By IndraStra Global Editorial Team
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| Stock photo ID:1089917036 |
In the crisp autumn of
2025, as leaves turn in Tokyo and Beijing alike, a familiar chill has settled
over relations between Japan and China. The spark came on November 7, when
Japan's newly appointed Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, addressed parliament on
a hypothetical scenario: a Chinese attack on Taiwan. Her words, measured yet
firm, invoked the concept of a "survival-threatening situation," a
legal threshold under Japan's post-war framework that could justify
self-defense measures beyond its borders. Beijing's response was swift and
multifaceted, encompassing diplomatic rebukes, economic measures, and travel
advisories that have rippled through industries reliant on cross-strait ties.
This exchange, while rooted in immediate geopolitical pressures, draws from a
well of historical grievances and strategic calculations that both nations must
now contend with. Ordinary citizens, from seafood vendors in Tokyo's bustling
markets to students in Nanjing's universities, find themselves caught in the
undertow, their daily lives altered by decisions forged in distant halls of
power.
Takaichi's statement
emerged from a parliamentary exchange, where opposition members pressed for
clarity on Japan's role in a Taiwan contingency. She replied that "if
there are battleships and the use of force, no matter how you think about it,
it could constitute a survival-threatening situation." This phrasing
echoes the 2015 security legislation that expanded Japan's collective
self-defense options, allowing support for allies like the United States in
scenarios threatening national existence. For Japan, Taiwan's proximity—mere
kilometers from Yonaguni Island in the Nansei chain—renders any conflict there
inseparable from its own security. Trade routes carrying $2.3 trillion annually
snake through the Taiwan Strait, semiconductors vital to global supply chains
originate from the island, and disruptions could halt energy imports, cripple
exports, and expose southern islands to immediate peril. As Stephen Nagy, a
professor at International Christian University in Tokyo, observed in a recent
discussion, "an attack on Taiwan would fundamentally negatively affect
Japan's security." The stakes involve not abstract principles but concrete
vulnerabilities: Japan's economy, still recovering from global shocks, depends
on stable passage through these waters.
China's reaction framed
Takaichi's words as a dangerous escalation, accusing Tokyo of meddling in
internal affairs. Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in a statement posted on the
ministry's website, declared that "China must resolutely hit back over
Japan's move," warning that persistence could prompt a re-examination of
Japan's "historical crimes." This invocation of the past is no idle
threat; it taps into memories of the Second Sino-Japanese War, where Japanese
forces occupied vast swaths of Chinese territory, leaving scars that state
media revisit annually. The Nanjing Massacre, the biological experiments of
Unit 731, the massacres at Port Arthur—these events, detailed in survivor
accounts and historical records, fuel a narrative of unhealed wounds. Even
today, social media in China amplifies ultra-nationalist sentiments, with
hashtags blending wartime footage and calls for vigilance against perceived
revanchism. A deleted post from a Chinese diplomat in Tokyo captured the raw
edge of this frustration: "We have no choice but to cut off that dirty
neck that has lunged at us without a moment's hesitation." Such rhetoric,
while extreme, reveals the depth of sensitivity around Taiwan, which Beijing
views as an indivisible province, its reunification a core tenet of national rejuvenation
by 2049.
Economic reprisals
followed almost immediately, underscoring the interdependence that binds these
adversaries. China suspended imports of Japanese seafood, a sector where its
market once absorbed over a fifth of exports, dealing a blow to fishermen in
Hokkaido and processors in coastal towns. Airlines like China Southern and Air
China issued refunds for flights to Japan, leading to an estimated 500,000
cancellations and an 80 percent drop in bookings for some Tokyo agencies.
Tourism stocks plummeted, with projections from the Nomura Research Institute
estimating annual losses of 2.2 trillion yen if a full boycott takes hold. In
Tokyo's Ikebukuro district, dubbed an unofficial Chinatown with its array of
restaurants and supermarkets, vendors like Sen Jung, who has called the city
home for eight years, expressed quiet dismay. "This is all very political
as ordinary people just have to mind our own business. Politics is politics.
I'm just an individual," he said, stocking shelves with imports from his
homeland while lamenting the chill on cultural exchanges. Across the sea, in
Owari district's snack stalls, Asako Wagi, who relies on Chinese visitors for a
significant share of sales, voiced a broader apprehension: "Japan has
managed for 80 years precisely because it hasn't been involved in war. In that
sense, the question is how long can we continue avoiding involvement in
conflict? There's a risk Miss Takayichi might undermine that stance. The public
certainly doesn't want Japan dragged into wars that offer no benefit.
Personally, I hope for a peaceful resolution."
These personal accounts
illuminate a paradox: while leaders trade barbs, citizens on both sides cherish
the threads of normalcy—anime enthusiasts in Beijing, sushi lovers in Shanghai,
exchange students bridging divides. Yet history weighs heavily, a ledger of
conquests and humiliations that shapes perceptions. Japan's isolation under
sakoku from 1639 to 1854 fostered a respect for Chinese classics among elites,
even as the National Learning movement from the 1670s onward cultivated a sense
of cultural purity, decrying foreign influences. The Meiji Restoration in 1868
propelled Japan toward modernization, eyeing Korea as a buffer against Qing
weakness exposed by the Opium Wars. The First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895
ended with the Treaty of Shimonoseki, ceding Taiwan to Japan and extracting
reparations that crippled China's treasury. Atrocities followed: the Port
Arthur massacre in 1894, where troops killed thousands in reprisal; the
Twenty-One Demands of 1915, forcing economic concessions; the Mukden Incident
of 1931, birthing the puppet state of Manchukuo. The full-scale invasion in
1937 brought the Nanjing Massacre, where an estimated 260,000 civilians
perished, and Unit 731's horrors, vivisecting prisoners and unleashing plagues
on villages.
Post-war, the Allied
occupation under General Douglas MacArthur dismantled Japan's militarism,
purging officials, trying war criminals—though Emperor Hirohito and figures
like Prince Yasuhiko Asaka escaped scrutiny—and enacting reforms that
enfranchised women, broke up land monopolies, and enshrined pacifism in Article
9 of the constitution. China, emerging from civil war, saw Mao Zedong proclaim
the People's Republic in 1949, with nationalists retreating to Taiwan.
Normalization came in 1972, when Japan acknowledged its wartime harms and
recognized Beijing, renouncing reparations in a joint communique. Trade boomed,
swelling to nearly $300 billion annually by 2025, with 12,000 Japanese firms in
China yielding profits amid investments in equipment for oil and coal. Yet
flashpoints persisted: 2005 protests over history textbooks and Japan's UN bid;
2012 riots after the Senkaku/Diaoyu nationalization, with arson and boycotts
engulfing 180 cities.
Today's tensions revive
these cycles, amplified by military postures. Japan's defense white paper of
July 2025 labels China the "greatest strategic challenge," justifying
a buildup to 2 percent of GDP—43 trillion yen over five years—the largest since
1945. Missiles deploy to Yonaguni, radar sites dot wooded ridges once grazed by
wild horses, and joint U.S.-Japan drills like Iron Fist swell with troops in
Okinawa and Kyushu. The Nansei chain, a 1,200-kilometer arc from Kyushu to
Taiwan, forms a frontline, where Chinese missiles splashed 80 kilometers
offshore in 2022 and drones buzzed in 2025. As the late Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe put it, "a Taiwan contingency is a contingency for Japan."
Beijing counters with accusations of militarism, airing WWII documentaries and
staging events for the 80th anniversary of victory in September 2025. Xi
Jinping's directive for military readiness by 2027 looms, though experts like
Steve Sang of the SOASS China Institute caution against imminent invasion:
"I don't think we are looking at an actual escalation into anything like
military confrontation over Taiwan anytime soon. It is a matter of the Chinese
government trying to make Japan tow the Chinese line."
Public opinion in Japan,
per a November 16 Kyodo poll, splits narrowly: 48.8 percent favor collective
self-defense in a Taiwan scenario, 44.2 percent oppose, while 60.4 percent
support Takaichi's spending hike. Her cabinet approval hovers at 65-72 percent,
buoyed by perceptions of Chinese overreach in tourism curbs and seafood bans.
Takaichi, a conservative ousting her predecessor for perceived softness,
pursues a "realistic engagement, deterrence, and resilience-based
approach" toward China, strengthening U.S. ties amid tariff deals and
carrier visits to Yokosuka. At the G20 in South Africa, she kept distance from
Premier Li Qiang, canceling trilateral culture talks yet affirming dialogue.
Sheila Smith of the Council on Foreign Relations notes this as clarification,
not provocation: "Takaichi's remarks in the Japanese Diet responded to
opposition questioning, clarifying that a Taiwan scenario would prompt Japan to
consider defense needs if China uses force." Japan adheres to a one-China
policy, as Nagy clarifies, "defined by Japan rather than Beijing,"
insisting on peaceful negotiation between Taipei and Beijing.
For China, the calculus
involves sovereignty and deterrence. Taiwan's status, rejected by Taipei as an
internal affair, underpins warnings of force if independence moves accelerate.
Beijing's UN letter vows "resolute self-defense" sans approval,
invoking an "enemy status clause" Japan deems obsolete. Economic
levers, from inspections on Japanese firms to exit bans, mirror Australia's
2020 sanctions experience. Yet escalation risks backfire: damaging Beijing's
image as a responsible power, alienating ASEAN partners where Takaichi
impressed at APEC, and straining ties with a Japan integral to rules-based
order. James D.J. Brown of Temple University recalls precedents: "similar
hostile exchanges occurred in 2010 and 2012, after which relations
cooled." De-escalation gestures abound—Japanese diplomats in Beijing, vows
of restraint—but retraction remains elusive, as it would erode Takaichi's
domestic standing.
Broader implications
extend to regional stability. Okinawa's 55,000 U.S. troops, mostly there,
embody local divides: some residents decry buildup as provocative, others see
preparation as peace's guarantor. Fishermen monitor Chinese vessels near
Senkaku, a dispute unresolved since 2012's fury. Globally, semiconductors from
Taiwan underpin innovation; a blockade could slash solar output by 60-70
percent via smoke, as seen in Delhi's haze, though unrelated, it parallels
environmental costs of conflict. Japan's third-place defense ranking by 2027
trails only the U.S. and China, yet public aversion to war persists—rooted in
1945's firebombings that left 500,000 dead and 8.5 million homeless.
In this tableau, both nations confront a shared inheritance: interdependence forged from rivalry. Trade's 300-fold growth since 1972 binds fates, as does cultural osmosis—Confucian echoes in Tokyo's gardens, anime's reach in Shanghai arcades. Scholars like Sang foresee no quick thaw without concessions unlikely from Tokyo, yet history offers paths: the 1978 trade pact's $20 billion ambition, post-occupation reforms that birthed democratic Japan. As 2025's WWII remembrances unfold, from solemn ceremonies on June 23 to protests' echoes, the question lingers not of inevitability but choice. Will leaders heed citizens like Jung and Wagi, who prize normalcy over nationalism? Or will the strait widen into chasm? The answer resides in dialogue's quiet resumption, a thread as vital as any missile's arc.
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