The use of suspected Chinese surveillance balloons has shown that Japan and Taiwan need to share "critical" intelligence about potential common aerial threats, a senior defense policymaker in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has said.
"We don't have those bilateral relations with Taiwan, so we don't cooperate on that, but Japan's government will have to consider what it does next," said Itsunori Onodera, a former defense minister and an influential lawmaker in the ruling party, in an interview.
Some of Japan's islands are within 100 kilometers of Taiwan, so their aircraft and ships often operate in close proximity.