[Column] There’s no fixing the feud between Japan and China

By Gil Yun-hyung, editorial author

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi certainly by no means imagined that her off-the-cuff comment on a subject that’s an absolute taboo in China-Japan relations would open Pandora’s field.

Takaichi was taking questions on the Finances Committee of the Home of Representatives at 1:55 pm on Nov. 7 when she was requested the fateful query by Katsuya Okada, a lawmaker with the Constitutional Democratic Get together of Japan who served as overseas minister throughout that get together’s short-lived tenure in energy.

The dialog started to develop tense as the subject shifted to the type of existential disaster below which Japan might train “collective self-defense” in opposition to one other nation even when Japan had not itself been attacked.

Okada posed the next query: “Through the election for get together president [of the Liberal Democratic Party] one 12 months in the past, you mentioned, in response to a query about China imposing a naval blockade on Taiwan, that such a state of affairs might threaten our nationwide survival. What state of affairs would that be?”

“A choice must be made after contemplating all details about the concrete, particular person circumstances that had truly occurred,” Takaichi responded.

“That’s why I’m asking you what state of affairs that may be,” Okada mentioned.

After a pause, Takaichi supplied the next clarification. “If an assault by drive (1) have been carried out in opposition to Taiwan and a naval blockade have been imposed with warships, that would result in the usage of drive (2). If the US navy got here to assist relieve the blockade, we will hypothesize a state of affairs during which drive (3) was used once more to cease [the US military]. [. . .] If warships have been concerned in that use of drive, I believe that would definitely quantity to a survival-threatening state of affairs [enabling Japan’s use of force (4)],” she mentioned.

In Takaichi’s sphinxlike response, she fastidiously omitted topics and used the phrase “assault by drive” or “use of drive” 3 times. The primary occasion refers to the usage of drive by China, the implied topic of (1), that may happen throughout a blockade of Taiwan. That may result in a second use of drive within the type of a counterattack by Taiwan, the implied topic of (2). Then there may very well be a 3rd use of drive if the US intervened for the protection of Taiwan and the Chinese language navy, the implied topic of (3), attacked American warships to dam the US intervention. In that case, the Japan Self-Protection Forces might train their collective self-defense in an assault on the Chinese language materials within the (implied) fourth use of drive, which seems to be the purpose of Takaichi’s response.

In different phrases, the thing of an act of collective self-defense, in Takaichi’s view, wouldn’t be Taiwan, however Japan’s ally, the US — extra particularly, American warships. That, in truth, has been the constant place of the Japanese authorities since 2015, when the idea of a “survival-threatening state of affairs” was coined. However it was a deadly error for a sitting Japanese prime minister to say such a state of affairs within the context of Taiwan.

Takaichi’s transient comment has plunged China-Japan relations right into a horrific confrontation with no apparent approach out. On Nov. 8, Xue Jian, the Chinese language consul normal in Osaka, threatened to “chop off their soiled heads” in a submit on X. Since then, the Chinese language authorities has been taking varied measures to strangle Japan.

Since Koreans have an identical historic grudge in opposition to Japan because the Chinese language, this response isn’t completely incomprehensible to me. However listening to the astonishing remarks from Chinese language diplomats is giving me a headache. These diplomats are linking Takaichi’s response to all the pieces the Chinese language have needed to endure over the previous century and are making a single demand: that she retract her response.

However is that even doable? When Japan talked about peace within the Taiwan Strait in a joint summit assertion with the US on April 16, 2021, that was 52 years after the final official point out in 1969. Two days later, Yukio Takeuchi, a former Japanese vice minister for overseas affairs, wrote in a column for the Asahi Shimbun, a every day newspaper, that “Japan has crossed the Rubicon with China.”

As that recommended, Japan revised its three key safety paperwork in December 2022 so as to add the objectives of buying “counterstrike functionality” and elevating protection spending, which had been 1% of GDP, to 2% by 2027. There was just one motive for that: making ready for the contingency of a warfare in Taiwan.

Due to this fact, for Takaichi to retract her comment wouldn’t solely shred a century-old safety doctrine relationship again to 1895, within the Meiji period, when Japan gained management of Taiwan following its victory within the First Sino-Japanese Conflict — it might additionally quantity to backpedaling that may undermine all her work over the previous decade to maintain China contained.

The moment Takaichi retracted her comment, her Cupboard could be completed, and Japan must endure a strategic defeat tantamount to Korea having to surrender Dokdo (a Korean island lengthy claimed by Japan).

The Chinese language collective id shaped by means of many years of historic struggling has collided head-on with the safety paradigm of the Japanese, who’re making their very own fearful preparations. And the US, which should be the mediator right here, is nowhere to be seen.

There’s no strategy to clear up this mess. What on earth might be accomplished?

Please direct questions or feedback to [english@hani.co.kr]