China warns US-Japan military cooperation should not include Taiwan
BEIJING, Sunday (AFP) - China warned that increasing US-Japan military
cooperation should be strictly bilateral and not encompass its
arch-rival Taiwan.
"Any part of putting Taiwan directly or indirectly into
the scope of Japan-US security cooperation constitutes an encroachment
on China's sovereignty and an interference in China's internal affairs,"
Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said.
"The Chinese government and people are firmly against
such activities." Li, who was speaking at the sidelines of China's
annual legislative meeting the National People's Congress (NPC),
characterized the military pact between Japan and the United States as a
"bilateral arrangement" that came about under the special circumstances
of the Cold War.
Li warned it should be "strictly restricted" to a
bilateral nature, warning any expansion of the alliance could cause
problems in the region, without specifying how China would react.
"If it goes beyond the bilateral scope, definitely it
would arouse uneasiness on the part of Asian countries and bring about
complicated factors to the regional security situation," Li told
reporters.
Beijing has been increasingly wary of Washington and
Tokyo's close strategic partnership, seeing it as a potential threat to
its firm goal of eventually reunifying with the island of Taiwan, by
force if necessary. |
