Trump urged Japan to avoid escalation in China dispute, sources say

WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump asked Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi not to further escalate a dispute with China during talks this week, sources aware of the matter said on Nov 27, as he tries to preserve a fragile trade war truce with Beijing.

Ms Takaichi touched off the biggest diplomatic dispute with Beijing in years when she told Parliament in November that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan that threatened Japan could justify a military response.

Her remark enraged Beijing, prompting it to warn its citizens against travel to its East Asian neighbour.

In a telephone call with Ms Takaichi on Nov 25, Mr Trump said he does not want to see any further escalation, said the two Japanese government sources, who sought anonymity as the matter is a sensitive one.

But Mr Trump made no specific demands of Ms Takaichi, one of the sources said, suggesting he did not echo Beijing’s call for a retraction of the comments. Japan has not offered one, saying instead that the remarks reflected longstanding policy.

At a regular press briefing on Nov 27, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara declined to comment on the details of the “diplomatic exchange”.

Mr Trump’s telephone call with Ms Takaichi came after Mr Trump spoke to Chinese President Xi Jinping, who told the US leader that Taiwan’s return to China was central to Beijing’s vision for the world order, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Democratically governed Taiwan rejects Beijing’s claim of ownership.

Mr Trump, who plans to travel to Beijing in April, has not commented publicly on whether the talks featured Taiwan, saying instead that the world’s two biggest economies have “extremely strong” ties and are close to finalising a broad trade deal.

“The United States’ relationship with China is very good, and that’s also very good for Japan, who is our dear and close ally,” Mr Trump said in a statement issued by the White House in response to questions from Reuters.

“We signed wonderful trade deals with Japan, China, South Korea and many other nations, and the world is at peace. Let’s keep it that way!”

In Tokyo, some officials have long worried that Mr Trump may be prepared to weaken support for Taiwan in pursuit of a trade accord with China, a move that may embolden Beijing and spark conflict in East Asia.

“For Trump, what matters most is US-China relations,” said Professor Kazuhiro Maejima, who teaches American politics at Sophia University in Tokyo. “Japan has always been treated as a tool or a card to manage that relationship.”

Trump silent as China presses

Mr Trump’s public silence on Japan’s escalating dispute with China has further frayed nerves in Tokyo. Washington’s envoy to Tokyo has said the US supports Japan in the face of China’s “coercion”, but two senior lawmakers of its ruling party said they had hoped for more full-throated support from their top security ally.

Japan hosts the largest overseas contingent of the US military, including an aircraft carrier strike group and a US Marine amphibious force that hem in China’s military ambitions.

Washington has welcomed Tokyo’s defence build-up in recent years, which has also irked Beijing.

“We’d like a word from Trump himself,” said one of the lawmakers, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Mr Trump’s public silence could be perceived as a green light for Beijing to exert more pressure on Japan, he added.

Beijing has turned up the rhetoric.

China urged the US to rein in Japan to prevent “actions to revive militarism”, the ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily said in an editorial on Nov 27 that highlighted the role of Japan as their common enemy during World War II.

“China and the United States share a common responsibility to jointly safeguard the post-war international order and oppose any attempts or actions to revive militarism,” it added.

China’s Defence Ministry said Japan would pay a “painful price” if it stepped out of line over Taiwan, in response to Tokyo’s plans to put air defence missiles on its westernmost island, Yonaguni, just 110km from Taiwan’s coast.

Asked about Ms Takaichi’s call with Mr Trump, the Prime Minister’s Office referred Reuters to its official summary that said the two discussed US-China ties, but did not elaborate.

It also denied an earlier Wall Street Journal article that said Mr Trump advised her not to provoke Beijing on the question of Taiwan’s sovereignty.

Ms Takaichi’s off-the-cuff remark in Parliament on Taiwan broke from the strategic ambiguity adopted by her predecessors, who had declined to publicly discuss the scenarios that could be deemed a sufficient threat to Japan to trigger military action.

Now that the comments are in the public domain, however, they will be hard to retract, officials previously told Reuters, making it all the harder to defuse a dispute that could hammer the economy and usher in a long winter in China-Japan ties. REUTERS