Taiwan calls on Beijing to stop 'hybrid coercion' against Japan

Taipei, Nov. 15 (CNA) China should cease its "hybrid coercion" against Japan, said Taiwan's Presidential Office on Saturday after Chinese authorities advised against traveling to Japan and announced a live-fire exercise in the Yellow Sea.

Presidential Office spokesperson Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said Beijing's "inappropriate unilateral actions" against Japan threaten the security and stability of the Indo-Pacific region, and she called on Beijing not to become "a troublemaker in the global community."

China's Maritime Safety Administration said on Saturday that the naval exercise will run from Monday through Wednesday.

Its Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued the travel advisory on Friday, citing a rising number of criminal cases involving Chinese nationals and safety risks following Japan's "provocative" statements regarding Taiwan.

Those "statements" referred to comments made by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi during a parliamentary session on Nov. 7.

She said a "Taiwan contingency" involving a Chinese naval blockade could qualify as a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, a condition that would allow the nation to mobilize its armed forces under its security laws, according to an Asahi Shimbun report.

"If warships are used and other armed actions are involved, I believe this could constitute a survival-threatening situation," Takaichi was quoted as saying in the report.

Under Japan's security legislation, such a situation allows it to exercise "collective self-defense" if an attack on an ally -- such as the United States -- or a country closely related to Japan is deemed to threaten Japan's survival, even without a direct attack on Japan.

On Nov. 8, Xue Jian (薛劍), China's consul general in Osaka, reposted the Asahi report on Takaichi's remarks on social media and wrote "that filthy head that intrudes without permission should be cut off without hesitation" in Japanese.

The post has since been deleted.

Since then, the two countries have issued formal protests against the other. Beijing condemned Tokyo for not retracting Takaichi's "profoundly wrong and dangerous" remarks, while Tokyo demanded that Beijing "take appropriate actions" regarding Xue's comments, according to statements from the two sides' foreign ministries.

Meanwhile, Taiwan's National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) criticized Beijing in a social media post Saturday, writing in Japanese that China "continues to engage in humiliating rhetoric and military intimidation toward Japan" instead of reflecting on the "insulting" remarks made by Xue.