Chinese foreign ministry calls Japanese leader’s remarks ‘egregiously wrong’ and urges Tokyo ‘to immediately correct itself’.
Beijing has summoned the Japanese ambassador and lodged “solemn representations” in its latest show of protest over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s recent provocative comments on a Taiwan contingency.
Sun Weidong, China’s vice-foreign minister, on Thursday summoned Kenji Kanasugi, expressing strong dissatisfaction and opposition to Takaichi’s remarks, which Sun called “egregiously wrong and highly dangerous”, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
Sun said the Japanese leader’s remarks “constitute a crude interference in China’s internal affairs … severely erode the political foundation of China-Japan relations and deeply hurt the feelings of the Chinese people”.
Earlier the same day, the foreign ministry urged Tokyo to “immediately correct itself”, warning that any Japanese military involvement in the Taiwan Strait would be regarded as “an act of aggression” and vowed to strike back in response.
The move followed several days of an escalating war of words, with Beijing on Monday lodging a protest over Takaichi’s remarks last week that Japan could deploy its military in the event of a cross-strait conflict.
Sun said the Taiwan issue “is an untouchable red line” and “brooks no external interference”.
“China once again urges Japan to deeply reflect on its historical guilt, immediately correct its mistakes, retract the harmful remarks and avoid going further down the wrong path,” he added. “Otherwise, Japan must bear all the consequences.”
Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary. Most countries, including Japan and the United States, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the self-ruled island by force and is committed to supplying it with weapons.
Amid the diplomatic row, Washington appeared to be trying to strike a delicate balance on the issue to avoid stoking tensions.
A US State Department spokesperson on Thursday said Washington was committed to preserving peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and opposed any unilateral changes to the status quo, according to media reports.
“The US supports cross-strait dialogue and hopes that differences will be resolved by peaceful means, free from coercion, in a manner acceptable to the people on both sides of the strait,” the spokesperson was quoted as saying.
Last week, Takaichi told the Japanese parliament that the use of military force in the Taiwan Strait could be seen as a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, a situation under the country’s 2015 security law that could allow Tokyo to deploy its self-defence forces.
The Japanese leader later clarified that her remarks were only “hypothetical” and that she would refrain from making similar comments again. But she declined to retract what she said.
Takaichi has long been known for her hardline views, criticising China’s growing military presence in the region and adopting a nationalist tone on Japan’s wartime history.
One of her first acts as prime minister was to accelerate the timing of a planned increase in defence spending to 2 per cent of GDP.
A close ally of the US, Japan hosts the biggest concentration of the American military abroad. Dozens of American military facilities are located on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, which could be crucial for any US support in the event of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait.
In 1960, the US and Japan signed the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, committing the two countries to defend each other if one or the other is attacked.
Separately, on Wednesday the head of the de facto American embassy in Taiwan invited the Kuomintang’s new chairwoman, Cheng Li-wun, to visit the United States, stressing that avoiding war would be the top priority.
Raymond Greene, director of the American Institute in Taiwan, told Cheng during an in-person meeting at KMT headquarters in Taipei that the US “has never sought conflict across the Taiwan Strait”.
“The primary goal is to avoid war and ensure that any cross-strait differences are handled peacefully and without coercion,” Greene added.
Relations between China and Japan are frequently tested by historical mistrust, territorial disputes and Japan’s alliance with the United States.
Despite frequent frictions, Beijing and Tokyo are major trading partners with each other and their cultural connections remain strong. Japanese pop culture has been embraced by China for decades, and China is the largest source of inbound tourists to Japan.
The Taiwan issue also drew attention after it did not come up during a meeting last month between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the Apec summit in South Korea.
The omission marked a stark departure from past China-US summits as Beijing previously used such occasions to restate its position at length.
In Japan, Takaichi’s comments sparked controversy. Previously, Japanese leaders have steered clear of explicitly referring to Taiwan in public discussions of a military response.
Her predecessor, former prime minister Shigeru Ishiba, on Thursday in a programme on Japanese radio station TBS described Takaichi’s comments as “very close to claiming that a Taiwan contingency is a Japan contingency”.
Ishiba said previous Japanese governments had consistently avoided making definitive declarations on how the government would respond to specific scenarios regarding the Taiwan issue.
Last year, former prime minister Fumio Kishida avoided giving a direct answer when asked about a Taiwan contingency, saying only that it required a comprehensive assessment and that “it is difficult to generalise”.
On Friday, People’s Daily, a Communist Party mouthpiece, weighed in on the matter with a commentary, urging Tokyo to “immediately correct its provocative and line-crossing misconduct … and halt its dangerous adventurism in the military and security realm”.
Takaichi’s comments marked the first time a Japanese leader “issued a threat of force against China”, according to the article.
“The intent is extremely malicious, the nature extremely egregious and the consequences extremely grave. The Chinese government and people are furious and firmly opposed to this,” it added.
“Takaichi’s fallacies on Taiwan are far from isolated political rhetoric. Behind them lie the obsession and hubris of Japan’s right-wing forces, who seek to break free of the constraints of the pacifist constitution and pursue the status of a military power.”
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