By Mei Mei Chu
BEIJING, Sept 16 (Reuters) – Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun said on Wednesday that countries should cease provocative acts and check the resurgence of regressive historical trends in remarks likely to be taken as veiled criticism of Japan.
Dong made his comments in a speech to open this week’s Beijing Xiangshan Forum on security. His broad address urged a fresh, more inclusive approach to solving international tensions but offered few specifics or any direct criticism of rivals.
“We must bear the lessons of history in mind and remain highly vigilant against all latent manifestations of hegemony, militarism and historical revisionism,” Dong said.
“We must not turn a blind eye or condone such behaviour. By rallying broad-based forces of justice, we must suppress the resurgence of historical dregs,” he said.
The forum is being held amid roiling regional tensions over Taiwan and the disputed South China Sea and growing doubts about traditional U.S. security commitments to Asia.
It also comes a week before an expected trip by Chinese President Xi Jinping to the U.S. to meet President Donald Trump.
As some analysts predicted, Dong did not make direct criticisms of the U.S. or its regional allies, including Japan.
Ties between China and Japan plummeted after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a Japanese military response, prompting repeated warnings from Beijing that Japan is seeking a return to its aggressive past.
China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has ramped up military pressure around the island, including periodically staging war games. Taiwan’s government rejects Beijing’s claims of sovereignty.
Hundreds of military officers, diplomats and academics from dozens of countries are attending the three-day event, a tightly scripted rival to the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore that is widely viewed as a more freewheeling affair.
(Reporting by Mei Mei Chu in Beijing; Writing by Greg Torode in Hong Kong; Editing by Tom Hogue)
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