中文
By Ong Tee Keat
Lead: Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has triggered a diplomatic firestorm by suggesting military involvement over the Taiwan question, raising alarm across Asia over renewed Japanese militarism.
The diplomatic storm unleashed by Japan's new right-wing Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has shown no sign of subsiding. Her remarks — suggesting that any Chinese use of force to reunify Taiwan could constitute a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan and justify deploying the Self-Defense Forces — have been interpreted in Beijing as a direct affront to China's sovereignty.
From China's perspective, Tokyo's stance undermines the one-China principle, which Japan pledged to observe when bilateral relations were normalized in 1972. Under this framework, Taiwan is recognized as an inalienable part of China. Whatever actions China takes toward reunification, Beijing emphasizes, are strictly its internal affairs and beyond the jurisdiction of any external power, Japan included.
Takaichi's hardline rhetoric reinforces her long-standing image as a China hawk and as a politician unrepentant about Japan's wartime atrocities, including the 1937 Nanjing Massacre. Her vow to consider military action under the banner of "survival threats" evokes troubling historical parallels for China, particularly the 1931 invasion of China, which was justified under a similarly fabricated pretext.
Her widely publicized intention to visit the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors convicted Class-A war criminals, has only deepened anger across Northeast Asia, especially in China, North Korea and South Korea. To many, the move signals the re-emergence of an unsettling nostalgia for Japan's militarist past.
Unbowed by international criticism, Takaichi remains adamant about strengthening Tokyo's military posture, pledging to increase defense spending to 2 percent of Japan's GDP — two years ahead of schedule. Yet this military acceleration comes at a time when Japan is facing economic headwinds, and China, as its largest trading partner, is contemplating countermeasures. Travel advisories and an expanded suspension of Japanese seafood imports are reportedly underway. These could deal a painful blow to Japan's already fragile economy.
Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong weighed in on the escalating tensions by calling for Chinese magnanimity, but critics quickly dismissed his stance as naive, given the growing likelihood of Japanese remilitarization. He even claimed that Southeast Asia views Japan as the region's most trusted great power and hopes for Japan to play a greater role in regional security. However, this perspective apparently turns a blind eye to the legacy of Japan's World War II atrocities and the constraints of its postwar pacifist constitution.
Wong's audacious remarks in a Bloomberg interview might curry favor with the new Japanese administration, but they represent a dangerous gamble. This rhetoric comes as Tokyo steadily chips away at Article 9 of its postwar pacifist constitution, which renounces the use of force to settle international disputes.
The 2014 cabinet decision enabling the limited exercise of collective self-defense, followed by the 2015 security legislation championed by the late Shinzo Abe, marked Japan's transition from a pacifist state to a nascent military power. These shifts have deeply unsettled neighboring nations that once suffered under Japan's imperial expansion.
It is no secret that Japan's right-wingers consistently aspire to revive the wartime militarism alongside disrupting the rise of China. They deliberately portray Japan as a "victim" of the World Anti-Fascist War, in addition to denying any wrongdoing by Japan during the war, albeit perpetration of various massacres and the infamous state-sponsored sexual slavery in "comfort women" system by the Imperial Japanese Army remains indelible in the journey of history.
As Abe's protégé, Takaichi appears poised to push Japan even further along this trajectory. Her openness to hosting U.S. nuclear-powered submarines — despite Japan's Three Non-Nuclear Principles — signals yet another break with the country's pacifist ethos. For China, this represents a direct challenge to the delicate trust that underpins one of Asia's most important yet fragile bilateral relationships.
Amid mounting regional security risks, China, Russia and North Korea watch Takaichi's moves with growing apprehension. Southeast Asia shares this alarm. Given the brutality the region suffered under Japanese imperial rule, such wariness of revived militarism is not misplaced.
What may ultimately prove the final breaking point is Takaichi's unambiguous willingness to intervene in the Taiwan Strait. Although Japan acknowledges the one-China principle in words, its moral and political support for pro-independence forces on the island it once colonized has become increasingly visible over the years. Takaichi's references to a potential "Taiwan emergency" mark a sharp departure from the strategic ambiguity that her predecessors maintained to avoid destabilizing relations with Beijing.
The Chinese military has warned bluntly that Japanese involvement in the Taiwan question would "tie the entire nation to a chariot of self-destruction." Chinese diplomats have also reminded Tokyo that the Enemy State clauses of the U.N. Charter — though once considered by some to be obsolete — have never been revoked. Articles 107 and 53 technically allow actions against former Axis powers, including Japan, to prevent renewed aggression. In plain terms, these provisions provide Beijing with a renewed legal rationale should tensions spiral into open conflict.
Should confrontation erupt, the consequences could be catastrophic — perhaps even apocalyptic. Some in China view such a potential conflict as an opportunity to seek a long-awaited reckoning for Japan's unaddressed wartime atrocities. In this context, calls for China to set aside history unilaterally amount to ignorance or even approval of atrocities for which Tokyo has yet to demonstrate genuine remorse after more than 80 years.
Until Japan sincerely confronts its past with substantive atonement rather than symbolic gestures, it will remain bound by the weight of its historical culpability. Economic success alone cannot erase that legacy. A forthright apology to its victimized neighbors, coupled with a firm break from the old militarist impulses, is the only path toward restoring trust and paving the way for lasting peace.
The author is president of the Belt and Road Initiative Caucus for Asia Pacific (BRICAP).
