Japan will help Southeast Asian nations build their security capabilities to deal with unilateral, dangerous and coercive actions in the South China Sea, Japan's defense minister said on Saturday, in pointed remarks directed at Beijing.
"In the South China Sea we have been witnessing large-scale and rapid land reclamation, building of outposts and utilization of them for military purposes," Japanese Minister of Defence Gen Nakatani said during a speech at a regional security conference in Singapore on Saturday, without mentioning China directly. "No countries can be an outsider of this issue," he added. Tokyo is worried that Chinese control of a waterway through which some $5 trillion of global trade passes a year would threaten Japan's national security and take Beijing one step closer to extending its influence into the East China Sea and Western Pacific. Read more
"In the South China Sea we have been witnessing large-scale and rapid land reclamation, building of outposts and utilization of them for military purposes," Japanese Minister of Defence Gen Nakatani said during a speech at a regional security conference in Singapore on Saturday, without mentioning China directly. "No countries can be an outsider of this issue," he added. Tokyo is worried that Chinese control of a waterway through which some $5 trillion of global trade passes a year would threaten Japan's national security and take Beijing one step closer to extending its influence into the East China Sea and Western Pacific. Read more
