Japan stands up to China during Nancy Pelosi visit

Storm in the Pacific after the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, began her visit to Asia. After sending Chinese diplomacy into a tizzy with her visit to Taiwan, the row continues on the final leg of the trip, which takes place in Japan. 

The Chinese government responded to Pelosi's challenge, who strongly supports Taiwan's independence from the Asian giant, with a colossal military deployment in the waters surrounding the island of Formosa. On the very Thursday following the visit of the second in line to the White House, China's armed forces launched large-scale exercises in the waters of the Taiwan Strait, accompanied by threatening propaganda videos showing their deployment of forces. 

According to the Taipei government, Chinese air forces also again violated Taiwan's airspace during the military exercises. Chinese air force fighters flew over the island's skies, in addition to a number of ballistic missiles that subsequently hit waters in Japan's exclusive zone.

Regarding the latter incident, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told a press conference that these missile strikes in Japan's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) are a direct threat to Japanese national security. It should be remembered that the exclusive economic zone is the perimeter over which a nation has control beyond 24 nautical miles of its territorial waters and up to 200 nautical miles if it is not in conflict with the EEZ of another country, a case that is settled by crossing the median between the two coasts that cause overlapping. 

Japan is a country that, after the colossal and traumatic defeat suffered in the Second World War, restructured its armed forces completely and developed them almost exclusively from a defensive point of view. In the face of the Chinese and North Korean threats, Japan has been working since the 1990s to deploy a progressive and advanced ballistic missile defence system that has come to characterise the Japanese archipelago. 

Fumio Kishida met with Speaker Pelosi for just over an hour, after which both appeared before the cameras to deliver a message of unity and close cooperation between their countries. Both Pelosi and Kushida expressed their rejection of Chinese military exercises in the Pacific, which Kushida called for their cancellation. 

According to Japanese Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi's cabinet, this latest ballistic missile incident in Japanese waters, which is not a new development, aggravates the situation because of the trajectory of the projectiles. According to the Defence Ministry, at least four of the five missiles that landed in Japanese EEZ waters crossed the main island of Taiwan, which is unusual and extremely dangerous. Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi announced that a formal protest will be lodged with China through diplomatic channels in response to these latest defiant launches. 

 The tension created by Pelosi's tour has also affected the agendas of the Chinese and Japanese foreign ministers, who were scheduled to hold a round of talks in August but have now been cancelled by China. This decision could have consequences for trade cooperation in ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the giant global trade hub that unites the countries of the region and an essential economic partner of the European Union. The ripple effects of this diplomatic crisis were felt as far away as Brussels, with the euro depreciating against the dollar as it was confirmed that the USAF's SPAR19 aircraft would take Pelosi to Taiwan. 

Americas Coordinator: José Antonio Sierra.