Ex-Japan admiral urges dialogue with Taiwan, U.S. to counter China

Taipei, Aug. 21 (CNA) A retired Japanese admiral on Wednesday called on the United States, Japan and Taiwan to form a direct trilateral communication channel to share intelligence in order to jointly prevent a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

Tomohisa Takei, a former Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) chief of staff, said at a forum in Taipei that territorial disputes in the West Pacific have intensified over the past decade as China sees territorial ownership as "an issue that can never be conceded."

Since President Xi Jinping (習近平) assumed power, the People's Republic of China has made it clear that both the Senkaku Islands and Taiwan are "at the very core of Chinese core interests," according to Takei.

"From this point of view, Japan and Taiwan are inseparably linked in many ways. In particular, the two are in the same boat when it comes to national security," he said.

The governments of Taiwan, Japan and China all claim sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands, known as the Diaoyutai Islands in Taiwan, and the Diaoyu Islands in China, in the East China Sea.

Takei said the Japanese government was less aware, however, of Taiwan's geopolitical value to Japan or the connections between the two countries.

"First, what would happen if Taiwan were somehow integrated into China? And the second, if Japan and the United States fail to defend Taiwan, even in a gray zone situation, a completely different world will emerge in East Asia," he warned.

To prevent such a scenario, the retired admiral said Tokyo needed to strengthen its military cooperation with the U.S. and continue to beef up its own defense capabilities, amid China's continuous defense build-up.

In terms of the U.S.-Japan alliance, Tokyo also needed to elevate its security cooperation with Washington, he said.

More concretely, he proposed that there should be a "direct triangle approach" between Japan and Taiwan with the U.S. in the middle.

The Japan-U.S.-Taiwan triangle framework should also include information sharing and promote closer trilateral coordination on various fronts, Takei said.

At the same time, he suggested that Japan continue to strengthen its defense capabilities to complement U.S. attempts to extend its arms posture and its military deterrence to Taiwan, he said.

At the same forum, Rick Waters, who served nearly three decades as the U.S. State Department's top China policy official, said Beijing, including the Chinese Coast Guard, has been very active in deploying gray-zone tactics in the Indo-Pacific region over the past decade.

The world has witnessed "this emergence of a stronger China, with composite national power now being applied through a multidimensional gray zone strategy and an arc that spans from India through the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, into the East China Sea," said Waters, now the managing director of Eurasia Group's China practice.

Beijing's growing threat has led countries in the region to stand closer, leading to the reshaping of the U.S.-Japan defense alliance to include Korea and the Philippines. "So we are starting to see them rely more on each other."

The issue of Taiwan Strait security also affects others around the globe, which is why the G7, NATO and European countries have in recent years begun to talk more about the importance of peace and stability and about upholding these norms in the Indo-Pacific, he said.

The two speakers made their remarks during the morning session of the Ketagalan Forum, a government-founded annual international seminar with a focus on security issues in the Indo-Pacific.