Japan’s top diplomat used a meeting with his Chinese counterpart on the sidelines of a regional summit in Malaysia on Thursday to lay out a laundry list of concerns with Beijing — including dangerous intercepts by its military and its export controls on crucial rare earth elements.
Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya held talks with China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, on the sidelines of a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-related gatherings in Kuala Lumpur to voice Tokyo’s “strong concerns” about the flurry of security and economic issues, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
Highlighting Tokyo’s rising security concerns, the 45-minute talks came just ahead of an announcement by Japan’s Defense Ministry of what it said were two “unusual approaches” by Chinese fighter jets near Air Self-Defense Force surveillance aircraft that “risked accidental collisions” over the East China Sea on Wednesday and Thursday.
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