The diplomatic dispute between China and Japan over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments in the Japanese Diet continues to escalate.
In a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, China’s UN Ambassador Fu Cong (傅聰) wrote that, “if Japan dares to attempt an armed intervention in the cross-Strait situation, it would be an act of aggression.”
There was no indication that Fu was aware of the irony implicit in the complaint.
Until this point, Beijing had limited its remonstrations to diplomatic summonses and weaponization of economic levers, such as banning Japanese seafood imports, discouraging Chinese from traveling to Japan or issuing warnings of “rampant crime” against Chinese nationals there.
The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday disclosed crime data to refute the Chinese claim, demonstrating that “such an assertion is incorrect.”
The same day, the Food and Drug Administration announced it would lift the remaining food import controls implemented following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, after testing had shown little cause for concern.
National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) posted on social media about lifting the remaining ban, writing that “Taiwan and Japan are … friends who share values, and good neighbors who support each other in times of difficulty.”
President William Lai (賴清德) on Thursday posted a video and photos of himself on social media eating a plate of sashimi, saying the ingredients were from both Taiwan and Japan, writing that this “fully shows the firm friendship between Taiwan and Japan.”
Lai and Wu were leveraging the situation to their political advantage, to say that it is better to tighten ties with a friendly neighbor than to relitigate past trauma to assist a hostile one.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) reacted by saying that Takaichi was only causing problems for Taiwan, disrupting attempts to improve cross-strait relations, and that Japan had no business intervening in Taiwan’s affairs. This characterization is partial and misleading, as Takaichi was speaking of Japan’s security, not Taiwan’s. Neither Ma nor Hung represent mainstream public opinion, but it would be a mistake to discount the support that their basic position has in Taiwan.
National Women’s League chairwoman Joanna Lei (雷倩), a former KMT legislator, spoke in an online interview about the ongoing spat. Just as Ma and Hung have done, Lei sympathized with China’s position, emphasizing Chinese fears about a rise in Japanese militarism, and how this would be met by concern in China and the wider region. Lei sought to play up Japan’s wartime legacy, which would be legitimate were it not for the fact that she was doing so to leverage it for her political advantage in criticizing the Lai administration and to make Beijing’s point.
She painted a picture of Lai as an example of Taiwanese stuck in a form of Stockholm syndrome of ingrained loyalty to former colonial masters. It is a very different picture from that painted by Lai and Wu. There is irony here, too, as one could equally say that Lei, Ma and Hung are stuck in a Stockholm syndrome with a hostile foreign force that holds sway over them because of a shared — if distinctly troubled — past and a nationalistic ideological affinity.
The five politicians’ respective positions reflect cultural, historical and national beliefs in Taiwan, and broadly represent those of the Democratic Progressive Party and the KMT. Their political methods, almost necessarily so, appeal to unity through division, to bolster one position by targeting the other through simplistic messaging.
For democracy to thrive, Taiwanese must see through this simplistic messaging and arrive at their own informed conclusions.
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