Kaohsiung: Japan will drastically strengthen its defense capabilities in one go in line with the realities of the increasingly severe East Asian security environment, Liberal Democratic Party policy leader Koichi Hagiuda said Wednesday.

“Action is everything,” Hagiuda of the Japanese ruling party said in a speech delivered at I-Shou University in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan.

With China increasing its military pressure on Taiwan, he said that Beijing should “stop any actions that could increase military tension.”

Quoting the words of the late former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that “a Taiwan contingency is also a contingency for Japan,” Hagiuda said, “Chinese military coercion has become prominent around Taiwan in recent years.”

He also said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not someone else’s problem.

Hagiuda urged that China remove immediately its blanket ban on imports of Japanese fishery products introduced in response to Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s release into the sea of tritium-containing treated water from its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the site of the March 2011 triple meltdown.

Noting that China once suspended imports of pineapples and other products from Taiwan, Hagiuda said that Japan will never tolerate coercive actions using a strong bargaining position as a huge market.

He also said Japan will work with Taiwan to strengthen semiconductor supply chains.

JIJI Press