Editorial World Politics Review, 13.11.2025
Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae has long been known as a China hawk who strongly supports Taiwan. She visited the island multiple times as a lawmaker, most recently in April. As such, her ascension to the premiership last month was widely viewed as placing Japan on a collision course with China.
Still, not many analysts expected a row to erupt over the issue within mere weeks of her taking office. The dispute started when Takaichi said during parliamentary proceedings last week that a Chinese attack on Taiwan—which lies just 70 miles from Japan’s westernmost municipality—would be “a situation threatening Japan’s survival” that could trigger deployment of the country’s Self-Defense Forces.
That prompted an aggressive, even threatening response from China’s consul general in Osaka, Xue Jian, who wrote on X in Japanese, “The dirty head that sticks itself in must be cut off without hesitation.” While Xue’s post was subsequently deleted, it caused a furor in Japan, where lawmakers from ruling and opposition parties alike have demanded that Xue be declared persona non grata.
Officials and commentators in China are also fanning the flames. A spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry defended Xue, criticizing Takaichi’s “erroneous and dangerous remarks” and reiterating Beijing’s long-held view that Taiwan’s status is a domestic matter for China.
Takaichi’s comments were certainly a break from tradition. Japanese leaders, as well as their U.S. counterparts have long maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity” over Taiwan, refusing to state whether they would intervene militarily to protect the island.
At the same time, the wisdom of that policy has recently been the topic of considerable debate on both sides of the Pacific. Former President Joe Biden notably veered away from it several times by clarifying that the United States would defend Taiwan against China, though his aides walked those comments back each time.
In one sense, Takaichi’s comments also represent a culmination of a broader trend that hasn’t received much attention from Western outlets: Japan has been quietly expanding cooperation with its former colony on a range of defense and economic security issues for many years. As we wrote in 2021, senior Japanese officials were even then becoming more open about publicly discussing preparations for a Taiwan contingency given the threat it would pose to Japan.
China’s vociferous response to Takaichi’s comments should be read as a sign of how sensitively it views the Taiwan issue, and of Japan’s critical role in a conflict over the island. U.S. military simulations of a potential war to defend Taiwan show much higher chances of victory over China if Washington’s allies, particularly Tokyo, join the fight. Beijing’s own military planners likely share that conclusion.
