Japan Calls on China to Improve Conditions for Uyghurs, Hong Kong

TOKYO—Japan’s overseas minister referred to as on his Chinese counterpart to just take action to make improvements to human-rights situations for Uyghurs and cease a crackdown in Hong Kong, in accordance to an formal Japanese account of a phone between the officers.

The unusually potent message from Tokyo arrives shortly right before Primary Minister Yoshihide Suga travels to the U.S. for a summit with President Biden on April sixteen.

Japan is generally wary of angering Beijing, which is its major investing partner. Tokyo is a shut ally of Washington but did not join the U.S. and a number of other nations in March in imposing sanctions on China around its repression of its largely Muslim Uyghur greater part.

During the ninety-minute telephone phone on Monday, Japanese International Minister Toshimitsu Motegi also raised issues with Chinese International Minister Wang Yi about the ongoing presence of armed Chinese coast guard vessels close to islands in the East China Sea controlled by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing. The formal Japanese account did not give Mr. Wang’s responses, and Chinese condition media did not immediately report particulars of the telephone phone.

China has turned down allegations of human-rights violations from its Uyghur inhabitants and suggests its steps in Hong Kong are an interior matter. Beijing also suggests it has the ideal patrol close to the islands in the East China Sea, recognised as the Senkakus by Japan and as the Diaoyu by China.