Japan will pay ‘painful price’ if steps out of line over Taiwan, China military says

China’s defense ministry said on Thursday that Japan will have to pay a “painful price” if it steps out of line over Taiwan, responding to Japanese plans to deploy missiles on an island some 100 km from Taiwan’s coast. The remarks come amid the countries’ worst diplomatic crisis in years, after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said this month a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Tokyo. Japan’s Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said on Sunday that plans were “steadily moving forward” to deploy a medium-range surface-to-air missile unit at a military base on Yonaguni, an…