US ambassador to Japan warns of Chinese economic coercion
TOKYO (AP) — The United States is working with Japan and other likeminded countries to counter China's efforts to use its economic might to force political change around the world, the U.S. ambassador to Japan said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press.
Rahm Emanuel, who was previously mayor of Chicago and chief of staff for President Barack Obama, is pushing what he calls “commercial diplomacy,” the idea that the United States and Japan will be more eager to do business with each other and with similar secure and stable countries amid worries caused by the COVID pandemic, the war in Ukraine and Chinese economic coercion.
“From intellectual property theft to coercion to debt dependency that China creates, the idea that they could actually honestly say, ‘We don’t coerce,’ and then you have not one, not two, not three – many worldwide examples where they use their economic market access to force a political change in a country ... I think everybody’s woken up to that,” Emanuel told AP in an interview in his residence in the heart of downtown Tokyo.
Emanuel, who arrived in Japan in January, laid out a number of examples of Chinese coercion, including with Japan, which saw Chinese shipments of rare earth metals blocked over a territorial dispute; South Korea, which suffered Chinese business boycotts when it installed a U.S. missile defense system; Australia and countries in Europe and Southeast Asia.
He said that finding ways for Japan and the United States to stand up to Chinese economic coercion was one of the first issues he raised with Japan’s foreign minister.
Emanuel repeatedly declined to speak about an expected visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims as its own and has threatened to use force to unite...
