By Yukiko Toyoda
TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan will keep calling for China to act responsibly on the world stage, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Thursday, emphasising the need for peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.
China conducted military drills in the waters off Taiwan earlier this month, and Kishida’s comments came days after foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) nations meeting in Japan urged Beijing to “abstain from threats, coercion intimidation and the use of force”.
Kishida also stressed the importance of stability between China and the United States, highlighting Tokyo’s sometimes difficult position during times of friction between its closest ally and a key trading partner.
Japan will “continue to call on China to take the responsibility it should be taking as a major country on the world stage,” Kishida said during a roundtable interview with members of the foreign media.
“Peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is not just important for Japan, but the international community and the world more broadly as well,” he said.
“We have been consistent with our position on Taiwan, that any issues should be resolved peacefully through dialogue.
In any case… we will comply with our constitution, international laws, and our domestic laws including the relevant defence laws.”
Beijing, which views Taiwan as Chinese territory and has not renounced the use of force to take the democratically governed island, has rebuffed the G7 comments as gross interference in its internal affairs.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen says only the island’s people can decide their future.
Kishida also said he has no plan now to raise Japan’s sales tax rate, when asked about plans to fund new childcare measures aimed at encouraging people to have more children.
Support for childcare is a top priority in the world’s third-largest economy, where the number of births fell below 800,000 last year for the first time on record.
($1 = 134.5600 yen)
(Reporting by Yukiko Toyoda; Additional reporting by Sakura Murakami, Kentaro Sugiyama, Yoshifumi Takemoto and Nobuhiro Kubo; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Alexander Smith & Simon Cameron-Moore)
