American, Japanese Forces Play Hyped-up ‘Iron Fist’ War Games Against Constant Threat of Communist Chinese Invasion of Taiwan

American and Japanese forces are joining in war games that look like a dress rehearsal for the defense of the island democracy of Taiwan. Communist China’s Global Times, published by the party newspaper People’s Daily, labelled the exercises in and around the southernmost Japanese prefecture of Okinawa “another attempted move to meddle in the Taiwan question.”Without commenting on Chinese suspicions, American and Japanese officials confirmed the “Iron Fist” exercises that opened this week have expanded in response to rising threats by Communist China to impose Beijing’s rule over Taiwan. Against the background of repeated encirclement of Taiwan by Chinese ships and planes, American and Japanese forces are training for amphibious assaults on a coastline very much like that of Taiwan, 400 miles south of Okinawa.A spokesman for the American marines on Okinawa told the GI daily, Stars and Stripes, that an “amphibious rapid deployment regiment” from Japan’s “Ground Self-Defense Forces” — the Japanese army — are “participating for the first time,” Stripes reported, in a show of close Americans-Japanese coordination.The war games, while planned well in advance, reflected the priority that Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, is placing on defense. Ms. Takaichi, riding a tidal wave of popularity in the wake of the overwhelming success of her ruling Liberal-Democratic Party in Sunday’s elections for the lower house of the Diet is promoting Japan’s renaissance as a military power able to stand up against threats from Communist China and North Korea.Japan’s defense minister, Shinjiro Koizumi, son of a previous prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, acknowledged in a visit last month to Okinawa that “China’s activity around Taiwan has spurred increased attention to island defense.”Japan and China have been focusing on Taiwan since Ms. Takaichi in November said Japan would see a Chinese attack on Taiwan as a threat to Japanese survival, strongly implying that Japanese forces would join in the defense of the island against attack by Communist Chinese forces. Beijing has demanded repeatedly that Ms. Takaichi retract what Global Times called “her erroneous remarks on the Taiwan question” in “a dangerous resurgence of Japanese right-wing militarism.”Global Times quoted a man identified as a Chinese military expert, Song Zhongping, as saying the war games had expanded to “the Ryukyu Islands,” an allusion to the era when Okinawa was the independent Ryukyu kingdom, absorbed by Japan in the 19th century .Mr. Song accused the Japanese of attempting to consolidate their control over the Ryukyu islands, or Okinawa, as “a key component of the first island chain” — the term used by Washington for all the islands off the eastern periphery of China extending from Japan through Taiwan to the Philippines. America and Japan see the Ryukyus as “geographically close to the Taiwan Island,” said Mr. Song, leading to “a convergence of interests in strengthening military activities in the area.”North Korea, which has often threatened Japan with missiles, joined the chorus, warning Japan “against forging military alliances,” according to South Korea’s Yonhap News. The North’s party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said Japan was creating “an environment favorable to realizing its ambitions of overseas invasion by strengthening military collusion with global powers.”

American, Japanese Forces Play Hyped-up ‘Iron Fist’ War Games Against Constant Threat of Communist Chinese Invasion of Taiwan

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