The diplomatic spat between China and Japan over comments Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made on Nov. 7 continues to worsen. Beijing is angry about Takaichi’s remarks that military force used against Taiwan by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” necessitating the involvement of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. Rather than trying to reduce tensions, Beijing is looking to leverage the situation to its advantage in action and rhetoric.
On Saturday last week, four armed China Coast Guard vessels sailed around the Japanese-controlled Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), known to Japan as the Senkakus.
On Friday, in what was a transparent narrative device to exacerbate anti-Japanese feeling and create the conditions for weaponizing people-to-people exchanges, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a travel warning to tourists and students over what it said was “a threat of violence against Chinese in Japan,” saying that Takaichi’s remarks had “put life and safety of Chinese nationals residing in Japan under enormous risks.”
Above and beyond the official diplomatic summonses from Tokyo and Beijing to officially lodge their remonstrations and displeasure, the Chinese propaganda machine was also put into operation in targeting international audiences.
In the English-language China Global Television Network program The Point, host Liu Xin (劉欣) assembled a panel of Chinese and international academics in an episode called “Why China is furious: Japan’s new PM sparks Taiwan Strait crisis.” The message expounded by the panel was scripted and systematic, and there was a real sense that this is how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wanted the world to understand the situation.
The panel made no mention of Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian’s (薛劍) social media post on Nov. 8, which was widely interpreted in Japan as calling for Takaichi’s beheading. There was, however, a pointed reference to the Nanjing Massacre of 1937-1938 that Xue had clearly referenced in that comment. The panel was there to paint the picture of an emerging Japanese militarism encouraged and led by the “neo-fascist” Takaichi. There was the suggestion that not just China, but all of Asia should be concerned about a return of a militaristic Japan. There was also the jibe that the China Coast Guard patrol around the Senkakus was the beginning of a “new normal” that Japan would not have wanted, but now “deserves.”
The panel also did not mention why Takaichi might have considered a potential PLA action against Taiwan to be an existential threat to Japan or how it is China’s military build-up and aggressive posturing that has many countries in the region, not just Japan or Taiwan, worried. There was no acknowledgement that the rhetoric about the supposed neo-fascist, militaristic mindset in Japan was increasing tensions and putting lives at risk.
Host and panel, in their single-minded rhetorical push, neglected that Tokyo has only in the past few years begun to discuss increasing its military spending or changes in its constitution to enable the Japanese Self-Defense Forces to be involved in joint actions beyond the purely defensive. They also ignored that the Japanese public has heretofore been opposed to those constitutional changes.
However, this is the CCP’s playbook: Behave aggressively, deny all wrongdoing, and instead distract by pointing the finger elsewhere.
On Monday, President William Lai (賴清德) urged China to restrain itself and act like a responsible major power, not a “troublemaker.”
The international community knew that it is China, not Taiwan, that is undermining cross-strait peace and stability, Lai added.
He did not mention that China does not care.
Beijing is sticking to its playbook and its carefully crafted messaging. It wants results, not friends.
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