Taiwan FM praises the cooperation between Japan, the US and the Philippines; Joseph Wu says China threatens more than just Taiwan

TAIPEI – Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, in an April 17 interview with The Yomiuri, praised the progress of security cooperation between Japan, the United States and the Philippines, and expressed hope for stronger cooperation to counter Japan’s aggressive maritime expansion counter China in the East and South China Seas. Shimbun and other media. During the interview at Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Taipei, Wu welcomed the agreement between Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, US President Joe Biden and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to promote maritime security cooperation, including with China’s increasing maritime expansion in mind. their first trilateral meeting on April 11.

Wu called the agreement “a whole new security architecture.”

Regarding Chinese government ships increasing their activities around the Senkaku Islands in Okinawa Prefecture and in the waters near the Philippines, Wu said: “China is not only targeting Taiwan.”

“If they understand the threat of Chinese expansionism, there will be more countries uniting to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific and also peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” Wu said.

Regarding information warfare through disinformation, Wu emphasized that there is a danger that China will try to control public opinion in Japan to create a situation favorable to itself. “They want to keep telling people in Japan that militarization, the deployment to the southwestern islands, the U.S. military presence in the region, military exercises with the United States, those kinds of things are provocative and likely to provoke Chinese military responses. These kinds of stories are made up by the Chinese,” he said.

Wu, Taiwan’s foreign affairs chief since February 2018, will become secretary-general of the National Security Council, which oversees security policy, in the new government to be formed in May by newly-elected President Lai Ching-te of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party of Taiwan.