Japan faces pressure to join China sanctions ahead of US trip

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is under pressure to join other major democracies in imposing sanctions on China over human-rights violations as he prepares for his first face-to-face summit with U.S. President Joe Biden.
Numerous reports of serious human-rights abuses against the Uyghur ethnic group in China’s far western region of Xinjiang have prompted several countries in the West to sanction Communist Party officials. Beijing has routinely dismissed the accusations about its behavior against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs as politically motivated lies, and on Saturday it announced retaliatory sanctions on individuals in the U.S. and Canada, adding to those imposed earlier on the U.K. and EU.
While Japan has long resisted putting economic penalties on its largest trading partner, some in Suga’s ruling party are calling for him to take a more radical line- particularly with the Group of Seven summit in the U.K. coming up in June.
“Japan is the only G-7 country not taking part in the sanctions,” said Gen Nakatani, a former defense minister, who co-chairs a cross-party group of lawmakers on China policy. “It’s shameful for Japan to be seen as a country that’s pretending not to know what’s going on.”
Suga is set to become the first foreign leader to visit Biden at the White House, with media reports saying the summit may take place as soon as April 9. China is likely to be on the agenda there, as well as at the G-7 talks, to which Asian democracies will be invited to counter China and other states criticized for being authoritarian.
“We hope Japan can be prudent about its actions and rhetoric, and does not make groundless attacks on China just because it is an ally of the U.S. It does not serve Japan’s interest in doing so,” Zhao Lijian, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, warned at a regular briefing yesterday in Beijing.
Japan, similar to neighbor South Korea, is stuck in the awkward position of being deeply entwined with China economically, even as it relies on the U.S. for defense as its sole military ally.
While the Biden administration has signaled a renewed focus on human rights in its foreign policy, Japan’s government has often sought to maintain ties with U.S. adversaries and traditionally keeps criticism of other countries low key. MDT/Bloomberg