China’s Global Times Refers to U.S. Militarizing Japan as a ‘Ticking Bomb’

Jan. 14, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—Global Times, in what could be considered Beijing’s unofficial response to the bellicose joint statement issued by U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio in Washington yesterday, cited experts who said that it “represents a ticking bomb for the region’s hard-sustained peace ... believing that Japan is also laying ground for hosting the G7 summit this year, to draw in members to concentrate on attacking China.” The cited experts “believe that such ‘alliance,’ which endows the country’s support of military expansion, is a double-edged sword for Tokyo, as it also pushes Japan to the front line of attack and [to] disdain across the Indo-Pacific region, as more tensions will be triggered by its ties with U.S. They warned China to remain on high alert against Japan and the U.S.’s next step, especially on the Taiwan question.”

Global Times also quotes Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, commenting in yesterday’s press conference on the Jan. 11 U.S.-Japan 2+2 meeting of foreign and defense ministers: “They claim to uphold the rules-based international order, but what they do is trampling on international law and the basic norms governing international relations and grossly interfering in other countries’ internal affairs. What they have done poses a real challenge to regional peace, security and stability.”

Further, say the experts,

“Kishida’s aggressive military expansion is depriving his country of strategic independence, and making the country closer to becoming the U.S.’s vassal and tool for achieving hegemony in the Indo-Pacific... Such plan may win Kishida political support in the short term, but in the long run, it is made at the cost of Japan’s national interest and people’s welfare, as more money went to equip the military, so less will be used to solve Japan’s pressing social problems, such as its aging population.”

Of note, while Kishida was at the White House, the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and its accompanying strike group had just begun operations in the South China Sea, as reported by CNN.