Chinese and Japanese officials met in Tokyo on Wednesday for formal security talks for the first time in four years, in a meeting aimed at stabilising increasingly strained relations.
In Japan’s national security strategy, released in December, China was described as “the greatest strategic challenge” to Japan’s peace and security.
Both sides expressed concerns at Wednesday’s meeting. China said it was troubled by Japan’s military buildup while Tokyo is worried about China’s suspected use of spy balloons as well as Chinese military activities around Japan, including cooperation with Russia. Last week Japan’s defence ministry said that it believed Chinese spy balloons had flown over Japan on at least three occasions since 2019.
In December, Japan, a key US ally, announced a historic rise in defence spending, pledging to double the defence budget to 2% of GDP by 2027. In 2023 alone the defence budget increased to 6.8tn yen (£41.7bn), an increase of more than 26% on 2022. The money will be spent on ammunition, Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets and research into hypersonic missiles, among other items. Tokyo also plans to acquire long-range missiles capable of striking China. Japan is increasingly worried about security threats from China, Russia and North Korea.
Since 1976 Japan has capped military spending at 1% of GDP and limited its capabilities to defensive measures. But in 2017 the then-prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said that the 1% ceiling would no longer apply. The Nato guideline is for members to spend at least 2% of GDP on defence annually. Japan is a strategic partner of Nato.
At the meeting on Wednesday Sun Weidong, the Chinese deputy foreign minister, said that a “cold war mentality” had returned to the international security situation.
The talks come amid a flurry of Chinese diplomatic activity. On Wednesday Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat, met Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, in Moscow, and promised to strengthen ties with Russia ahead of the one year anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine.
China and Japan also discussed the disputed islands in the East China sea. The Senkaku Islands are administered by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing, which refers to them as the Diaoyu Islands.
A more pressing concern for Japan is the possibility that China could try to retake Taiwan by force. In a statement after the meeting, Japan’s foreign ministry said it had emphasised the importance of “peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait”. But Sun warned against Tokyo’s “negative moves” regarding the self-governing island, which China claims as a renegade province, apparently a reference to the closer defence cooperation announced in Japan’s new national security strategy last year.
Japan and China said that they would proceed with plans to establish a direct security hotline between their two countries, which would be operational by spring.
