TOKYO – In a stark signal of how Japan now views regional security, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi announced last week that any Chinese military action against Taiwan could be treated as a “situation threatening Japan’s survival”.
Such a scenario could allow the government to deploy the Self-Defense Forces. Her comments, made during a parliamentary session on 7 November, have pushed relations between Tokyo and Beijing into their sharpest crisis in years.
China has demanded an immediate withdrawal of the remarks and warned of harsh countermeasures. Takaichi’s firm refusal to retreat has only sharpened the clash, revealing deep cracks in relations and highlighting Japan’s changing approach to threats in East Asia.
Takaichi, a hardline conservative and political heir to the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, was responding to detailed questions from opposition lawmaker Katsuya Okada about how Japan’s 2015 security laws would apply. Those laws allow collective self-defence, in other words, coming to the aid of partners such as the United States, if an attack puts Japan’s survival at risk.
“If it includes the use of warships and military actions against Taiwan, however you look at it, that could amount to a survival-threatening situation,” she replied, tying Taiwan’s security directly to Japan’s own safety.
Her answer was one of the clearest public statements yet on how Tokyo sees a Taiwan crisis, and broke with the long-standing policy of “strategic ambiguity”. It also echoed Abe’s famous line from 2021 that “a Taiwan emergency is a Japanese emergency”.
China reacted within hours, and in anger. The Foreign Ministry called Takaichi’s words “appalling” and a “gross interference” in China’s internal affairs. Officials hauled in Japanese Ambassador Kenji Kanasugi for a dressing-down in Beijing.
Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian warned that Japan “must bear all consequences” unless the comments are withdrawn, and pointed to the 1972 Sino-Japanese Joint Communiqué, in which Tokyo recognised Beijing’s position on Taiwan. Tensions flared further after a since-deleted social media post by Xue Jian, China’s Consul General in Osaka, who wrote, “The dirty head that sticks itself in must be cut off.”
The remark drew outrage across Japan and was condemned as “utterly unacceptable”, prompting calls from both ruling and opposition lawmakers for Xue’s expulsion. By 13 November, China had gone a step further, issuing a travel warning that urged Chinese citizens to avoid Japan due to a “worsening security environment”, and hinting at wider economic punishment.
Officials have floated the idea of a blanket ban on Japanese seafood imports, only months after easing previous controls linked to the Fukushima wastewater release.
Beijing’s Pressure Tactics: Intimidation to Weaken Deterrence
For policymakers in Tokyo, China’s response looks familiar. The mix of fierce language, travel warnings, and threats of trade retaliation fits a pattern of coercive tactics aimed at punishing Japan and, at the same time, warning other countries not to support Taiwan.
Japanese Foreign Ministry officials describe the campaign in private as a “pressure operation” intended to show partners like the United States that any involvement in a Taiwan crisis will carry a heavy price. In public, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara has condemned Beijing’s steps as “one-sided and escalatory”.
He argues that they “seriously undermine” ties between ordinary people while doing nothing to address China’s own military moves.
Analysts see clear echoes of past crises. In the 1950s, China shelled Kinmen and Matsu in the Taiwan Strait Crisis to frighten Taipei and Washington. In 1995 and 1996, missile tests near Taiwan forced the United States to send aircraft carriers to the area. In recent years, President Xi Jinping has taken a tougher line.
He has repeatedly promised “reunification by any means”, and Chinese aircraft have entered Taiwan’s Air Defence Identification Zone more than 1,200 times in 2025 alone. Large-scale war games in April, code-named “Strait Thunder-2025A”, practised blockades and live-fire missions.
Chinese warships and jets surrounded Taiwan, which Beijing called a “stern warning” against independence. These drills sit alongside aggressive actions elsewhere, such as the April incident in the Spratly Islands, where China Coast Guard personnel landed on disputed Sandy Cay, just as the United States and the Philippines were holding their Balikatan exercises.
In the South China Sea, China’s treatment of the Philippines has become a textbook example of pressure. Manila reports near-daily incidents. Chinese vessels have rammed Philippine boats near Scarborough Shoal, fired powerful water cannon at supply missions to the grounded ship at Second Thomas Shoal, and even towed Philippine boats away.
China’s “nine-dash line” claim, which was thrown out by a 2016 international tribunal, has not stopped it from building and arming artificial islands that now act as forward bases and threaten major shipping routes. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has called these actions “reckless” and has strengthened ties with the United States and Japan as concern over Chinese encirclement grows.
Japanese officials are alarmed by Chinese research ships working in the Luzon Strait, the key waterway between Taiwan and the Philippines. In Tokyo, many see this as a rehearsal for a future blockade that would directly affect Japan’s Yonaguni Island, only 110 kilometres from Taiwan.
Economic Pain and Strategic Choice: Security First
The dispute has already started to hit Japan’s economy. Chinese travel firms have cancelled large group tours to Japan, cutting arrivals from China by around 20 percent in early November, according to industry estimates. Seafood companies are bracing for a full suspension of Chinese imports, recalling the 2010 rare earth export curbs at the height of the Senkaku Islands clash.
Japanese films scheduled for release in China have been pulled, and concerts by artists such as Yo-Yo Ma have been called off at short notice. Annual trade between the two countries, worth around ¥50 trillion, now faces uncertainty. In a symbolic snub, Premier Li Qiang cancelled a planned meeting with Takaichi on the sidelines of the G20.
Even so, the Japanese government appears willing to accept short-term economic costs to strengthen its long-term security. Takaichi and her advisers see Taiwan as central to Japan’s safety.
If Taiwan fell under Chinese control, Okinawa would sit within easy range of Chinese missiles, 90 percent of Japan’s energy supplies that pass through the Taiwan Strait could be disrupted, and confidence in the US-Japan security alliance would be badly shaken. “We cannot stay vague when survival is on the line,” a senior Defence Ministry official told The Japan Times, speaking on condition of anonymity.
In response to the growing threat, Tokyo has brought forward its defence spending plans, aiming to reach 2 percent of GDP by 2026. Japan is buying Tomahawk cruise missiles, expanding missile defences, and strengthening military facilities on its southwestern islands.
At home, many voters appear to support the tougher line. A recent Kyodo News poll put Takaichi’s cabinet approval rating at 69.9 percent, up 5.5 points. Around 49 percent of those surveyed backed the idea of Japan using its Self-Defense Forces to help in a Taiwan emergency.
That is a slim majority, but a clear shift away from the pacifist mood that shaped politics before Abe’s time. Even critics such as Okada frame the debate less as a call to retreat and more as a demand that the government spell out the risks. In Taipei, President Lai Ching-te praised Tokyo’s “clarity” and described Beijing’s response as a “multi-layered attack” on stability in the Indo-Pacific.
Japanese public opinion has hardened as Chinese ships and aircraft carry out almost daily “grey zone” operations, from airspace intrusions to patrols near the Senkaku Islands. For many, deterrence now feels like a responsibility, not a provocation.
Allies Close Ranks: A Shared Response to Chinese Aggression
Japan is not facing China alone. The United States, which stations about 54,000 troops in Okinawa, restated its firm security commitment to Japan in an 18 November statement. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned that “any move on Taiwan risks devastating consequences”. Joint US-Japan military drills such as Keen Sword have for years practised responses to a Taiwan contingency.
At a trilateral summit in September, the United States, Japan, and the Philippines promised closer security ties and “integrated deterrence” across the region. Australia and the United Kingdom, through the AUKUS partnership, are considering submarine patrols near the Taiwan Strait.
The European Union has criticised China’s large-scale drills around Taiwan as “destabilising”. In a sign of growing concern, the G7’s Apulia Communiqué for the first time backed Taiwan’s effort to take part in the World Health Organization.
This strengthening network of partners worries Beijing, which regularly attacks it as “hegemonism” and a US-led plot to contain China. Yet, as Professor Madoka Fukuda of Hosei University points out, a climbdown by Takaichi is unlikely.
“If Japan withdraws the remarks now, it sends a message of weakness to Xi and may invite more pressure,” she argues. Vice Foreign Minister Takehiro Funakoshi travelled to Beijing in search of a way to calm tensions, but returned without a breakthrough. Japanese officials insist they still honour the 1972 communiqué, which recognises one China, while also stressing that peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait are in Japan’s clear interest.
UN Showdown: China Takes the Dispute Global
The crisis took another turn on 22 November when China brought the issue to the United Nations. In a letter to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Chinese Ambassador Fu Cong accused Takaichi of “openly trampling on China’s core interests” and threatening “armed interference” in the Taiwan question.
The letter urged the international community to condemn Japan. Beijing cited the wartime Cairo and Potsdam Declarations, which it says restored Taiwan to Chinese control after Japan’s defeat, and painted Japan as a revisionist power that is breaking the postwar order.
Many observers see the move as a sign of anxiety in Beijing. China holds a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and can veto any resolution, but the UN platform allows it to push its narrative to both domestic audiences and countries in the Global South.
Japan, backed by the United States and European Union representatives, dismissed the complaint as theatre and said the focus should be on China’s military build-up and actions in and around the Taiwan Strait.
Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung welcomed Takaichi’s remarks as “in line with democratic values”, while President Marcos of the Philippines warned that rising tensions over Taiwan and the South China Sea could produce “cascading risks” for the whole region.
For Takaichi, China’s UN move is a test of political strength. At 63, Japan’s first female prime minister must balance the need to avoid uncontrolled escalation with the need to hold the line. Any sign of backtracking could alienate her conservative base in the Liberal Democratic Party and weaken deterrence.
“History shows that appeasement invites aggression,” she told parliament on 19 November, promising that she would not withdraw her comments. As winter sets in across the Sea of Japan, the Taiwan Strait remains a potential flashpoint. Tokyo’s message is firm: the security of Taiwan is tightly linked to Japan’s own safety, and no amount of intimidation will force a change in that view.
