Beijing is “very dissatisfied” with an alliance that it considers typical of the “Cold War” China showed its strong rejection of the pact reached on Wednesday between the United States and Japan. It represents the greatest reinforcement in six decades of military alliance between Tokyo and Washington.
For Beijing, it is a remote-controlled pact, which it interprets as one more step in a dotted line in which Washington's sanctions and technological and commercial restrictions follow one another. The Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, was quite explicit on Tuesday during an appearance at the end of a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in Beijing. “NATO must not come to our common home,” he emphasized. The “unstable” group formed by the U.S., Japan, and also the Philippines, “fosters conflict and confusion,’ says an editorial published on Wednesday by the pro-government newspaper Global Times. The most serious incident in recent weeks took place at theend of March, when Chinese ships fired a water cannon at a Philippine supply ship.