“Taiwan situation tilting toward emergency...time for like-minded nations to be prepared”: Former Japan PM Tara Aso

Taipei [Taiwan], August 9 : Former Japan Prime Minister Tara Aso, said that the Taiwan Strait is “gradually tilting towards a time of emergency” and now is the time for the “like-minded nations” to be prepared to put into action a strong deterrent, The Japan Times reported.
He made the remarks on Tuesday during a rare visit to the democratic island by a senior lawmaker from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
Aso, who currently is the Vice President of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), kicked off a three-day trip to Taiwan — the first by such a high-ranking party official since Tokyo severed diplomatic ties with Taipei in 1972 — on Monday.
“The environment in Japan and Taiwan has changed substantially,” Aso said during a live-streamed keynote speech at the Ketagalan Forum security dialogue. “I think that although we are now in a period of peace...we are gradually tilting toward a time of emergency.”
The LDP leader said this shift was “definitely not out of the blue” but was now “more evident,” pointing to military exercises by China around Taiwan last August and in April, which experts say were training for a possible invasion of the self-ruled island, The Japan Times reported.
Notably, China views Taiwan’s status as a so-called core issue, seeing it as a renegade province that must be brought back into the fold — by force if necessary. Beijing has been heaping diplomatic and military pressure on the island, routinely sending warplanes and warships across the so-called median line of the Taiwan Strait.
Without directly naming China, Aso further stressed the need to make clear to adversaries that Japan and its allies and partners are ready to use their growing defence capabilities to deter war and maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.
"I believe that now is the time for Japan, Taiwan, the United States and other like-minded nations to be prepared to put into action a strong deterrent. That’s the determination to fight,” The Japan Times quoted Aso as saying.
He added, "The most important thing now is to make sure that war doesn't break out in the region, including in the Taiwan Strait".
Meanwhile, Aso’s visit comes amid growing concerns in Tokyo that Chinese military assertiveness around the democratic island could erupt into a conflict. Japan’s Defence Ministry also noted this concern in its annual white paper last month and in three key security documents released in December last year.
China has sent fighter jets, bombers and spy aircraft into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone near the island on a near-daily basis, including 24 warplanes on Monday, The Japan Times reported citing Taiwan’s Defence Ministry. It added that 12 of those had crossed the median line — a move that until last year had been rare.
Senior Japanese officials, including Aso himself, have said that a Chinese attack on democratic Taiwan — a major semiconductor maker that sits astride key shipping lanes that provide Japan with much of its energy — would also represent an existential crisis for Tokyo.
The concern that conflict akin to war in Ukraine could be replicated in East Asia, has helped push Japan to bolster its defences, including the introduction of a so-called counterstrike capability and a plan to spend 2 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product on defence by 2027.
Notably, China opposes any official government contact between Taiwan and other countries.
Although Taiwan and Japan do not have formal diplomatic ties, the two sides have long maintained a robust relationship that includes economic and cultural exchanges. But in recent months, that relationship has grown even closer as Tokyo has become far more vocal about its concerns over Chinese military moves, The Japan Times reported.
This culminated in a Group of Seven leaders’ statement in Hiroshima in May that affirmed, “the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait as indispensable to security and prosperity in the international community.”
Aso also met Lai's major challengers in the presidential poll — New Taipei Mayor Hou Yu-ih, of the main opposition Kuomintang, and former Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je, the Chairman of the opposition Taiwan People's Party — when they visited Japan earlier this year.
Earlier on Monday, Aso offered flowers at the tomb of former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui in New Taipei City and met with the late leader's family, The Japan Times reported.