China imposes export controls on 40 Japanese entities as tensions with Tokyo rise

TAIPEI: China imposed new export controls Monday on 40 Japanese entities it says are contributing to the country's “remilitarisation,” as tensions with Tokyo continue to rise.

Twenty Japanese entities, including multiple divisions of Mitsubishi Corporation, have been placed on a control list, which prohibits Chinese and foreign exporters from selling to them dual-use items made in China, the Commerce Ministry said in a statement. Dual-use items can be used for both civilian and military purposes.

Additionally, 20 other entities have been added to a watch list for dual-use items, according to the ministry.

The watch list includes Mitsui E&S which makes engines and other equipment for ships, as well as divisions of Fujitsu and Komatsu corporations.

Chinese companies exporting to these firms will be required to apply for special licenses, submit risk assessment reports on the Japanese companies and written pledges that the dual-use items will not be used for military purposes.

“China's measures are entirely justified, reasonable and lawful. They are aimed at firmly deterring Japan's reckless pursuit of new militarism,'” read the Chinese Commerce Ministry statement.

“We hope Japan will recognise its mistakes, reverse its wrongful course, genuinely reflect on its past and return to the right track,” it added.

Relations between Beijing and Tokyo have been increasingly tense since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year implied Japan could intervene if China used military force against Taiwan, an island democracy China claims as its own.

Takaichi's government is also further reinforcing Japan with more offensive capabilities, including deploying longer-range missiles on remote islands and promoting lethal weapons exports now allowed under a new policy. Japan will revise its defence and security documents by December, which could further increase its defence budget.

On Monday, Japan's Ground Self-Defence Force announced it deployed a Type-12 missile launcher on the country's southernmost remote island of Minamitorishima, an apparent response to China's growing activity expanding into the Pacific.

In February, China put 20 Japanese companies on an export control list and 20 others on a watch list.

The Commerce Ministry said that since then, “instead of reflecting on its past and correcting its course, Japan has continued down the wrong path” by accelerating remilitarisation, deploying offensive weapons and launching missiles.

China considers self-ruled Taiwan its own territory, to be retaken by force if necessary and has increased military pressure on the island.

Earlier this month, the Chinese Coast Guard conducted patrols east of the island in what state media described a “pointed warning” to Japan and the Philippines over an announcement that the countries would discuss their maritime boundaries in waters that Beijing views as its own.

The United Kingdom, Germany and France in a rare joint statement last week condemned Chinese activities in the waters east of Taiwan, adding they opposed any change of the status quo between China and Taiwan.