Japan’s top cabinet official has rejected Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s remarks about sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands (known in China as the Diaoyu Islands) during his visit to Japan.
Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Maki said at a press conference on Friday (November 27) that Wang Yi’s remarks are “totally unacceptable. Toshimitsu Maki made it clear that there is no doubt that the Senkaku Islands “are our inherent territory and are currently under our effective control, and there is no sovereignty issue that should be resolved. He reiterated that “based on China’s own position, it is totally unacceptable” to Wang Yi’s sovereignty claim.
Wang Yi made a two-day visit to Japan on November 24 and 25. Sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands was one of the important issues in the high-level talks between Japan and China during Wang Yi’s visit. Sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands is a major impediment to relations between the two countries, with both Japan and China claiming sovereignty over the islands.
During his visit to Japan, Wang Yi made clear more than once China’s position on its sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu Islands).
Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported that following Prime Minister Kan’s November 25 meeting with Wang Yi, Wang told the media that he hoped to take measures so that the territorial issue would not affect the development of Japan and China.
In an interview with reporters at a hotel in Tokyo, Wang Yi suggested that the situation should improve if the two countries take mutual measures to keep ships other than official ships out of the surrounding waters, in light of the Japan-China confrontation over the Senkaku Islands (China’s Diaoyu Islands).
In addition to Japan’s foreign rejection of Wang Yi’s sovereignty remarks, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsushin Kato said on November 26 that Wang Yi’s sovereignty remarks were entirely based on China’s unilateral position and that the Japanese government would not accept them.
However, these statements by the Japanese Foreign Minister and Chief Cabinet Secretary were not accepted by some members of the Japanese political community, who believed that the Japanese official response to Wang Yi’s remarks was slow and lacking in force.
In response to Wang Yi’s remarks about the sovereignty of the Senkaku during a joint press conference following the 24-day Japan-China foreign ministerial meeting, Kyodo News reported that Japanese LDP lawmaker Hiroshi Yamada pursued the matter, saying, “The people strongly hoped that Foreign Minister Shigeru would make a strong rebuttal. Why was there no rebuttal then?”
An official from Japan’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday appeared to explain why Foreign Minister Maki did not rebut Wang Yi’s remarks on the spot. The official said protocol dictates that each minister has only one opportunity to speak at a joint press conference, and Toshimitsugu Shigeru was the first to speak.
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