deal with it with allies and "like-minded countries." The OSA is a tool to implement Japan's strategic vision.
It can be said that Tokyo has been searching for suitable partners to implement the OSA mechanism, and the Philippines is one of its preferred targets. Since this year, Japan has strengthened its security cooperation with the Philippines through military exercises, dialogues, and other means. The Philippines has also shown interest in the "Indo-Pacific Strategy," particularly the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. Now, with the US preoccupied with the Ukraine crisis and the Israel-Palestine conflict, Japan believes it must take over the baton from the US and support the Philippines in its adventurous actions in the South China Sea in various forms. It is not ruled out that Japan may even take more active and forceful measures to "support the Philippines" in the future, which has become one of the factors influencing whether the situation in the South China Sea will continue to escalate.
Manila should understand that Kishida's "gift packs" may be flashy, but it is not free, and it comes with a high cost. Let's take a look at how the former chief of staff, joint staff, Japan Self-Defense Forces (SDF), Katsutoshi Kawano, "envisioned" future defense cooperation between Japan and the Philippines: Japan's military aid to the Philippines will expand step by step and will change to include lethal weapons such as anti-ship missiles; Manila, in turn, could give Japan access to its military bases, as it does with the US, allowing Japanese SDF aircraft to patrol the South China Sea. If such a scenario were to occur, it would undoubtedly be a nightmare for Manila's sovereignty and security.
Former Japanese prime minister Takeo Fukuda proposed the basic principle of Japan's foreign policy toward Southeast Asia, known as "Fukuda Doctrine" in Manila in 1977, which emphasized that Japan would not become a military power and would contribute to peace and prosperity in Southeast Asia and the world. It was widely welcomed by Southeast Asian countries. When ASEAN upgraded its relationship with Japan to a "Comprehensive Strategic Partnership" in September of this year, Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong expressed hope for stronger cooperation between the two sides in areas such as cybersecurity and the digital economy, climate change and green economy, and connectivity. What Southeast Asian countries need and expect has always been clear. Any actions that provoke regional tensions under the guise of "security" are unwelcome, and Japan, which desires to become a "normal country," will only become more abnormal due to these moves.
Xiangshan Forum's Opening Ceremony Held in Beijing
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Delegations from around the world attend Beijing Xiangshan Forum
Seminar on Sun Tzu's Art of War Attracts Attention at Xiangshan Forum
The first plenary session of the 10th Beijing Xiangshan Forum is held on October 30, 2023 with the focus on major countries' responsibility and global security cooperation. Photo: VCG
Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times that the China-proposed Global Security Initiative is an international security view based on domestic security but also takes a broader view that allows countries to coexist peacefully.
The Global Security Initiative is an important manifestation of building a global community of shared future, as it is also an international security view that avoids oppression of the weak and other forms of inequality, Song said.
Lieutenant General He Lei, former vice president of the Academy of Military Sciences of the People's Liberation Army, told the Global Times during the forum on Monday that Zhang's keynote speech promoted and elaborated on the concept of building a global community of shared future and the Global Security Initiative, as he reiterated China's independent and peaceful diplomatic policy, its strategic decision of walking the path of peaceful development, its national defense policy that is defensive in nature, and its military strategy of active defense.
The keynote speech by Zhang also rejected Cold War mentality and bloc confrontation, as he made an in-depth analysis of the current international security situation, and expressed the Chinese military's wish to develop friendly relations, enhance communications, build strategic mutual trust and jointly make positive efforts to safeguard peace and stability in the world, said He Lei.
Lü Chao, an international affairs expert at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times at the forum on Monday that at a time when the West is hyping up the "China threat" theory, the forum also served as a good opportunity to refute those claims.
At this domestically hosted international security forum, China declared to the whole world its initiative for peaceful development, Lü said, noting that he expects positive feedback from the international community.
Lü, who has attended many previous editions of the Beijing Xiangshan Forum, said that this year's event further stressed China and the international communities' joint development and joint efforts in achieving lasting peace.
"What impressed me greatly were the speeches from representatives from Cambodia, Indonesia, Nigeria and other countries, because in other international conventions I seldom get the chance to hear from them. Their remarks are actually very close to China's ideas, so China's diplomacy really wins the hearts of others," Lü said.
While the West is demonizing China, in fact everyone knows who is the real one that is threatening global peace, Lü said.
The 10th Beijing Xiangshan Forum is held on October 30, 2023. Photo: Leng Shumei/GT
Unique platform
On Monday, the forum organized two plenary sessions - Major Countries' Responsibility and Global Security Cooperation and The Role of Developing Countries in Global Security; and eight simultaneous sessions - Security Trend and Configuration of Security Situation in Northeast Asia, ASEAN Centrality in Regional Security Cooperation Architecture, New Security Architecture in the Middle East, Reconfiguring Peace in Europe, Preventing and Managing Military Maritime Crisis, Nuclear Risk and Global Security, Artificial Intelligence Security and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief: International Military Cooperation.
The wide selection of topics, covering a number of regional affairs and sensitive issues, shows that China is shouldering its responsibilities as a major country, particularly in upholding justice in the international community, experts said.
Senior Colonel Zhao Xiaozhuo, deputy director of the Beijing Xiangshan Forum Secretariat, told the Global Times that the Beijing Xiangshan Forum would not be a real international security forum if it did not cover all important hot topics.
The forum invited experts in various fields from all over the world who seek opportunities to communicate over the current hot topics, Zhao said. "We do not avoid hot topics, nor do we go around sensitive topics."
During the sessions discussing the Palestine-Israel conflict and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, parties involved in those conflicts remained objective and reasonable in their discussions, which is not easy considering conflicts are going on between them, Zhao said, noting that the forum is a platform that offers sides engaged in conflicts a chance to talk to each other.
In all plenary and simultaneous sessions, there were a large number of representatives and experts who had come from developing countries.
Zhao said that representatives from developing countries seldom get the chance to make themselves heard in international forums, particularly those with influence, so the Beijing Xiangshan Forum offers them an opportunity, and takes them into full consideration when arranging topics so that developing countries can raise their suggestions and claims.
Global Security Initiative (GSI) has been supported and commended by more than 100 countries and international organizations since it was put forward by China, and has been included in numerous bilateral and multilateral documents on China's interaction and cooperation with other countries and international organizations, said Nong Rong, the assistant foreign minister, noting that China will hold a high-level event on the theme of GSI at an appropriate time.
The most important task for the coming decade for all security leaders is to avoid physical conflict in Asia, according to the Singaporean defense minister in a speech delivered at the 10th Beijing Xiangshan Forum on Tuesday
Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, China will continue to actively promote an immediate ceasefire to prevent a humanitarian disaster and push for a comprehensive and just solution to the issue based on a two-state solution.
The three-day 10th Beijing Xiangshan Forum concluded on Tuesday, marking the China-hosted international event for military diplomacy and security affairs out as probably the only platform currently able to receive attendees from Russia, Ukraine, Israel and Iran, especially after the outbreaks of the Ukraine crisis and the latest Palestine-Israel conflict. The Global Times was in attendance to interview delegates from all these countries to hear their voices about the ongoin
China is being candid and forthright about its true stance on the Taiwan question, which clearly indicates that there is no room for “negotiation” on matters of sovereignty.
China recently organized the country's largest comprehensive emergency rescue aviation exercise, demonstrating the systematic achievements in its independent ...
The US' "China Military Power report," like its previous editions, ignores the facts and is filled with bias, spreading the "China threats" theory which only serves as an excuse to maintain its military hegemony, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Friday, in response to a Pentagon report that warned Beijing is building up its nuclear and long-range missiles arsenal "faster than previous projections."
The newly-released annual Pentagon document claimed that China has more than 500 operational nuclear warheads as of May 2023, surpassing earlier projections, and forecast that China would likely have more than 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030.
Describing China as a "pacing challenge," the US Defense Department report also said that Beijing may be exploring the development of conventionally-armed long-range missiles that could reach the US. It said that Beijing has completed the construction of three new fields of long-range ballistic missiles silos.
Mao Ning, a spokesperson from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said on Friday that China is firmly committed to a defensive nuclear strategy, and has always maintained nuclear forces at the lowest level required for national security, and has no intention of engaging in a nuclear arms race with any country.
China has a unique nuclear policy among nuclear weapon states and has maintained a high degree of stability, consistency and predictability, Mao said, "No country will be threatened by China's nuclear weapons as long as it does not use or threaten to use them against China."
We urge the US to abandon its Cold War mentality and hegemonic logic, to view China's strategic intentions and national defense development objectively and rationally, to stop publishing such irresponsible reports year after year, and to take practical actions to maintain the stability of the military-to-military relationship between the two sides, Mao said.
Chinese military expert Zhang Junshe said that it's hilarious that a country with more than 5,000 nuclear warheads says another nation poses a threat.
In 2020, Fu Cong, then director general of the Department of Arms Control and Disarmament, cited statistics from renowned international think tanks, pointing out that the US nuclear arsenal stands at about 5,800 nuclear warheads.
Even if China does have 500 nuclear warheads, they are not even close to the size of the US' arsenal. In addition, the number of US strategic nuclear submarines, strategic bombers, and the number of warheads they carry are far higher than any other country in the world, including China, Zhang remarked.
According to Zhang, the US is developing a new generation of strategic nuclear weapons, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), sea-based strategic missiles and airborne nuclear weapons, a new generation of nuclear submarines, and strategic bombers.
In addition, the US is miniaturizing nuclear weapons for so-called tactical use, namely, lowering the threshold for the use of tactical nuclear weapons, Zhang said, "The US is also considering resuming the storage of nuclear weapons in other countries, such as the UK, a Cold War era practice of nuclear sharing with allies."
The hyping of the "China threats" is nothing but a search for excuses for Washington's uncontrolled nuclear arsenal expansion, and to discredit and suppress China's normal military development, so as to maintain absolute military superiority, Zhang said.
'Undesirable hobby'
The report smeared China's military modernization as a means of projecting power across the Pacific region and ultimately around the globe, saying China's strength is growing in all the domains of warfare, including the traditional land, air and sea, as well as nuclear, cyber and space, according to CNN.
The 212-page report also mentioned the word "Taiwan" 261 times, highlighting the Chinese mainland's "military pressure" against the island.
The US is worried that the increase of the Chinese People's Liberation Army's military capability could pose challenges to US military hegemony, thus affecting the US political hegemony and global hegemony, Chinese military expert and TV commentator Song Zhongping told the Global Times on Friday.
Given that the report was released ahead of the Beijing Xiangshan Forum, a China-hosted platform on defense and security issues, Chinese analysts believed it was also aimed at entrapping Chinese neighbors, cajoling them to resist and oppose China's normal military development so that they can be better "utilized" by the US in the Asia-Pacific region.
As the world's largest nuclear state, the US has not made a commitment not to be the first to use nuclear weapons, as China has done, as well as a commitment not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries and regions. Instead, the US has even been aggressive, emphasizing the pre-emptive use of nuclear forces, according to Zhang.
The nuclear strategy of the US is global in its scope. When it provides nuclear umbrellas and even nuclear sharing to some allies, it poses a serious threat to other countries, and at the same time is extremely destructive to nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation around the world, and ultimately exacerbates regional tensions, Song said.
In July, the US deployed a nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine to South Korea for the first time since 1980s. North Korea later fired two short-range ballistic missiles into its eastern waters as a response to the "grave provocation," media reported.
The problem that the US poses to global security is its nuclear superiority and military power, said a Beijing-based expert. "When it comes to the resolution of regional crises, the US is inclined to resort to the use of force, either by itself or through its allies. And the US' absolute military strength and nuclear power has further encouraged that undesirable hobby."
"The US, with the largest and most advanced nuclear arsenal in the world, follows a first-use nuclear deterrence policy, keeps making enormous investment to upgrade its nuclear triad, advances forward deployment of strategic forces, and strengthens extended deterrence for its allies," Mao said. "These policies and acts heighten the risk of a nuclear arms race and nuclear conflict, and will only adversely affect the global strategic security environment."
US media is currently attempting to redirect the current Israel-Palestine conflict toward the rise of China. The New York Times, in an article titled "New Global Divisions on View as Biden Goes to Israel and Putin to China," directly contrasts ...
A Canadian CP-140 plane illegally entered China's airspace
China's military power only makes those with malicious intent feel 'threatened'
PLA Photo:VCG
The US Department of Defense (DoD) released its annual report to Congress on "Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China" (China military power report) on Thursday. People familiar with China-US relations know that since 2000, the Pentagon has issued this report every year, which basically compiles some public information, including media reports with unknown sources, into a "collection of annual China threat theories" in a bid to request funding from Congress and deceive allies into buying US weapons. As a result, one can imagine the level of professionalism in this report.
The China military power report can be roughly divided into three parts. First, it assesses China's current military capabilities without any real basis. Second, it selectively hypes China's military activities over the past year. Third, it distorts and speculates about China's military intentions. This year's report has an additional section - complaints about China's "resistance" to military-to-military communications with the US.
By combining these factors, the US attempts to fabricate a terrifying image of China, whose military strength is rapidly increasing, military behavior is becoming more aggressive, and "military ambitions" are insufficiently transparent. All the malicious speculations and smears about China's military in the report are far from the reality of China's military situation, but instead resemble a reflection of the US military itself.
The Pentagon's report always focuses on China's modernization of its nuclear capabilities and makes groundless speculations and comments on the situation in the Taiwan Straits. It is worth noting that this year's report claims that the DoD estimates that China possessed more than 500 operational nuclear warheads as of May 2023 - on track to exceeding previous projections, and that China will probably have over 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030. In the 2020 report, the DoD made its first public estimate of China's nuclear warheads, and said its nuclear arsenal was slightly more than 200. In just three years, the number of China's nuclear warheads in the US report has more than doubled. Common sense dictates that on such a significant issue, the US report has not shown the required rigor. The specific number depends on the needs of the Pentagon and Washington at different times.
The US needs to understand two points. First, China pursues the strategic thinking of active defense, and the deployment of nuclear forces is part of its defense strategy. However, no matter how many nuclear warheads China has or how strong its defense capabilities are, they will not become violent tools for China to dominate the world, as is the case with the US military. Instead, they are a strong guarantee for China to safeguard its national sovereignty, security, and development interests, as well as regional and global peace. Second, the development of China's defense force has its own established pace, it does not target any specific country, but it firmly safeguards China's sovereignty, security, and developmental interests. As long as China has not achieved reunification and external forces continue to interfere without restraint, China will not cease to strengthen its defense capabilities.
In addition, many have also noticed that this year's report highlights the PLA's so-called coercive and risky operational behavior in the past two years. The Pentagon even presented videos and photos of Chinese military aircraft "intercepting US military aircraft flying in international airspace with dangerous maneuvers," claiming Chinese aircraft have adopted more dangerous, coercive and provocative actions toward the US and its allies in the airspace of East China Sea and South China Sea. However, what the Pentagon never mentions is that this so-called international airspace is primarily located along China's coast, with some US aircraft even intruding into China's territorial waters, while none of these incidents occurred along the US coast. Doesn't this already make the point clear? If we were to reverse the situation, in an atmosphere where even harmless balloons create a sense of impending crisis in Washington, the reaction from the US side would likely be far more significant if Chinese warships or aircraft appeared in international waters and airspace outside San Francisco Bay, beyond just what is termed "dangerous intercepts."
The US, with the most powerful armed forces in the world, has become one of the most enthusiastic proponents of the so-called "Chinese military threat" theory, which in itself is abnormal. If the US had no ill intentions toward China, has no desire to interfere with China's reunification efforts, and has no intention of conflict or suppression, it would not perceive such a strong "threat" from China's peaceful armed forces. In the past year, the actions of the US military have made it even clearer who the escalating threat in the Asia-Pacific region truly is and what poses the greatest challenge to peace and stability in that region.
At roughly the same time as the report's release, multiple US military bases in the Middle East came under consecutive attacks. The US State Department also issued a rare worldwide caution alert citing potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations or violent actions against US citizens and interests. All of these factors indicate that the real danger facing the US does not actually stem from its imagined challenge to its position of leadership by China. Rather, it arises from its excessive interventions and the blowback resulting from creating tension and inciting the risk of war on a global scale. This is what the US truly needs to pay attention to and reflect upon.
China recently organized the country's largest comprehensive emergency rescue aviation exercise, demonstrating the systematic achievements in its independent ...
