China warns Japan off US

Any attempts by Japan to draw a third party in to confront China over the Diaoyu Islands issue will be futile, China's foreign ministry said on Thursday, in response to remarks by the new Japanese envoy to the US that the US government would not stay neutral in case of any military frictions between China and Japan.

The US government's stance "would not be neutral in the event of use of force or provocation" regarding the Diaoyu Islands dispute because Washington had "made it clear that the islands are covered by the Japan-US Security Treaty," Kenichiro Sasae, the newly-appointed Japanese ambassador to the US alleged in an interview with the Asahi Shimbun newspaper on Tuesday.

"China has the resolve and ability to safeguard territorial sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands," China's foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in a comment on Thursday to Sasae's remarks.

China and the US should be wary of growing right-wing forces in Japan and work to contain them in order to prevent Japan from dragging the world into catastrophe, said China's assistant foreign minister Le Yucheng, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

US State Department spokesperson Mark C. Toner made it clear again on Wednesday that Washington "doesn't take a position on the question of ultimate sovereignty of the (Diaoyu) islands, and we expect the claimants to resolve this issue through peaceful means among themselves."

But Toner shunned the question of whether the US-Japan Defense Treaty applies to the Diaoyu Islands if military conflict happens between the two Asian neighbors by saying that he was "not going to get into speculation."

Beijing and Tokyo were recently locked in heightened tensions over the Diaoyu Islands dispute, which has seen waves of anti-Japanese protests across Chinese cities following the Japanese central government's illegal purchase of three of the five uninhabited islands in September.

Sasae claimed that the purchase was tacitly approved by the US because Washington "didn't raise any opposition" to Japan's move.

The Diaoyu Islands issue is seen by some in China and Japan "as a time bomb planted by the US between China and Japan," said Chen Jian, who served as UN undersecretary general and as China's ambassador to Japan. "That time bomb is now exploding or about to explode."

"The US is urging Japan to play a greater role in regional security" in its effort to mount a comeback in Asia, Chen said during a speech at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Hong Kong, according to the New York Times. That "suits the purpose of the right wing in Japan more than perfectly."