ANKARA

China has sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres regarding recent remarks by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi about Taiwan, outlining Beijing’s stance amid rising tensions with Tokyo.

In the letter delivered Friday, China’s Permanent Representative to the UN Fu Cong criticized Takaichi, describing her latest comments as “provocative.”

"This marks the first time since Japan's defeat in 1945 that a Japanese leader has advocated in an official setting the notion that 'a contingency for Taiwan is a contingency for Japan' and linked it to the exercise of the right of collective self-defense," Fu wrote in the letter.

According to him, this was the first occasion in which Japan signaled ambitions to intervene militarily in the Taiwan issue, as well as the first time it issued a "threat of force" against China while openly challenging Beijing’s core interests.

"Takaichi's remarks constitute a grave violation of international law and the basic norms governing international relations, seriously undermine the post-war international order, and represent an open provocation to the more than 1.4 billion Chinese people and to the peoples of other Asian countries that once suffered from Japanese aggression," he said.

Fu reiterated that Taiwan is China’s "sacred territory" and that resolving the Taiwan question is solely for the Chinese people, allowing no external interference.

He requested the UN chief to circulate his letter to all UN member states as an official document of the General Assembly.

Takaichi, elected only last month, had said that any Chinese attack on Taiwan could amount to a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan under its security legislation, potentially enabling it to “exercise the right of collective self-defense.”

Beijing sharply criticized Takaichi’s remarks, which came days after she met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum early this month.

On Friday, Takaichi affirmed that Japan’s commitment to “mutually beneficial” relations with China remains "unchanged.”

In the wake of her remarks on Taiwan, hundreds of thousands of Chinese tourists reportedly canceled trips to Japan. Tokyo said Beijing was also imposing a ban on seafood imports.

Beijing also postponed a trilateral meeting of culture ministers with South Korea and Japan, a move criticized by Tokyo.