Amid the crisis between China and Japan over Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s November 7 statement about Taiwan, most observers are blaming one side or the other – either calling Beijing’s behavior “unprovoked” and “unhinged” or criticizing Takaichi as “reckless.”
Upon closer inspection, however, the situation is more nuanced. Both sides deserve a share of blame, although not equal shares.
It is reasonable for the Chinese to be sensitive about Takaichi. The Japanese invasion of China during the Pacific War killed millions of Chinese. Part of Japanese society downplays Japan’s wartime guilt, and Takaichi is heir to this tradition. She is a frequent visitor at the Yasukuni Shrine (which Chinese equate to worshipping Hitler), has criticized past Japanese government apologies for Japan’s war crimes and has denied that the “comfort women” were coerced.
However unrealistic, the PRC wishes to see the post-World War II restrictions on Japan’s military posture and capabilities last forever. China has worried for decades about Japanese remilitarization in general and about Japanese involvement in the defense of Taiwan in particular.
Takaichi’s ascension to the prime ministership reinforces both fears. She is relatively pro-Taiwan, and she favors a continuation of Japan’s military buildup, which has taken major recent substantive steps under the leadership of Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
Expecting the worst from a protégé of Shinzo Abe, Chinese observers were ready to pounce.
China’s government is, of course, selective in its outrage: making sure every PRC citizen knows about Japanese wartime atrocities, – but hiding past Chinese Communist Party (CCP) policies that caused massive Chinese fatalities. Beijing has also done little to recognize Japan’s generous assistance to China’s postwar economic development, which was largely a program of war reparations by another name.
Takaichi did indeed push what Beijing considers a hot button. Recent Japanese governments have decided Japan could legally use military force, even if Japan itself was not under direct attack, if a nearby military conflict put Japan’s survival in danger.
Everyone knows this is a reference to a Taiwan scenario. Past prime ministers, however, left the Taiwan part unsaid. Former Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, like Takaichi a member of the LDP, said Takaichi’s predecessors knew that – because of the “delicate” nature of China-Japan relations – “What we should do in the event of a Taiwan emergency is not something we should discuss in the open.”
It is uncertain whether Takaichi intentionally set out to state more forthrightly that Japan could consider fighting in a Taiwan Strait war.
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Her statement was part of a long exchange with former foreign minister and current opposition Diet member Katsuya Okada. Okada, whose brother runs a large number of retail stores in China and who is averse to Japanese intervention in a war over Taiwan, badgered Takaichi with repeated questions about specific scenarios that would qualify as “survival-threatening” and justify Japan using military force.
Okada asked her to comment on the example of a conflict over Taiwan. Takaichi eventually answered that she believed a Chinese attempt to annex Taiwan through “the use of warships and the use of force … would fall under a survival-threatening situation” for Japan.
Whether by design or out of inexperience or indifference, Takaichi did set a minor precedent. Call her 20 percent responsible for the current furor.
That leaves 80 percent for China, which has presented a calculated over-reaction to Takaichi’s statement.
Nothing cute and fuzzy about threatening to decapitate the Japanese prime minister: China’s wolf warrior Osaka Consul General Xue Jian. Photo: Sankei
Beijing’s outrage was multi-dimensional: In addition to China’s Consul-General in Osaka threatening in a social media post to behead Takaichi, the Chinese government also
- halted purchases of Japanese seafood exports,
- discouraged Chinese from going to Japan for tourism or education,
- attempted to publicly humiliate a Japanese envoy sent to defuse the crisis,
- dispatched Chinese Coast Guard vessels to sail near the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, snubbed Takaichi during the G20 meeting in South Africa,
- blasted messages across PRC media organs condemning Takaichi and
- reiterated the periodic Chinese claim that Japan should not possess the Ryukyu islands.
It certainly appears the Chinese had a punishment plan already in place in case of some misstep by Takaichi’s government.
The content of the Chinese diplomatic counterattack is two-pronged: a demand that Takaichi “retract” her statement and a new attempt to tar Japan as a recrudescent militarist aggressor.
The “retraction” demand is reminiscent of 2016, when Beijing called on Taiwan’s new president Tsai Ing-wen to publicly state that Taiwan is part of China. When she did not, the PRC imposed a campaign of military pressure and harassment that continues to this day.
The Chinese government presumably knows Takaichi will not “retract” her mention of a theoretical Taiwan war scenario during a Diet question and answer session. This suggests Beijing is willing to write off a constructive relationship with Takaichi as an acceptable price for warning her successors – and other foreign leaders – never to set foot on the Taiwan issue again.
Beijing is harking back to World War II as if nothing had changed in the last 80 years. According to the Chinese government’s readout of the November 24 phone call between the US and PRC leaders, Xi Jinping emphasized that during the war “China and the US fought shoulder to shoulder against fascism and militarism.” (Yes, we were allies against Japan – but “China” at that time was the Republic of China, not the PRC.)
Xi tried to spin the PRC getting control over Taiwan as “an integral part of the post-war international order.” China’s ambassador to the United Nations wrote a letter to the secretary-general on November 21 arguing that since Japan was “a defeated country of World War II,” Japanese intervention in a Taiwan Strait war would be an “act of aggression.” Government-controlled Chinese media are warning of a “resurgence of Japanese militarism.”
The root of the problem is that the Chinese government wants the world to accommodate the PRC’s domestic pathologies, and the international community largely acquiesces because of China’s global economic and military heft.
Thus, China can capture control of and influence important global institutions such as UN agencies and the World Health Organization to pursue the CCP’s agenda. Corporations and businesspeople tremblingly comply with Beijing’s positions on political issues lest they lose access to China’s markets.
China gets away with expansionism, bullying and piracy in the South China Sea even in contravention of the Law of the Sea treaty, of which China is a signatory. Majority Muslim countries seeking Chinese investment keep their mouths shut about the treatment of Chinese Muslims.
And, most pertinent here, instead of upholding the principle of self-determination, the world honors the CCP’s claim to ownership over Taiwan, with most countries affirming some form of a one-China policy even though the Republic of China on Taiwan is by any reasonable definition an independent country.
One of China’s domestic pathologies is a victim mentality combined with a self-image as a historically peaceful country. This results in an inability of Chinese to see their own actions as threatening to neighboring countries.
China itself is generating pressure on Japan to strengthen and normalize the Japanese armed forces. China has massively bulked up its own military, challenges Japan’s claim to sovereignty over part of the East China Sea and the Ryukyu Islands and regularly sends naval and air patrols near the Japanese home islands while telling Tokyo to “get used to it.”
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A second pathology is intolerance of both domestic and foreign opposition to Beijing’s narratives on important political issues. Failure to fight these dissenting views internationally would make it harder for the Chinese government to fight them at home. Hence the massive effort to “tell China’s story” worldwide, encompassing the Confucius Institutes, United Front work, the China Global Television Network, the thousands of pro-China accounts on social media platforms outside China and so on.
Hu Xijin, former editor of Global Times, called Takaichi an “evil witch” and Japan a “pirate [wokou] neighbor who has disgusted us for centuries.” But even Hu thinks Chinese official media are using overly “harsh” and “exaggerated” commentary that could “create unrealistic expectations” and “misguidance to Chinese society.”
Hu may mean either that the government shouldn’t make it too hard to return to normal relations with Japan or that the government is setting itself up for failure by unrealistically demanding capitulation from Japan.
China insists that Takaichi’s taking this small step toward strategic clarity will increase the chance of war. Alternatively, Japan’s move might bolster deterrence by decreasing China’s expectations of success in a cross-Strait war, thus making Beijing less likely to choose the military option. Either case could prompt China to raise a great hue and cry.
Denny Roy is a senior fellow, East-West Center, Honolulu.
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