Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian (薛劍) on Saturday last week shared a news article on social media about Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks on Taiwan, adding that “the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off.” The previous day in the Japanese House of Representatives, Takaichi said that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could constitute “a situation threatening Japan’s survival,” a reference to a legal legal term introduced in 2015 that allows the prime minister to deploy the Japan Self-Defense Forces.
The violent nature of Xue’s comments is notable in that it came from a diplomat, especially one stationed in the country to which he was directing his ire. The Japanese government called it “extremely inappropriate,” while Beijing tried to distance itself by characterizing the post as “personal.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said that Xue’s comments, and similar remarks from Chinese officials, risked stirring up anti-Japanese sentiment among Chinese, and that it “cannot be treated as an isolated incident or just a personal remark.” US Ambassador to Japan George Glass wrote on X: “The mask slips — again.”
All of those statements are true, to one extent or the other.
The imagery of necks being cut is too evocative of the shock-and-awe tactics of the Imperial Japanese Army in Nanjing in 1937-1938 to discount the idea that Xue’s remark was rooted in the persistent national historical trauma in China over the awful legacy of the Nanjing Massacre. The 20th century’s wars in Asia continue to cast a shadow over this region.
The comments are a reminder that the sentiment behind them, while “personal,” exists widely in China, and in the Chinese establishment, exacerbated by nationalist rhetoric commonly stirred up in Chinese state media. They say much about the sensitivity in China over Taiwan, and the lack of confidence that the situation can be resolved if other regional actors become involved. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) rhetoric of a peaceful rise is, as Glass said, a mask concealing pernicious intent.
The arrival of Takaichi, who has expressed goodwill toward Taiwan and an understanding of the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, as Japan’s new leader is to be welcomed. Unfortunately, there is a sense in which she has — to borrow from Xue’s ugly imagery — stuck out her neck, and left herself, if momentarily, vulnerable.
In an interview posted online by the US think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Ryo Sahashi, a professor at the University of Tokyo’s Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, talked about how much alarm Takaichi’s comments caused in Japan itself. Sahashi stressed that never before has any Japanese prime minister said out loud in the Diet that the Taiwan situation could be regarded as an existential threat to Japan, and in those conditions Japan has cause to exercise its right to collective self-defense. This was “completely new,” he said.
Sahashi also said that Takaichi should be careful about political enemies at home: Her Liberal Democratic Party is in a weak position after a poor showing in elections earlier this year for the upper and lower houses. At the same time, her Cabinet takes the Taiwan Strait situation seriously, with Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi and Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi calling stability in the region extremely important, he said.
Legislators of all parties should take note of the CCP’s true nature, from which Xue’s comments momentarily allowed the mask to slip.
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