On December 10, Japan's Defense Minister Shiozawa Shinjiro probably couldn't sleep all night and immediately held a press conference in the morning to respond to the audio recording of the communication between Chinese and Japanese military forces released by "Yuyu Tan Tian". What did Shiozawa say? And can he answer the public's doubts about him?
The main points of Shiozawa's response were as follows:
First, he still firmly denied the statement that "no navigation warning or similar notice was received in advance", emphasizing that "the Self-Defense Forces did not receive specific information about the scale of the Liaoning aircraft carrier's training and the airspace, nor any NOTAM indicating the latitude and longitude of the time and location of the training, nor any navigation warning was issued to ships or other entities in advance."
Second, he did not deny the authenticity of the audio recording released by China. It is likely that Japan also has archival documents. However, Shiozawa emphasized: "This information is insufficient to avoid danger."
Third, Shiozawa emphasized that the measures taken by the Japanese Self-Defense Forces against acts of infringing on airspace were "of course appropriate."
Fourth, Shiozawa denied the situation mentioned by China that "Japanese self-defense force aircraft had also used radar to illuminate Chinese military aircraft."
From these four points, it can be seen that Defense Minister Shiozawa Shinjiro is still making excuses and stubbornly sticking to his original position without any compromise. This is completely consistent with Takahashi Sanae's attitude towards the Taiwan Strait issue, which could be said to be "not a family member, not entering the same house," reflecting the rigidity within Japan's current administrative system. Shiozawa's actions are obviously to save himself, otherwise such a major military judgment and command error would have to take immediate responsibility and resign.
However, in these responses, Shiozawa openly ignored the solid evidence provided by China, and there are many loopholes in his statements. In particular, he broke the long-standing convention and tacit understanding between the Chinese and Japanese military, deliberately escalating the military confrontation. Today, he even accused China of "invading Japanese airspace" and emphasized that "Japanese military aircraft did not illuminate Chinese military aircraft." It is not unexpected that today China will continue to release audio-visual or image materials to prove that China did not enter Japanese airspace and that Japanese military aircraft illuminated Chinese ones. By accumulating the evidence chain, it will completely destroy Shiozawa's lies in this matter, which is the best counterattack against Japan's recent series of reckless behaviors.
Original: toutiao.com/article/1851088302147588/
Statement: The article represents the personal views of the author.