Japan and China in growing row after PM Takaichi says Taiwan conflict could trigger military deployment

Japan and China are embroiled in a row about Tokyo’s potential military involvement in the event of a conflict over Taiwan. Beijing reacted angrily this month after Japan’s new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, said an attack on Taiwan could trigger the deployment of her country’s self-defence forces if the conflict posed an existential threat to Japan. Insisting that Japan could exercise its right to collective self-defence – or coming to the aid of an ally – Takaichi said Tokyo had to “anticipate a worst-case scenario” in the Taiwan Strait. Related: Taiwan vice-president presses case at EU parliament for joint efforts to counter China If an emergency in Taiwan involved “warships and the use of force, then that could constitute a situation threatening [Japan’s] survival, whichever way you look at it”, she told a parliamentary committee. “The so-called Taiwan contingency has become so serious that we have to anticipate a worst-case scenario.” Beijing has not ruled out the use of force to annex Taiwan – a self-governing democracy it regards as a Chinese province – under what it calls “reunification”. The row intensified at the weekend after the Chinese consul general in Osaka, Xue Jian, said in a post on X that referenced a news article about her Taiwan comments: “We have no choice but cut off that dirty neck that has been lunged at us without hesitation. Are you ready?” Officials in Tokyo condemned Xue’s post, which has since been removed, as “extremely inappropriate”. “We strongly protested and urged that it be taken down immediately,” Japan’s senior government spokesperson, Minoru Kihara, told reporters this week, adding that he was “aware of multiple other inappropriate remarks” by Xue. The dispute comes soon after Takaichi, a conservative with hawkish views on China, met Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the Apec summit in South Korea, where they vowed to build “constructive and stable” relations. On Monday, Takaichi – who last month became Japan’s first female prime minister – refused to back down, but told MPs she would exercise caution when referring to specific situations involving security. Japan has long wrestled with the question of how it would respond to a conflict between China and Taiwan, which lies just 100km from its westernmost island, Yonaguni, in the East China Sea. While Japan’s postwar constitution forbids it from using force as a means of settling international disputes, a 2015 law – passed when Takaichi’s mentor, Shinzo Abe, was prime minister – permits it to exercise collective self-defence in certain situations, even if it is not directly under attack. That scenario would most likely involve Japanese support for US-led military action in the region. Lin Jian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, said Xue’s post was a response to Takaichi’s “wrongful and dangerous” remarks on Taiwan. “China strongly urges Japan to reflect on its historical culpability on the Taiwan issue … and stop sending any wrong signals to Taiwan independence separatist forces,” he said. Karen Kuo, a spokesperson for the presidential office in Taiwan, said in a statement that Taiwan’s government “takes seriously the threatening remarks made by Chinese officials toward Japan. Such behaviour clearly exceeds diplomatic etiquette.” In a post on X, the US ambassador to Japan, George Glass, said in reference to Xue’s comments: “The mask slips – again,” adding that the Chinese diplomat’s words “threatened” Takaichi and the Japanese people. This latest spat started just a week after Beijing accused Takaichi of “egregious” behaviour by meeting with a senior adviser to Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, on the sidelines of Apec, and posting photos of it on social media.