Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said Saturday he conveyed his concern to China's foreign policy chief Wang Yi that a flying object from any country entering Japan's airspace without permission would constitute an intrusion, amid diplomatic tensions over suspected Chinese spy balloons.
Hayashi also told reporters after a 50-minute meeting with Wang in the southern German city of Munich that the two countries agreed to hold a security dialogue involving senior foreign affairs and defense officials next week, the first since February 2019.
"I said that if a balloon enters our country's airspace without permission, it would be considered an intrusion no matter which country it came from," Hayashi said after the talks held on the fringes of the three-day Munich Security Conference through Sunday.
The two shared the view that both countries must make an effort toward maintaining "constructive and stable" bilateral relations, according to Hayashi.
It was the first bilateral meeting of top diplomats since the Japanese Defense Ministry said on Tuesday at least three unidentified flying objects that flew over Japan's airspace from 2019 to 2021 are "strongly suspected" to have been Chinese unmanned spy balloons.
But the Japanese minister stopped short of elaborating on the details of their conversation over the topic.
The Japanese Defense Ministry reexamined several past cases of unidentified flying objects over the country's airspace after the United States brought down a Chinese balloon on Feb. 4 off the coast of South Carolina.
China, in response, said Japan was "making up stories to smear and attack" Beijing without clear evidence, and said Tokyo should not follow Washington's lead in using the incidents to hype up Chinese threats.
Amid concerns over the government's capability to respond to potential future contingencies involving incoming Chinese surveillance balloons, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's government has decided to ease rules for weapon use by the Self-Defense Forces, allowing them to shoot down unmanned flying objects that violate Japan's territorial skies.
Hayashi also expressed concerns over developments in the East China Sea, including the situation regarding the Senkaku Islands, as well as intensified Chinese military activities in other areas surrounding Japan, the Foreign Ministry said.
The two East Asian powers have been at loggerheads over the Tokyo-controlled, Beijing-claimed uninhabited islets, which China calls Diaoyu. Chinese coast guard vessels have repeatedly entered Japanese waters around the Senkakus.
Concerning Taiwan, a self-ruled democratic island that China regards as a breakaway province to be unified with the mainland, by force if necessary, the Japanese minister raised the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.
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