China's top diplomat Wang Yi on Thursday criticized Japan for recent "negative trends on the Taiwan issue" as he met in Beijing with former House of Representatives Speaker Yohei Kono, who heads a Japanese delegation, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said.
Wang lambasted a claim by some circles in Japan that any contingency concerning Taiwan would be an emergency for Japan, calling it "absurd and dangerous" and urging Tokyo to be "highly vigilant."
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was among advocates of that claim. Beijing regards the self-governed democratic island as a renegade province and opposes any official contact with it by foreign countries.
In a meeting with Kono, who is visiting Beijing with some 80 members of the delegation including many business representatives, Wang said China-Japan relations "are at a new critical juncture" with the two countries marking this year the 45th anniversary of the conclusion of the 1978 bilateral Peace and Friendship Treaty.
Wang urged Tokyo to oppose decoupling from the world's second-largest economy and "exclude external interference," alluding to Japan's security ally the United States. Amid intensifying U.S.-China rivalry, Washington has called for reducing economic dependency on the Asian giant.
In response, Kono said the business community generally does not support politicizing economic issues and decoupling is not in the interests of any party, according to the Chinese ministry.
The Japanese Association for the Promotion of International Trade mission met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Wednesday. The group including Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki among its members is on its first visit to China since April 2019.
