By Sakura Murakami and Satoshi Sugiyama
(Reuters) – Former Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso said on Tuesday that a tougher security environment in the Taiwan Strait means Japan, the United States and others need to show strong resolve to come to Taiwan’s defence if it were attacked.
“The most important thing now is to make sure that war doesn’t break out in the Taiwan Strait,” Aso, vice president of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said in a speech in Taipei during a three-day visit to Taiwan.
“I believe that now is the time for Japan, Taiwan, the United States and other like-minded countries to be prepared to put into action very strong deterrence,” he said in remarks streamed online. “It’s the resolve to fight.”
He added that clearly showing the will to defend Taiwan was a form of deterrence. He did not specify China as the aggressor, but said it was crucial for Japan, as a neighbour of Taiwan, and other countries that are upholding international order, to send the message to China and the rest of the international community.
Aso is the most senior Japanese political official to visit Taiwan since 1972.
China has never ruled out the use of force to reunite self-ruled Taiwan with the mainland, which has become a source of tension in east Asia and has contributed to a decision by close U.S. ally Japan to boost its defence spending.
In 2021, Aso, then deputy prime minister, called any invasion of Taiwan by China a “threat to Japan’s survival” and said Japan and the U.S. would defend Taiwan together should such an incident happen.
Those comments angered China, which said the remarks “harmed the political foundation of China-Japan relations.”
Aso is scheduled to meet Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Sakura Murakami, Satoshi Sugiyama, Kantaro Komiya in TOKYO; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim and Gerry Doyle)
