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SEOUL, South Korea — Japan revealed Monday that its foreign ministry had been the target of what it said was a Chinese cyberattack, 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 revelations of rising tensions over the disputed Senkaku Islands, which Japan administers but China claims, underline what analysts say is Tokyo’s accelerating 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 as 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 cyberattacks by China and sensitive information had been compromised.”
The paper’s account called the breach “highly unusual” and said “the warning underlines Washington’s strong concerns about Japan’s cybersecurity.” The U.S. reportedly warned Tokyo about the vulnerability of its online systems to Chinese breaches in 2020.
Subsequently, both nations coordinated to fix potential vulnerabilities at five key agencies: the 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 had not confirmed that secret information was accessed through the cyberattacks.
The suspected breach occurred in 2020 under the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The Foreign Ministry “has routinely worked to maintain and strengthen cybersecurity,” Mr. Hayashi told reporters.
Unidentified government sources on Feb. 4 had leaked to Japanese media that China was designated as the “enemy” in an ongoing joint Japan-U.S. war game exercise dubbed Keen Edge.
No country was typically named under prior practice. The leak also contradicted statements made by a senior officer just days before the commencement of the eight-day drill, which is set to conclude on Thursday.
Speaking to media on Jan. 25, Chief of the Joint Staff Gen. Yoshihide Yoshida said 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 training 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
China-Japan relations have been strained in recent days. The Japanese press, again citing unidentified official sources, reported that Chinese coast guard vessels were broadcasting radio warnings to Japan Self-Defense Forces 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, Chinese coast guard units and Japanese fishing vessels have had multiple tense encounters.
The Chinese warnings began in January, the reports stated. On Nov. 29, 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.
Kyodo News reported that Chinese vessels intruded into the islands’ waters on 352 days in 2023 — a record high since 2012.
The leaks about China come at a time of plunging public sentiment in Japan toward its giant neighbor.
A government poll on Jan. 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 stood at 81.8%.
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. nuclear watchdog and is being monitored. No dangerous radiation related to the release has been found 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 past 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.
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 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.
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