Abe draws flak for anti-China comments

'Contradictory remarks show his lack of sincerity toward Beijing'

The brief opening of an Asian security summit in Singapore on Friday was just like the city state's tropical and capricious weather, especially when panelists or reporters touched on deadlocked Sino-Japanese ties.

The face-off between the two countries peaked when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gave a curtain-raising speech in which he continued to use coded language to criticize Beijing for tension in the region. He also sought a bigger global security role for Japan.

Observers said Abe's "contradictory" remarks showed Tokyo's lack of sincerity in seeking talks with Beijing and Japan's pursuit of a more muscular military raised concerns over the future of the country and the Asia-Pacific region.

Delivering a keynote speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue security conference, Abe said, "There is no dispute" over the Diaoyu Islands and it was China that had challenged the status quo.

He also spoke of "utmost support for the efforts of ASEAN countries" over maritime issues and suggested that a stronger military was needed for Japan's "greater and more proactive role in making peace in Asia".

Abe has extended maritime aid to Vietnam and the Philippines, hailing this in his speech as an example of following international laws.

Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University of China, asked that if Japan did not recognize the Diaoyu Islands issue as a dispute, what was the point of both sides resorting to the law?

Wang said Abe had made the same contradictory remarks when he had pledged to never wage a war. "As a US ally, how can it avoid war if Washington gets involved?"

A Chinese military panelist questioned Abe's view of history, saying this worried countries like China and South Korea where memories of Japan's crimes during World War II ran deep.

Xu Qiyu, a researcher at National Defense University of the People's Liberation Army, asked how Japan could "carry the banner of proactive peace" after Abe visited the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo last year, which honors 14 Class-A war criminals from World War II and others.

Fu Ying, chairwoman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of China's National People's Congress, said on Friday Japan was using the Diaoyu Islands issue, which it had initially triggered, to play up its theory of a "China threat".

Fu, former vice-foreign minister, said during a televised debate at the forum that the islands issue had developed to the stage where there were concerns over whether Japan would continue on the "pacifist path".

The three-day forum, hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, comes amid intensified debate over whether Japan should exercise the right to collective self-defense, in what would be a major departure from its postwar pacifist policy.