Japan urged Beijing yesterday to take steps towards nuclear disarmament, to strictly control exports of missile technologies and to disclose military data to allay its neighbors' fears.
Japan's Foreign Ministry issued the diplomatic requests at a time when ties between the two Asian powers have been strained by a range of simmering disputes, many stemming from Japan's invasion and occupation of parts of China from 1931 to 1945.
In a report on disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation, the ministry said information on China's military remained "opaque."
"We believe that it is important for China to improve transparency regarding its military in order to clear fears held by its neighboring countries," the report said.
China, whose 2.3-million-strong People's Liberation Army is the world's largest standing military, has been steadily moving to modernize its nuclear arms and missile capabilities as well as its naval and air forces, Japan's Foreign Ministry said.
China said on Saturday that its official defense budget would rise to 283.8 billion yuan (US$35 billion) this year, up 14.7 percent from last year. The country's military spending has risen by double-digit percentages for the last few years.
US and Japanese defense officials and many defense analysts have said that Beijing in fact spends much more on military equipment and forces than the official budget shows.
As a result, Japan has grown increasingly outspoken and nervous about China's military buildup and has repeatedly called on Beijing to disclose information on its military.
In December, Japanese For-eign Minister Taro Aso caused a diplomatic flap when he said China's military buildup was a threat given its lack of transparency, triggering an angry retort from Beijing and straining already chilly bilateral ties.
nuclear risks
Yesterday's report said that China, which has intercontinental ballistic missiles that put the west coast of the US within range, should follow the other four nuclear powers -- the US, Russia, Britain and France -- and declare a moratorium on production of fissionable material.
"Although China has shown its intention to push ahead with nuclear disarmament, no progress is believed to have been made in specific nuclear arms reduction steps in the past 20 years," it said.
China has taken legal steps to curb exports of sensitive materials and technologies since 2002, but it should do more to completely halt shipments abroad of materials that could be used to produce weapons of mass destruction, it said.
"We hope China will enforce strict export controls," the report said.
The US said in December that it had imposed sanctions on six Chinese state-run firms for selling missiles or chemical weapons supplies to Iran.
territorial dispute
Meanwhile, China and Japan wrapped up two-day negotiations on disputed gas deposits in the East China Sea and agreed to meet again in an ongoing effort to resolve the territorial disagreement, the Chinese government said.
"The two sides exchanged in-depth views ... and agreed to hold a next round of consultation as soon as possible," the official Xinhua News Agency said.
It did not say when or where the talks would take place.
Japanese officials were hoping for a response from China to Tokyo's proposal for joint development of the deposits. The Xinhua report did not give details on what China's position was but said discussions were "pragmatic and constructive."
Kenichiro Sasae, head of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asia-Oceania Bureau, and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Zhengyao (
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
‘LIMITING MYSELF’: New Zealand’s foreign minister said that the omments by Phil Goff were ‘disappointing’ and made the diplomat’s position in the UK ‘untenable’ New Zealand’s most senior envoy to the UK has lost his job over remarks he made about US President Donald Trump at an event in London this week, New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said yesterday. Phil Goff, who is New Zealand’s High Commissioner to the UK, made the comments at an event held by international affairs think tank Chatham House in London on Tuesday. Goff asked a question from the audience of the guest speaker, Finnish Minister of Foreign Affairs Elina Valtonen, in which he said he had been re-reading a famous speech by former British prime minister Winston
RSS