US, Japan conducting ‘top secret’ war games for possible conflict with China: Report

The United States and Japan have been conducting “top secret” war games as possible preparation for conflict with China over self-ruled Chinese Taipei, a report says.

In a report on Thursday, the Financial Times cited six unnamed military sources as saying that the armed forces of the US and Japan had been conducting secret war training around the uninhabited and disputed Diaoyu Islands.

Tokyo and Beijing have for several years been locked in a territorial row over the small group of islands in the East China Sea, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

China maintains that it has indisputable sovereignty over the islands but the Japanese government regards them as parts of its territory.

Back in 2019, the then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe decided to significantly expand military planning because of what he believed was China’s threat to the Chinese Taipei and Diaoyu Islands, the sources further told the daily.

Such contingencies for a possible conflict with China that began in the final year of the administration of former US President Donald Trump continued under the administrations of Joe Biden and Abe’s successor, Yoshihide Suga, they added.

The islands in question were transferred by the US to Japan’s administrative control in 1971, triggering a territorial dispute with China, which claims the discovery and ownership of the islands from the 14th century.

Tokyo insists it had ownership of the islands from 1895 until its surrender at the end of World War II.

Along with the “serious planning” for such possible confrontation with Beijing, both Washington and Tokyo conducted “top-secret tabletop war games and joint exercises in the South China and East China Seas,” the Financial Times further quoted the sources as saying.

China raps US, Japan for ‘reckless harm’to int’l order over Taipei statement

Biden hosted the Japanese premier at the White House on Friday, in what was his first meeting with a foreign leader since assuming office earlier this year.

The sources further told the British newspaper that the so-called “disaster relief training” in the disputed South China Sea was used as cover for the US-Japan joint military exercises in the region. 

The Financial Times also cited former Pentagon official Randy Schriver as saying that the war games were “highly fungible,” explaining that the drills officially used for disaster relief preparations could in fact be applicable to warfare, such as amphibious landings.

Beijing has sovereignty over the Chinese Taipei under the “One China” policy, which is in principle recognized by almost all world countries. But successive US administrations and other Western governments have been seeking independent relations with Chinese Taipei.

Washington has been selling weapons to, staging shows of military force around, and facilitating diplomatic contact with the self-ruled island, in violation of Chinese sovereignty and its own stated policy.

China has in response ramped up military patrols and drills near the island in recent months.
Beijing claims sovereignty over almost all of the disputed territory in the South and East China seas.

Washington resumes talks with Taipei, China warnings notwithstanding

Authorities in Chinese Taipei said both sides had agreed to set up working groups for further discussions.

Beijing accuses Washington of interfering in regional issues and deliberately stirring up tensions in the strategic waters of the South and East China Seas.

US activity near the resource-rich international waters off China’s coast has long been a source of tension between the two sides. China accuses the US of carrying out reconnaissance flights over Chinese coastal waters and frequently calls on the US to halt patrols in the area.

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