We condemn Takaichi’s “Taiwan Contingency” remarks: An open declaration of re-invasion against China

By Hideto Osaka

Prime Minister TAKAICHI Sanae’s “Taiwan contingency” remarks at the House of Representatives Budget Committee meeting on November 7 constitute blatant interference in China’s internal affairs. They are extremely malicious and grave statements, openly preempting a war of re-invasion against China through the exercise of collective self-defense (a clear violation of Article 9* of the Constitution of Japan). We condemn them in the strongest terms.

As the first prime minister to mention the possibility of military intervention in the Taiwan issue, this outrageous remark goes further than former Prime Minister ABE Shinzo’s recent reckless statements: “A ‘Taiwan contingency’ is a ‘Japanese contingency’” (December 2021) and “Japan, Taiwan, and the U.S. must be prepared to fight to maintain deterrence in the Taiwan Strait” (LDP Vice President ASO Taro, August 2023). This is a statement made by a sitting prime minister in the Diet. It is not a matter that can be resolved by simply retracting the remark as a slip of the tongue. She must resign immediately.

The 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty’s stipulation that Japan renounce Taiwan and the Penghu Islands raised an unresolved issue after the war: the status of these territories was left unspecified, making them a matter of dispute. The achievement of the Chinese Revolution through the Chinese Communist Party’s victory in the Chinese Civil War (1949) and the National Party’s retreat to Taiwan, coupled with the U.S. imperialist camp’s policy of containing “Communist China” triggered by the Korean War, gave rise to the “Two Chinas” problem. Subsequently, in the 1970s, the U.S. and China drew closer, leading to the Japan-China Joint Communiqué (1972). The TANAKA Kakuei administration pledged to respect that “Taiwan is an inalienable part of the territory of the People’s Republic of China,” thereby acknowledging the “One China” principle. This contained a reluctant “reflection” on the history of Japanese militarism’s invasion of China.

The lessons of Japan’s history of aggression against China—stealing Taiwan as indemnity for the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), silencing the Taiwanese Wushe Uprising through massacre (1930-31), bellowing “Defend Manchuria and Mongolia the Empire’s lifeline!”, declaring “The crystallization of the Japanese people’s blood and sweat! We absolutely will not tolerate infringement of our special interests!” (Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun**, October 1930), the Manchurian Incident (1931), and the full-scale Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). The lessons of this history of aggression against China must be heeded.

The Taiwan issue is a cross-strait issue, one aimed at future unification. Takaichi’s remarks are an act of meddling in China’s internal affairs, pandering to Taiwan independence forces and infringing upon the very “core” of China’s “core interests.” China’s stance that it absolutely cannot tolerate these remarks as a “grave violation and challenge to agreements and commitments between Japan and China” is entirely justified. Let us review the sequence of recent events.

• November 7: Takaichi’s response in the Diet
• November 8: Post by Consul General Xue Jian in Osaka on SNS
• November 11: LDP submits resolution to Prime Minister’s Office calling for Xue’s deportation
• November 13: Chinese Vice Foreign Minister lodges protest with Ambassador KANASUGI Kenji in China
• November 14: Vice Foreign Minister FUNAKOSHI Takehiro lodges protest with Chinese Ambassador to Japan over Xue’s post
• November 15: Chinese Foreign Ministry urges restraint on visits to Japan
• November 16: Chinese Ministry of Education advises careful consideration of studying in Japan
• November 18: Director-General of Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau KANAI Masaaki holds talks with Director-General of Asian Affairs, Chinese Foreign Ministry
• November 19: China halts imports of Japanese seafood
• November 20: Air China reduces flights to Japan

This reveals the Chinese government’s stance of gradually correcting the Japanese government’s wrongdoing, similar to the measures taken during the 2010 “Chinese fishing boat collision” incident and the 2012 “nationalization of Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu Island and its affiliated islands)” —such as halting rare earth exports to Japan, strengthening customs inspections of Japanese products, launching boycott campaigns, and organizing anti-Japan demonstrations.

The fundamental shift in the international situation underlying the Ukraine and Gaza crises manifests in the decline of US imperialist hegemony, the US strategy to compensate for this through military power, and the strengthening ties between China, DPRK, and Russia. Together with the rising Global South, they seek to usher in a new historical phase through multilateralism. The Takaichi administration is leaning forward, desperate to halt imperialism’s retreat. Over recent years, joint military exercises simulating war with China have been conducted, and war preparations have steadily advanced across the entire Japanese archipelago, centered on Okinawa and the Nansei (Southwest) Islands.

Now, riding the wave of rising right-wing populism, the Takaichi administration is faithfully inheriting Abe’s aggressive path of dismantling the postwar pacifist constitution—embodied in the security legislation permitting the exercise of collective self-defense—by pursuing a massive increase in military spending, revising the three security documents***, expanding the Defense Equipment Transfer (Export) System, and “reviewing” the Three Non-Nuclear Principles****. It is pushing forward to complete Japan’s transformation into a war-ready state. As in the prewar era, the mass media, politicians, and commentators aiding this effort provide countless examples of deplorable statements. Behind Consul General Xue Jian’s strong warning against Japan repeating its past invasions lay the intent to remind Japan, Germany, and Italy that they remain subject to the “enemy state clause” of the United Nations Charter, in response to the current prime minister’s statement about “waging war against China”. Even if aggressors forget their past atrocities, the memories of those whose lives were taken can never be forgotten.

Footnotes

* Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan: Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

** Now the Mainichi Shimbun.

*** They consist of the National Security Strategy, the National Defense Strategy and the Defense Buildup Program.

**** The principles that the country shall not possess, manufacture, or permit the introduction of nuclear weapons onto its territory.

(Published in Shisō-Undō No. 1119, December 1, 2025)