A China Coast Guard vessel sailing in the contiguous zone around the Senkaku Islands.
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China has published a white paper outlining the international order it claims to champion.
The document warns that the global order is suffering "serious blows," and expresses alarm that unilateralism and hegemonism are "brazenly trampling on international law and the norms of international relations." China, it declares, upholds UN-centred multilateralism and stands "resolutely on the side of fairness and justice."
The 2016 arbitral tribunal ruling, issued under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, found that China's sovereignty claims over most of those waters have no legal basis.
Beijing dismissed the ruling as "a piece of paper," unilaterally reclaimed reefs as artificial islands, and has been militarising them ever since.
Chinese coast guard vessels continue to harass the Philippines, Vietnam, and other coastal states.
China falsely claims the Senkaku Islands—inherent Japanese territory—as its own, and coast guard ships routinely intrude into Japanese territorial waters. Military pressure on Taiwan is intensifying, including naval blockade exercises.
China has been sustaining Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine through exports of dual-use goods. At this month's China-North Korea summit in Pyongyang, President Xi Jinping ignored the question of Korean Peninsula denuclearisation entirely.
The Real Threat to World Order
At the press conference to launch the document, Foreign Minister Wang Yi took aim at the Trump administration, declaring China's opposition to "coercion and bullying." Yet it is China that has been economically coercing countries through measures such as rare earth export controls.
The white paper proclaims that "a world where a minority of nations rule and the majority must comply is not a good world"—a thinly veiled attack on the international order led by Japan, the United States, and Europe.
It also cites "the revival of militarism" as a threat to global security. If that is a dig at Japan's efforts to fundamentally strengthen its defense capabilities, it could not be more wide of the mark. Japan is building its defenses solely because it faces real military threats from countries including China and North Korea.
The Takaichi administration must continue to push back clearly and factually against China's distorted propaganda.
RELATED:
- Full Speech: Defense Minister Koizumi Rejects Beijing's 'New Militarism' Accusation
- China's Cognitive Warfare and the Politics of Deception
Author: The Sankei Shimbun
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