Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong has joined her US and Japanese counterparts in attacking China for firing five missiles into the ocean in Japan’s exclusive economic zone, hours after China stop all dialogue with the United States on important issues such as climate change and military relations.
In a sign that US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit will reverberate long after her departure, Beijing announced it would end all dialogue between high-level military commanders and talks on the climate change action.
In this photo released by China’s Xinhua News Agency, a projectile is fired from an unspecified location in China during long-range live-fire drills on Thursday. Credit: Xinhua
It followed China firing five missiles over Taiwan that landed in the ocean in Japan’s economic zone, bringing Tokyo directly into the dispute.
Taiwan’s defense ministry said on Saturday morning that several Chinese ships and aircraft carried out missions in the Taiwan Strait, the passage that divides the democratically-ruled island from its neighboring superpower.
Taiwan’s military issued a warning and deployed aerial reconnaissance forces and patrol boats to keep watch as it put the land-based missiles on standby.
After Wong met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa in Cambodia, the three issued a joint statement urging all parties to “avoid risks of calculation errors”.
“Things are much riskier in the South China Sea and Taiwan, and if you don’t have some kind of military dialogue that’s a big problem.”
Richard McGregor, Senior Fellow, Lowy Institute
Wong, Blinken and Hayashi said China’s recent actions “seriously affect international peace and stability, including the use of large-scale military exercises.”
They condemned Beijing’s “launch of ballistic missiles,” five of which the Japanese government says landed in its exclusive economic zones, heightening tension and destabilizing the region” and urged it to “immediately cease military exercises” on the Taiwan Strait.