China is wielding its armed forces and economic heft to escalate pressure in a fierce diplomatic spat with Japan over Taiwan – the first major foreign policy test for Japan’s conservative new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi.
The conflict pits an increasingly confident Beijing under Chinese leader Xi Jinping against the hawkish Ms. Takaichi, who is a self-proclaimed friend of Taiwan and who has championed a buildup of Japan’s defense forces in response to China’s massive, decades-long military expansion. The spat is also fueled by deep historical animosity between the two Asian powers.
Only days after Ms. Takaichi and Mr. Xi shook hands in South Korea on Oct. 31 and agreed to pursue constructive ties, the long-strained relationship went into a fresh tailspin.
Why We Wrote This
China has reacted furiously to the Japanese prime minister’s warning that Tokyo would consider any attack on Taiwan as a “survival-threatening situation.” To Beijing, that is interference in its domestic affairs. To Japan, it is a precautionary statement of principle.
Answering questions in parliament on Nov. 7, Ms. Takaichi suggested Japan could activate its defense forces if China were to take military action – such as a blockade – aimed at seizing Taiwan, the self-governing democratic island claimed by Beijing.
Such a Chinese attack could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, she said.
Chinese outrage ensued, unleashing a diplomatic war of words from both sides and leading to formal protests lodged with ambassadors in Tokyo and Beijing. China demanded that Ms. Takaichi retract her statement. She refused.
China’s Ministry of Defense warned bluntly on Friday that if Japan used force in a Taiwan contingency, it would suffer “a crushing defeat.”
A war of words
Then over the weekend, Beijing dispatched armed Coast Guard patrols to sail near disputed islands controlled by Japan in the East China Sea. It also advised Chinese citizens against travel to Japan, triggering declines in travel-related shares on Tokyo’s stock market. China is Japan’s largest trading partner, and nearly 10 million tourists from mainland China and Hong Kong visited the island last year.
Seeking to ease tensions, Tokyo dispatched a senior Foreign Ministry official to Beijing on Monday, according to Japanese news reports. Yet the crisis shows no signs of abating soon.
Ms. Takaichi “is not going to be able to buckle or be perceived as buckling to China on this,” says Sheila Smith, senior fellow for Asia-Pacific studies at the Council of Foreign Relations. Beijing “may be thinking that this kind of pressure is going to pull her down. But it could do the opposite. It could instigate broader public support for her standing up for Japan
A pointedly undiplomatic tweet by the Chinese consul general in Osaka, Xue Jian, vividly illustrates the potential for Chinese fury to backfire in Japan. In a post on X on Nov. 8, Mr. Xue shared a news article about Ms. Takaichi’s comments and threatened to “cut” the intruding “dirty neck” – a crude warning to the prime minister to stay out of what China considers its business.
Japanese were shocked by the vitriol, and some politicians called for Mr. Xue’s expulsion. Although Mr. Xue’s post was later deleted, it was circulating widely in Japan, where public opinion toward China is already highly negative.
“The Chinese consul general’s ‘wolf-warrior’ comments … became very controversial” in Japan, says Tsuneo Watanabe, a senior fellow with the Sasakawa Peace Foundation in Tokyo. “It was too extreme.”
Could Chinese threats backfire?
If anything, the attacks could bolster support for Ms. Takaichi, analysts say.
“Takaichi’s approval rating is high,” says Mr. Watanabe, an adjunct fellow with the Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Her policy of “defending Japan and contributing to regional security is … popular, especially among the young generation,” he says.
Japan lies only 70 miles from Taiwan at its closest point, and a Chinese military assault would threaten vital sea lanes and require Tokyo to put its forces on alert, experts say.
Ms. Takaichi’s comments about Taiwan hewed closely to traditional Japanese policy says Mr. Watanabe. “It was not so controversial.”
But Beijing charges that Ms. Takaichi’s statements about Taiwan represent “blatant” interference in China’s domestic affairs.
Citing this year’s 80th
anniversary of the end of World War II, Chinese officials drew links between Ms. Takaichi’s comments and Japan’s militarist past.
“Japanese militarists have waged aggression more than once under the pretext of ‘survival-threatening situation,’” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian last week. “Is Japan going to repeat its past mistakes?”
Japan must “stop playing with fire on the Taiwan question,” he said in a post on X. “Those who play with fire will perish by it!”
Beijing on Monday cast doubt on speculation that Ms. Takaichi and Chinese Premier Li Qiang might meet on the sidelines of the G20 summit in South Africa later this month. There are “no plans” for such a meeting, said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning.
