Japan blasted for continuing to defend remarks

While China and the United States revisited their World War II legacy and talked about the Taiwan question in the latest heads-of-state phone conversation, Japan — both a defeated country and a perpetrator state in the war — took more actions on Tuesday to defend Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's recent provocative comments on Taiwan.

On Monday evening, President Xi Jinping spoke with US President Donald Trump over the phone, outlined China's principled position on the Taiwan question, and underscored that Taiwan's return to China "is an integral part of the postwar international order".

In response, Trump said the US understands the importance of the Taiwan question to China.

On Tuesday, Trump held a phone conversation with Takaichi.

When Takaichi was asked whether her remarks in parliament about Taiwan were raised in the talks on Tuesday morning with Trump, she said she will "refrain from elaborating on the details", according to Japan's public broadcaster NHK.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Tuesday that the phone call between Xi and Trump was initiated by the US, and the talks' atmosphere was "positive, cordial and constructive".

"Communication between the two heads of state on issues of common concern is crucial for the stable development of China-US relations," she added.

Yang Bojiang, director-general of the Institute of Japanese Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said, "Japan's painful lesson from its aggression and its postwar economic miracle has proved that it serves the resource-lacking country's interests to subscribe to friendly cooperation with China, and peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific."

Tokyo should not pin its hope on "a contingency in Taiwan" and on containing its neighbors, not to mention military provocation or threats of war, Yang added.

Tokyo has repeatedly refused Beijing's demand to retract Takaichi's comments by saying that her words align with the "consistent position" of the Japanese government.

Kazuyuki Yamazaki, Japan's ambassador to the United Nations, sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday, dismissing China's request to withdraw Takaichi's remarks.

In Tokyo, Japanese Vice-Foreign Minister Takehiro Funakoshi held talks with Chinese Ambassador to Japan Wu Jianghao on Tuesday.

Earlier on Tuesday morning, the Japanese Cabinet made a decision to adopt a written response prepared for a Japanese lawmaker's question about Takaichi's Taiwan remarks, saying that Takaichi's words "do not change the government's consistent position".

"We do not consider it necessary to review or reexamine (the remarks)," Japan's Kyodo News Agency quoted the Cabinet decision as saying.

Liu Jiangyong, a professor of Japanese studies at Tsinghua University, said, "Regrettably, we have not seen Tokyo, either in theory or in practice, truly learn from lessons in history or genuinely abide by international law, international rules and the international order."

Mao, the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, called on Tokyo to specify what its "consistent position" is.

She said Japan has never addressed the core of the issue, and "is deliberately evading China's call for it to retract the erroneous remarks" and attempting to gloss it over.

"We could not but question whether the Japanese side does have the sincerity and whether it will take action to do serious soul-searching and correct its wrongdoing," she added.

As some voices in Japan said the People's Republic of China is not entitled to discuss the Taiwan question, as "it was the Republic of China, not the PRC, that accepted Japan's surrender" in 1945, Mao said that the sovereignty and inherent territorial boundaries of China "stayed unchanged" when the PRC government replaced the ROC government in 1949.

In addition, the China-Japan Joint Statement in 1972 clearly stated that the government of Japan recognizes the government of the PRC as the sole legal government of China, she emphasized.

zhangyunbi@chinadaily.com.cn