Latest news with #AkiraYokochi
South China Morning Post
6 days ago
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
Beijing summons Japanese diplomat over ‘Taiwan and Chinese citizens' safety'
Beijing has summoned a senior Japanese diplomat to express concerns over issues such as Taiwan , according to China's foreign ministry. Advertisement On Wednesday, Liu Jinsong, director general of the Department of Asian Affairs, summoned the chief minister of Japan's embassy in Beijing Akira Yokochi to express 'grave concern on issues including history, Taiwan and the safety of Chinese citizens in Japan,' the ministry said, without providing further details. The summons came in the run-up to a series of commemorations to mark the end of World War II, commonly known in China as the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. Japan's wartime atrocities are a long-standing cause of tension between the two countries, while relations have also suffered as a result of rising nationalism and the ongoing territorial dispute over the Diaoyu Islands, known in Japan as the Senkakus. Last month, the foreign ministry issued another protest after Taiwanese foreign minister Lin Chia-lung made a rare visit to Japan. Beijing described that as sending a 'seriously wrong signal' and 'providing a platform for his anti-China separatist activities.' Advertisement Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China that must be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary. In common with most countries, Japan does not formally recognise Taiwan as an independent state.
Yomiuri Shimbun
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Japan Lodges Protest with China over Helicopter Incursion into Territorial Airspace; China Points Finger at Japanese Rightists
Courtesy of the Japan Coast Guard A helicopter takes off from the deck of a China Coast Guard vessel. BEIJING — The deputy minister at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing on Sunday strongly protested against the Saturday incursion of a Chinese helicopter into Japanese territorial airspace, during a meeting with a Chinese government official. The minister, Akira Yokochi, also demanded that Beijing take measures to prevent a recurrence. The helicopter violated Japanese airspace on the day after taking off from a China Coast Guard (CCG) ship near the Senkaku Islands in Okinawa Prefecture. At the meeting on Sunday, Liu Jinsong, director general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry's Asian Affairs Department, claimed that a civilian aircraft operated by Japanese rightists had violated Chinese airspace over the Diaoyu Islands (the Chinese name for the Senkakus), according to the ministry. A spokesperson for the CCG on Saturday said that a helicopter took off from one of its vessels, which had been navigating the waters around the Senkaku Islands, to warn the Japanese aircraft to leave in accordance with the law. CCG vessels have repeatedly intruded into Japanese territorial waters around the islands, as China moves to normalize its attempts to change the status quo by force.
