Japan was forced to dispatch jets after Russian and Chinese warplanes came close to its airspace during a visit by U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday, with Tokyo conveying “grave concerns” about what it saw as an aggressive move meant to overlap with the Quad summit.
The concerns about China and Russia, who held training exercises meant to intimidate the West, dominated the meeting in Tokyo of leaders of the Quad grouping of the United States, Japan, Australia, and India, who stressed their decisiveness to guarantee a free and open Indo-Pacific region in the face of an increasingly assertive China. The move by Russia and China was widely seen as a response to Biden's mistaken promise to defend Taiwan if China attacks.
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Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the group was not aimed at any one country.
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As the leaders assembled, Russian and Chinese warplanes administered a joint patrol that lasted 13 hours in the region, in what Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi described as a likely provocation by both Beijing and Moscow.
The patrol took place after President Joe Biden angered China by saying a day earlier he would be willing to use force to defend the democratic island of Taiwan. On Tuesday, he said there was no change to a U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity” on Taiwan.
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“We believe the fact that this action was taken during the Quad summit makes it more provocative than in the past,” Kishi said of the Chinese and Russian exercises.
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South Korea’s military also scrambled fighters, saying at least four Chinese and four Russian warplanes entered its air defense zone.
The patrols, the first since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, were part of an annual military exercise, China’s defense ministry said on its website. The two countries have conducted the exercises since 2019 but in the latter half of the year.
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The leaders of the Quad grouping said in a joint statement issued after their talks that they “discussed their respective responses to the conflict in Ukraine and the ongoing tragic humanitarian crisis.”
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In an apparent concession to India, which has long had a close relationship with Russia, the words “Russia” or “Russian” did not appear in the statement.
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Following the Quad summit, Kishida said the leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, had shared their concerns about Ukraine. All four agreed on the importance of the rule of law, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.
Biden’s remarks on Taiwan, which were not even on the official agenda at the Quad meeting, was the focus of much of the attention of the delegations and media.
Speaking to reporters, Biden condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying it had global ramifications.
“Russia’s assault on Ukraine only heightens the importance of those goals of fundamental principles of international order, territorial integrity, and sovereignty. International law, human rights must always be defended regardless of where they’re violated in the world,” he said.
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