Japan yesterday adopted a new five-year ocean policy that calls for stronger maritime security, including bolstering its coast guard’s capability and cooperation with the military amid China’s increasing assertiveness in regional seas.
The new Basic Plan on Ocean Policy, adopted by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s Cabinet, also says that Japan must accelerate the development of autonomous underwater vehicles and remotely operated robots to bolster its surveillance capability.
It cited a list of threats: The Chinese Coast Guard’s repeated intrusions into Japanese territorial waters, growing unauthorized maritime activity by “foreign survey boats” inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, increasing joint military exercises by China and Russia, and North Korea’s repeated missile launches.
Photo: AP
“The situation in the ocean around Japan is increasingly tense,” Kishida said at a policy meeting yesterday. “It’s time for us to unite our wisdom among the industry, academia and government for ocean policy reform.”
He also noted the need to better use maritime resources to achieve carbon neutrality.
The new ocean policy is in line with Japan’s new national security strategy, which Kishida’s government adopted in December last year in a major break from its self-defense-only principle that the country has maintained under a pacifist constitution since World War II.
The new strategy highlights bolstering Japan’s military power with strike capability and doubling its defense budget within five years. The strategy also calls for closer cooperation between the military and the coast guard in any emergency over Taiwan or other possible conflicts.
The plan also said the capability of Japan’s coast guard, which has been on the front line of border disputes, needs to be improved. It frequently confronts Chinese Coast Guard vessels approaching disputed Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea, North Korean poachers and suspected spy boats, and Russian Coast Guard vessels near disputed northern islands.
The Japanese Coast Guard is used for civilian policing at sea and not military combat, and the new plans calling for closer cooperation with the Japanese Self-Defense Forces have raised concerns about its role and safety in a possible conflict.
The ocean plan also says Japan needs to be more aggressive about undersea surveys and using undersea resources for energy, calling for greater use of the exclusive economic zone outside of territorial waters to build offshore wind-power generators.
Japan has repeatedly protested over Chinese research ships entering its waters or the exclusive economic zone close to its boundary for apparent surveys of undersea deposits and other marine resources.
A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck off Yilan at 11:05pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter was located at sea, about 32.3km east of Yilan County Hall, at a depth of 72.8km, CWA data showed There were no immediate reports of damage. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Yilan County area on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. It measured 4 in other parts of eastern, northern and central Taiwan as well as Tainan, and 3 in Kaohsiung and Pingtung County, and 2 in Lienchiang and Penghu counties and 1
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE: Beijing would likely intensify public opinion warfare in next year’s local elections to prevent Lai from getting re-elected, the ‘Yomiuri Shimbun’ said Internal documents from a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company indicated that China has been using the technology to intervene in foreign elections, including propaganda targeting Taiwan’s local elections next year and presidential elections in 2028, a Japanese newspaper reported yesterday. The Institute of National Security of Vanderbilt University obtained nearly 400 pages of documents from GoLaxy, a company with ties to the Chinese government, and found evidence that it had apparently deployed sophisticated, AI-driven propaganda campaigns in Hong Kong and Taiwan to shape public opinion, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported. GoLaxy provides insights, situation analysis and public opinion-shaping technology by conducting network surveillance
‘POLITICAL GAME’: DPP lawmakers said the motion would not meet the legislative threshold needed, and accused the KMT and the TPP of trivializing the Constitution The Legislative Yuan yesterday approved a motion to initiate impeachment proceedings against President William Lai (賴清德), saying he had undermined Taiwan’s constitutional order and democracy. The motion was approved 61-50 by lawmakers from the main opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the smaller Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who together hold a legislative majority. Under the motion, a roll call vote for impeachment would be held on May 19 next year, after various hearings are held and Lai is given the chance to defend himself. The move came after Lai on Monday last week did not promulgate an amendment passed by the legislature that
AFTERMATH: The Taipei City Government said it received 39 minor incident reports including gas leaks, water leaks and outages, and a damaged traffic signal A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck off Taiwan’s northeastern coast late on Saturday, producing only two major aftershocks as of yesterday noon, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The limited aftershocks contrast with last year’s major earthquake in Hualien County, as Saturday’s earthquake occurred at a greater depth in a subduction zone. Saturday’s earthquake struck at 11:05pm, with its hypocenter about 32.3km east of Yilan County Hall, at a depth of 72.8km. Shaking was felt in 17 administrative regions north of Tainan and in eastern Taiwan, reaching intensity level 4 on Taiwan’s seven-tier seismic scale, the CWA said. In Hualien, the
RSS