China says it handles entry into territorial waters based on laws
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said in a statement that foreign military vessels "must obtain approval" from the Chinese government before entering the country's territorial waters, without confirming whether the warning shots had been fired.
According to diplomatic sources, the warning shots did not hit the Suzutsuki of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force when it inadvertently entered Chinese territorial waters off the country's eastern province of Zhejiang on July 4, 2024, despite repeated warnings.
The destroyer, which was tasked with monitoring Chinese military drills on the high seas, sailed for some 20 minutes in Chinese waters, within 12 nautical miles (22 kilometers) of the Zhejiang coast.
The incident triggered a protest from Beijing that urged Tokyo to prevent a similar case in the future. Chinese domestic law requires foreign vessels to seek prior permission before entering the country's waters.
But Tokyo maintains that the Suzutsuki's entry into Chinese territorial waters was not illegal, citing the right to innocent passage.
The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea recognizes the right to allow for a vessel to pass through the territorial waters of another state unless it compromises the safety of the coastal state.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Diplomat
an hour ago
- The Diplomat
China and the US-Nvidia Deal: National Security for Sale?
A deal will allow the sale of advanced chips to China – as long as American companies give the U.S. government a cut. For several years – especially since the United States banned ZTE and Huawei in 2018 and 2019, respectively – U.S. export controls on cutting-edge technologies have been framed as a measure to safeguard national security. On the same grounds, the Biden administration banned the sale of certain U.S.-made chips to China in 2022 and 2023. To circumvent such restrictions, Nvidia developed the H20 chip, a downgraded form of its H-100 Graphic Processing Unit (GPU), and AMD developed the MI308, both to serve the Chinese markets. Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang has often vocally opposed the restrictive export controls targeting China, claiming the policy is counterproductive for the United States' economic and strategic interests. Through active lobbying during the current Trump administration, which is following a more inward-looking approach, Nvidia managed to get an official permit for H20 sales to China – albeit for a fee. In a highly unusual settlement, Nvidia and AMD will hand over 15 percent of their revenue from H20 and MI308 chip sales to China directly to the U.S. government. This arrangement is not a standard export tariff, nor a conventional tax. It is a direct revenue-sharing deal between the government and the two companies, targeted at a single foreign market, i.e., China. According to estimates by Bernstein Research, by the end of 2025, Nvidia will have sold over 1.5 million H20 chips in China, generating about $23 billion in revenue, and AMD is projected to record $800 million in China chip sales. That means the deal could deliver more than $2 billion directly to the U.S. Treasury. Unlike in China, where the provision of 'golden shares' (a shareholding arrangement enabling the Chinese government to buy a certain percentage of shares in private enterprises) highlights the intimate relationship between the Chinese state and its private corporations, such policy moves in the United States are extremely rare. However, the Trump administration in July followed a similar approach when it approved the takeover of U.S. Steel by Japan's Nippon Steel. While the Nippon Steel deal aimed at securing critical industries from falling under foreign control, it also indicated a growing trend of state capitalism in the United States. Now the revenue-sharing agreement with AMD and Nvidia exemplifies a larger pattern where companies are falling into quid-pro-quo arrangements to prevent the imposition of tariffs and preserve their own market position, while pledging to bring jobs, revenues, and market concentration to the United States. However, the deal also risks replacing principle-driven trade policy with ad hoc bargaining, leaving both allies and adversaries uncertain about U.S. red lines. For U.S. chipmakers, it's better to earn some revenue from China than none. While the deal gives direct access to the lucrative China market, it also directly eats into Nvidia's and AMD's profits. This will create ripples in the broader market ecosystem, wherein corporate planning, profit margins, and investor confidence could all be affected. Major U.S. companies with considerable market share in China will be watching closely. If the government is willing to impose a revenue-sharing requirement for chip sales, might it do the same for other strategic sectors? This could prompt firms to rethink their China strategies, diversify supply chains, or intensify lobbying to either pursue or avoid similar arrangements. The message to shareholders becomes clearer after this move: geopolitical risk is no longer an abstract factor; instead, it directly shapes revenue streams. One possible explanation behind the decision is the 'engage to constrain' strategy: selling downgraded chips keeps China reliant on U.S. technology, thereby maintaining a degree of influence over its AI development. The H20 and MI308 chips, being less powerful than flagship models, are intended to fall below the threshold of national security risk. This could prove to be a pitfall for two reasons. First, Washington has previously failed to accurately gauge Chinese firms' ability to refurbish outdated hardware and optimize it for higher-grade applications. This means that even downgraded chips can accelerate China's AI capabilities, including in areas with military applications. Second, the free flow of H20 chips is unlikely to halt China's renewed drive toward indigenous chip development. In fact, the renewed synergies between governments and private chipmakers in China are likely to take advantage of this policy relaxation to prepare themselves for any future restrictions. Thus the new policy, which resolves to protect domestic interests, will again fuel Beijing's determination to achieve chip independence and undermine U.S. strategic objectives in the long term. By reversing the ban and taking a revenue share, Washington risks sending a conflicting message: that security concerns can be waived in exchange for commercial concessions. The shift from safeguarding national security to commodifying strategic concerns poses several questions. If sensitive technology can be sold for a price, how credible will future restrictions appear to allies, adversaries, and U.S. companies alike? More broadly, U.S. allies involved in semiconductor supply chains – Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the Netherlands – may see this as a signal to adopt similarly transactional policies, fragmenting the global trade environment. During the Biden administration, these allies were part of the broader export control regime. If this model is perceived as putting a price tag on national security, it could weaken the legitimacy of future export controls, embolden adversaries to test U.S. resolve, and encourage allies to question U.S. consistency. The United States now walks a fine line. Whether this is a masterstroke of transactional diplomacy or a short-sighted policy gamble will depend on whether Washington can secure broader strategic gains without undermining its own credibility.
Asahi Shimbun
an hour ago
- Asahi Shimbun
ANALYSIS/ China factories cut shifts and workers' pay as U.S. tariffs bite
GUANGZHOU, China--Mike Chai aims to cut wage costs at his kitchen cabinet factory by about 30% to remain competitive against other Chinese firms, which have stopped selling to the U.S. due to steep tariffs and are now coming after his long-time customers in Australia. Chai had already halved his workforce to 100 people since the pandemic and says he has no more room to trim. Instead, he is shortening shifts and asking workers to take unpaid leave - an increasingly common practice that has become a hidden deflationary force in the world's second-largest economy. 'We're in survival mode,' said the 53-year-old, adding that his company, Cartia Global Manufacturing, in the southern city of Foshan, 'barely breaks even.' 'I told them, you don't want our factory to go broke. You've worked here for 10-15 years, let's do it together.' China's headline unemployment rate has held around 5% as U.S. President Donald Trump raised tariffs on imports from China by 30 percentage points this year. Washington and Beijing extended on Monday a tariff truce for another 90 days, during which tariffs will not return to April's triple-digit levels. But economists say underemployment - which, in common with other economies, is not tracked in data - is worsening due to higher levies and industrial overcapacity, squeezing workers' income, undermining their confidence about the future and prompting them to spend less. Consumer confidence lingers near record lows, retail sales have weakened, and inflation in July was zero. Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Natixis, says it is China's manufacturing workers who suffer while exports - and the economy - keep growing despite the U.S. tariffs. 'It's the people who are hammered by this model of huge competition, lower prices, thus you need to lower costs, thus you need to lower wages. It's a spiral,' she said. 'The model is crazy. I'm sorry, but if you need to export at a loss, do not export.' Statistics will not reveal Chinese workers as 'the main losers' in the trade war because 'they will not become unemployed, but they will get unpaid leave of absence or work fewer hours,' she added. Chai has already lost two key customers in his main market of Australia after other Chinese firms cut their prices and his factory is operating at half-capacity. 'All those who have (left) America have come to Australia,' he said. 'A lot of new supply is knocking on my customers' doors.' While Chinese exports to the U.S. dropped 21.7% year-on-year in July, they rose by 9.2% to the European Union, 16.6% to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and 14.8% to Australia. Chai plans to cut prices by about 10%. To afford that, he is also cutting overtime - which previously made up more than a third of workers' income - from 28 days per month in total to about 10. On average, his workers earn 5,000 yuan ($697) a month before overtime. Factory bosses are also turning to temporary workers, hiring them for new orders and dismissing them when demand dries up. Dave Fong, who co-owns three factories in southern China making everything from school bags to climbing gear and industrial machinery, says he laid off 30 full-time workers at one of the plants, then rehired some of them on a temporary basis to fulfil unexpected orders. 'We prefer temporary contracts so we don't need to pay pension or insurance,' said Fong. 'It's by day or by hour.' 'If we don't do that, the company hits a dead end. The market is weak because consumption power has decreased. Another factor is trade, especially with the U.S.' SUDDEN DROP Temporary work is common in China, especially among its nearly 300 million rural migrants. Chen Chuyan, a recruiting agent in the central city of Wuhan, says the going rate has dropped to 14 yuan per hour from 16 yuan last year. 'There's a long line of people waiting for job interviews every day, but the factories don't have that much demand,' Chen said. Alan Zhang has taken such jobs in Datang village, a cluster of small garment factories in the southern city of Guangzhou, since 2021. Back then, he earned 400 yuan a day, but now he struggles to find work paying even half that amount. 'If it's just a couple hundred yuan, I won't take it,' said the 30-year-old, after scanning handwritten ads for temporary work held by recruiters lounging on scooters. 'I don't know what happened. Suddenly it got really hard to find anything. Prices dropped fast,' said Zhang, who pays 700 yuan per month to rent a studio flat in Datang with his wife, who also works in clothing factories. He worked just 14 days in July, which worries him because he must raise 10,000 yuan every year for his son's kindergarten fees. The boy lives with grandparents in Zhang's hometown in neighboring Fujian province. 'If manufacturing wages are being squeezed, then the wider economy would feel deflationary pressure,' said Richard Yarrow, a fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government. 'This is definitely a growing issue for some of the lower-skill types of manufacturing in China, such as textiles, furniture, and simple electronics.' LOW-BALLED At the Longhua employment market in the tech hub of Shenzhen, dozens of people browsed bulletin boards for electronics factory jobs paying 17-28 yuan per hour. Mo, 26, who has a degree in digital marketing but could not find a job in the field, had already had two interviews by early afternoon. He declined the offers because the terms were not as advertised. 'They'll say 23 yuan, but actually give you 20,' said Mo, only giving his surname for privacy reasons. 'Then they'll take management fees, housing, cleaning, and whatever else they can deduct.' Huang, 46, was checking the market for a fifth straight day, having arrived by bus from the southwestern province of Yunnan. He managed real estate projects before the property market crash. Now he is divorced and lives on 10 yuan meals, paying 25 yuan per night for a bed in a dormitory. He cannot afford anything else until he finds work. 'I had one interview this morning but they asked for an upfront placement fee of 80 yuan,' said Huang, dragging a small suitcase. 'So I didn't go. I bought some food instead.'
The Mainichi
an hour ago
- The Mainichi
Japan's Self-Defense Forces end annual ceremony amid mounting duties
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan's Defense Ministry has decided to discontinue the Self-Defense Forces' annual review ceremony, citing increased duties amid security challenges posed by China, Russia, and North Korea. The ministry said in a press release late last month that it has become "difficult to continue" the ceremony, as it needs to "maintain our nation's watertight defense posture in the face of the most severe and complex security environment since the end of World War II." The SDF's ground, maritime and air services had been taking turns hosting the event every fall, and this year the Maritime Self-Defense Force was to hold a naval review in Sagami Bay, Kanagawa Prefecture, southwest of Tokyo. Defense Minister Gen Nakatani told a press conference earlier this month that the event had helped boost the SDF's morale and deepen public understanding of their activities, but he admitted that conducting a ceremony every year has placed a heavy burden on the forces. Citing China and Russia's intensifying military activities in areas surrounding Japan and North Korea's nuclear and missile development, Nakatani said there must not be the "slightest gap" in the SDF's response. According to Nakatani, a review ceremony requires preparations by about 5,000 SDF members for around one month and defense equipment for some two months, which would force them to cut their training time and could "affect a wide variety of duties including monitoring and surveillance." Given the strains on the troops, the SDF had already scaled down the size of the ceremony in recent years, holding it without an audience since 2020 when COVID-19 began spreading in Japan. The SDF have also been struggling with a chronic shortage of members amid the country's low birthrate and population decline. The prime minister, as commander-in-chief of the SDF, had addressed defense personnel at the event every year.
