U.S. President Donald Trump can maintain both a "good working relationship" with China and a "very strong alliance" with Japan even as tensions have risen between those two countries, the White House said on Thursday.

China previously postponed a culture ministers’ meeting after Japan’s Taiwan remarks, yet health talks move forward in Seoul.

While diplomatic tensions between the two countries are not new, both have little to gain from the current dispute subsiding.

Japan is threatening China militarily which is "completely unacceptable", Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his German counterpart, after Japan said that Chinese fighter jets had aimed their radar at Japanese military aircraft.

Japan’s defense chief has raised serious concerns over recent military activities by China and Russia in the East China Sea. The warnings came during video meetings with NATO’s top official and Italy’s defense minister,