Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato expressed his strong displeasure at a press conference Friday, stating that "the Japanese government cannot at all accept" a comment by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian that Japan is a "strategic vassal" of the United States.
After Tokyo and Washington criticized Beijing by name during Tuesday's 2-plus-2 meeting between the Japanese and U.S. foreign and defense ministers, Zhao reacted harshly, criticizing Japan by saying, "Japan willingly stoops to acting as a strategic vassal of the United States."
According to an official of the Japanese Foreign Ministry, China has criticized the Japan-U.S. alliance as a "product of the Cold War" and so on, but it has never before insulted Japan as a vassal state. The Japanese side also refuted the Chinese side through diplomatic channels.
A senior official of the Foreign Ministry pointed out that the Chinese side's remarks show that China is "feeling anxious over successive countermeasures against China by the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden and the strengthening of the Japan-U.S. alliance."
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