Japan backs Australia against China’s economic coercion

[Black Orchid]

Japan has backed Australia’s campaign against China’s economic coercion, warning the superpower’s strikes have undermined the international order.

The move from Japan sandwiches China between the world’s first and third-largest economies after the United States said in May that it would not leave Australia to face Beijing alone.

It followed two hours of virtual meetings on Wednesday between Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi and Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne and Defence Minister Peter Dutton.

“We commit to opposing coercion and destabilising behaviour by economic means, which undermines the rules-based international system,” the four ministers said after the meeting.

The joint statement is the most comprehensive outline of priorities released by the foreign and defence ministers of the two countries in recent memory. It follows more than two years of escalating tension between Australia and China over national security and human rights that culminated in Canberra tearing up China’s Belt and Road investment agreement with Victoria and China suspending the China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue in May.

Beijing has hit Australia with trade strikes covering more than $20 billion in exports over its calls for a coronavirus inquiry, business investment restrictions and public statements on human rights crackdowns in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

Japan has maintained diplomatic relations with its neighbour despite decades of territorial and historical disputes but there is growing disquiet in Tokyo about China’s militarisation of islands in the South China Sea, rising nationalism under President Xi Jinping and Beijing’s aggressive form of diplomacy.

For the first time, Australia and Japan also jointly identified Taiwan as a key flashpoint in global affairs by “underscoring the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and encourage the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues”.

The Chinese Communist Party views Taiwan, a democratic island of 24 million people, as a renegade province that must be united with the mainland. Dutton said in April that the possibility of conflict over Taiwan should not be discounted after Home Affairs Secretary Michael Pezzullo warned the “drums of war” were beating.

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