SEOUL, South Korea — Japan revealed Monday that its foreign ministry had been the target of what it said was a Chinese cyber attack, one day after Japanese and U.S. forces, engaging in a joint drill, named Beijing as the hypothetical enemy for the first time.
The two developments, combined with new revelations of rising tensions over the disputed Senkaku Islands — which Japan administers but which China claims — underline what analysts say is an accelerating Tokyo’s strategic tilt away from Beijing.
It is not just Japan: China is facing blowback across the region. U.S. policymakers and military planners increasingly see the animosity is an opportunity for greater American influence, along the lines of Napoleon’s dictum: “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
On Monday, the Yomiuri Daily newspaper, citing government sources, reported that the “Foreign Ministry’s telecommunications system for official telegrams, including classified diplomatic information, had come under cyber-attacks by China and sensitive information had been compromised.”
The paper’s account called the breach “highly unusual,”, adding, “The warning underlines Washington’s strong concerns about Japan’s cybersecurity.” The U.S. reportedly warned Tokyo of the vulnerability of its online systems to Chinese breaches in 2020.
Subsequently, both nations coordinated to fix potential vulnerabilities at five key agencies: Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office; the Defense Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, the National Police; and the Public Security Intelligence Agency.
The top spokesman for the government of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida addressed the issue on Monday. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters the government has not confirmed that secret information was accessed through the cyberattacks.
The suspected breach occurred in 2020 under the government of the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The Foreign Ministry “has routinely worked to maintain and strengthen cybersecurity,” Mr. Hayashi told reporters.
Prior to the Yomiuri account, other, unnamed government sources on February 4 had leaked to Japanese media that China had been designated as the “enemy” in an ongoing joint Japan-U.S. war-game exercise dubbed “Keen Edge.”
The naming contradicts prior practice, under which typically no country was named. Adding spice to the story, the leak also contradicted the statements made by a senior officer just days prior to the commencement of the eight-day drill set to conclude on February 8.
Speaking to media on January 25, Chief of the Joint Staff General Yoshihide Yoshida said that the exercise “did not envision a particular country or region.”
The “Keen Edge” drills are command post exercises, involving computer simulation drills rather than boots-on-ground maneuvers. The scenario for the ongoing exercise is the two allies’ responses to a hypothetical Taiwan contingency.
The results of the drills are likely to remain secret.
Island disputes and seafood bans
Chinese-Japanese relations have seen a series of strains in recent days. The Japanese press, again citing unnamed official sources, reported that Chinese Coast Guard vessels were broadcasting radio warnings to Japanese Self Defense Force aircraft to depart the airspace over the Senkaku Islands. The uninhabited islands lie west of Japan’s Okinawa, northeast of Taiwan and east of China, which calls them the Diaoyus. Since 2012, when the dispute flared up, there have been multiple tense encounters in the waters off the islands between Coast Guard units and fishing vessels of China and Japan.
The Chinese warnings began in January, the reports stated. On November 29 last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping, during a visit to the Chinese Coast Guard’s Shanghai-based Command Post for the East China Sea, demanded that the force “constantly strengthen” sovereignty claims.
According to Kyodo News, there were 352 days of intrusions by Chinese vessels into the islands’ waters in 2023 – a record high since 2012.
The anti-China leaks come at a time of plunging public sentiment in Japan toward its giant neighbor.
A government poll on January 19 reported that 87% of Japanese “do not feel friendly” toward China. The findings of the annual poll on diplomatic matters, conducted by Tokyo’s Cabinet Office, marked a record high in anti-China sentiment. The prior year, the number had stood at 81.8 percent.
Press accounts cited yet another Chinese policy as a reason for the negative public perceptions in Japan: Beijing has refused to accept U.N. assurances of the safety of the release of irradiated, but treated, water from the Fukushima nuclear reactor, crippled by a 2012 earthquake and tsunami, into the Pacific. In retaliation against the water release last year, Beijing placed a blanket ban on all Japanese seafood.
The release has been planned with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog and is being monitored by that body. No dangerous radiation related to the release has been monitored in the waters off Fukushima, or in the wider Pacific.
Blowback for Beijing
Japan is not alone in pushing back against Beijing’s increasingly aggressive regional policies.
In January in Taiwan, the most staunchly anti-China of the democratic island’s three major political parties won the presidential office for a record third consecutive term.
In South Korea, polls over the last two years show that China has replaced its traditional enemy Japan as the most disliked nation. The conservative governments in Seoul and Tokyo are now aligning more closely than ever on regional defense, diplomacy, intelligence-sharing and military drills involving U.S. assets.
And in the Philippines, President Ferdinand Marcos has reversed the pro-China slant of his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, as territorial and fishing tensions with Beijing in the South China Sea soar. The country’s armed forces have upgraded military exercises with regional democracies, and in 2023, Manila invited U.S. troops to new locations in the country via a 2023 rotational basing agreement.
Arguably the most critical of the bases opened to GIs is in northern Luzon. That location oversees the strategic Bashi Channel between the Philippines and Taiwan — a key gateway to the Pacific for Chinese naval units.
• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.