The US watches the actions of China and North Korea 3:55
Tokyo (CNN) -
Japan is drawing a red line around an island chain that is also being claimed by China, rejecting Beijing's increasingly aggressive military stance and setting the stage for a possible showdown between the two biggest powers in China. the region.
In an exclusive interview with CNN, Japan's Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said that the Senkaku Islands, known as the Diaoyu Islands in China, are undoubtedly Japanese territory and would be defended as such, with Tokyo matching any Chinese threats to the islands, ship by ship, and beyond if necessary.
Japan has been expanding its Self Defense Forces, adding state-of-the-art F-35 fighter jets and turning warships into aircraft carriers for them.
It is also building new destroyers, submarines and missiles, while noting that its military spending still pales in comparison to China's rising military spending.
"Against Chinese action in the Senkaku Islands and other parts of the East China Sea ... we have to show that the government of Japan is resolutely defending our territory with the largest number of Japanese coast guard vessels than China's," Kishi said.
"There is no territorial dispute related to the Senkaku Islands between Japan and other countries," he added.
ANALYSIS: These disputed islands Japan and China could be the next military high point in Asia
The story about the tensions on the uninhabited island
Minamikojima, Kitakojima and Uotsuri Islands, part of the five main islands of the Senkaku group in the East China Sea, on September 11, 2013.
The stresses on the uninhabited rock chain - 1,900 kilometers southwest of Tokyo, but only a third of that distance from Shanghai - have simmered for years, and claims about them date back centuries.
When tensions rose on the islands in 2012, it sparked a wave of nationalist sentiment in China.
Public protests erupted in dozens of Chinese cities, with Japanese-brand cars vandalized, Japanese shops and restaurants vandalized, and debris dumped at the Japanese embassy in Beijing.
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At the government level, China has been as strident as Kishi in claiming the island chain.
"Diaoyu Island and its affiliated islands are an inherent part of China's territory, and it is our inherent right to conduct patrols and law enforcement activities in these waters," the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement last year. .
China has been backing its claims in the region with its ships and establishing new laws that grant expanded powers to the coast guard.
According to Japanese authorities, Chinese Coast Guard ships have ventured into Japanese territorial waters, or within 12 nautical miles of Japanese land, a total of 88 times between January 1 and the end of August.
While in the contiguous area, inter-island waters but not within 12 miles of the coast, there have been 851 Chinese incursions.
Experts say China's strategy is to place its forces in locations in and around the disputed areas and to exercise Beijing's law and authority over them.
Such action makes the Chinese claims appear due course.
"Exercising the rights of the coastal state is an important step in corroborating sovereignty through practice," said Alessio Patalano, professor of warfare and strategy at King's College London.
Uninhabited islands put China and Japan to fight
Chinese maritime surveillance vessels (front and middle) sail with a Japanese Coast Guard ship near Kitajima and Minami Kojima of the disputed Senkaku Islands on April 23, 2013.
Kishi has noticed.
"There are actions that continue to challenge an integral part of the sovereign territory of Japan. These actions are making it a fait accompli," he said.
That "integral" Japanese territory is even closer to another possible flash point in the Japan-China relationship.
What is the origin of the conflict between Japan and China over the Diaoyu or Senkaku islands?
The importance of Taiwan to Japan
The westernmost island of Japan lies at the end of a chain of Japanese possessions parallel to the Chinese coast and extends southward about 1,125 kilometers from the main island of Kyushu, through the Okinawa military center and the island resort. from Ishigaki, to the small island of Yonaguni.
With its 17 square kilometers of rock and a population of less than 2,000 people, Yonaguni is only 110 kilometers from Taiwan, the democratically ruled island over which Beijing claims sovereignty.
Taiwan and mainland China have been ruled separately since the end of a civil war more than seven decades ago.
However, Beijing continues to view Taiwan as an inseparable part of its territory, even though the Communist Party of China has never ruled it.
China has increased its military pressure on Taiwan.
In June, it sent more than two dozen fighter jets near the island, prompting Taiwan to alert its air defenses.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping says Taiwan must be under Beijing's control and has not ruled out the use of force to make that happen.
US and Japan conduct operations to warn China 1:09
That, Kishi said, has Tokyo in a constant state of surveillance.
When Tokyo released its annual defense report in July, it contained its strongest language on Taiwan, saying that "stabilizing the situation around Taiwan is important for the security of Japan."
At the time, Kishi said that he should be monitored with "a sense of crisis."
In his interview with CNN, he gave details.
"What is happening in Taiwan is directly related to Japan," he said, noting that the island straddles the "energy lifeline" of his country.
"90% of the energy that Japan uses is imported through the areas around Taiwan," Kishi said.
It is a vulnerability that Tokyo has to mitigate.
"What could happen in Taiwan could probably be a problem for Japan, and in that case, Japan will have to take the necessary response to that situation," said Kishi, while emphasizing that the tension should be dissipated through dialogue, not through dialogue. violence.
Japan uses more than words and deploys military arsenal
But Tokyo doesn't just use words to back up its claims.
It is also beefing up its military defenses, placing missiles and troops in Yonaguni and plans to do the same with nearby Ishigaki in the near future.
"This is to show our firm will to defend our southwestern part of Japanese territory," Kishi said.
In that sense, Tokyo has a key ally in its corner, the United States.
Taiwanese soldiers hold grenade launchers and machine guns and drive tanks during a military exercise in Tainan, Taiwan, on September 14, 2021.
Tokyo and Washington share a mutual defense treaty, which means that the United States is obligated to defend Japanese territory.
US President Joe Biden reaffirmed that security commitment shortly after his inauguration in January, with a statement from the White House that specifically mentions the Senkakus.
Kishi said this week that the alliance is getting stronger, and commenting on the Senkakus situation, he said Washington backs Tokyo.
"We will continue to conduct bilateral trainings with the United States and multilateral trainings with other partners to strengthen our position and contribute to peace and stability in this region," he said, noting that naval exercises have been conducted or scheduled with partners such as France, the United Kingdom and Germany.
While lining up partners, Japan is also improving its own arsenal, including developing and acquiring weapons systems that can attack areas far beyond Japanese territory.
Without saying which areas those longer-range systems might target, the Japanese defense minister said it was important that the country's military had the right equipment to defend it from any threat.
- CNN's Eric Cheung, Emiko Jozuka and Junko Ogura contributed to this report.
China Territorial Dispute
