For 20 minutes, the Japanese Defense Minister, Yasukazu Hamada, and his Chinese counterpart, Li Shangfu, spoke on the telephone and exchanged the status of their bilateral defense ties.
How did the famous red telephone originate?
According to the Chinese Defense Ministry statement, this direct communication system is “a practical measure to implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two states.”
With a very distinctive style to the famous red telephone with which the United States and the then Soviet Union communicated a few years earlier.
Why is there tension between China and Japan?
Their rivalry began when Japan (a vassal state of the Chinese Empire) defeated their homeland in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895).
However, decades later it was agreed that each 29 September the two countries commemorate the re-establishment of their diplomatic relations; An agreement signed in Beijing in 1972.
China on Thursday accused former British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who arrived in Taipei for a five-day visit last Tuesday, of using “the Taiwan question to give herself publicity”.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a press conference today that “some fugitive British politicians use the Taiwan issue only to gain notoriety for political interests.”
China’s growth and development has led Japan to consider it a security threat, more so because of Beijing’s worrying military actions in 2022 when it began launching missiles into its waters during intimidation maneuvers against Taiwan.
