After the passing of Japan’s 2015 security legislation, which expanded the role that the Japan Self-Defense Forces can play overseas, it has remained unclear whether a “Taiwan contingency” would constitute “a situation threatening Japan’s survival” — important because this would warrant mobilization for “collective self-defense” purposes under the legislation. The strategic fog has been lifted.
Japanese lawmaker Katsuya Okada asked Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in parliament whether a Chinese blockade of the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines would constitute a “threat to Japan’s survival.”
“If there is a naval blockade, that would indeed constitute a survival-threatening situation,” Takaichi responded.
This is the first time that Takaichi has made the explicit link between a Taiwan contingency and a potential Japanese existential crisis.
The real flashpoint occurred the next day, when Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian (薛劍) in a now-deleted post on social media wrote that “the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off.” The threat, beyond being an overt violation of diplomatic norms, was a clear provocation to Japanese security. However, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has defended Xue’s post as a legitimate response to Takaichi’s dangerous signals to “Taiwan independence forces,” which has only exacerbated the situation.
In response to the post, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs lodged a protest, and Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara condemned it as “extremely inappropriate.”
On Tuesday last week, a panel of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party passed a resolution urging the government to take firm action, including declaring Xue persona non grata, if China failed to address the issue. US Ambassador to Japan George Glass also spoke out, calling the post a “threat” to Takaichi and all other Japanese, adding that Xue is “not so much a wolf warrior as an untrained puppy.” Earlier this year, the US Department of State also reaffirmed the importance of its cooperation with Japan on security in the region.
The threat against Takaichi was more than a slip of the tongue — it was a descent from the civilized to the barbaric. When opposition parties made a weak call for Takaichi to withdraw her remarks over “survival-threatening situations,” she refused, saying that “the government’s position is unchanged.”
Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi emphasized that Japan must make judgement calls responsibly based on all available information. Okada’s question was intended to test Takaichi’s boundaries, and it spotlighted a historic shift in Japan’s security strategy — former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s warning that “a Taiwan contingency is a Japan contingency” appears to carry official weight.
Within less than a month of taking office, Takaichi has drawn a clear red line for Japan’s security. Xue’s outburst has only brought the Japan-US alliance even closer, and any force with a mind to change the “status quo” in East Asia would be wise to tread lightly.
Japan’s strategic shift symbolizes that Taiwan’s security is now integrated into Japanese decisionmaking on what constitutes a “survival-threatening situation.”
As democracies, the best defense against “wolf warrior” threats is clarity. Xue’s incendiary rhetoric has, no doubt inadvertently, contributed to a new and emerging East Asian security order — one in which a Taiwan contingency is now also a contingency for the Japan-US alliance.
Wang Hui-sheng is a founding member of the East Asian Research Institute.
Translated by Gilda Knox Streader
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