{"id":99188,"date":"2025-11-21T03:00:03","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T08:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=99188"},"modified":"2025-11-23T10:02:56","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T15:02:56","slug":"the-spat-between-china-and-japan-is-far-more-important-than-western-media-are-reporting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2025\/11\/21\/the-spat-between-china-and-japan-is-far-more-important-than-western-media-are-reporting\/","title":{"rendered":"The “spat” between China and Japan is far more important than western media are reporting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Claire Berlinsky<\/a> explains why we should be paying far more attention to what our media are treating as a minor diplomatic spat as Beijing reacts furiously to the new Japanese PM’s comments:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

You need to see the Chinese media today to get a feel for this. Front pages of the relevant organs are devoted to frothing in fury at Japan. They’re rectifying bad thoughts like a house on fire.<\/p>\n

Here’s why I’m worried by this. Both the Chinese- and Japanese-language press are treating this as a major<\/em> diplomatic incident. (In English, it’s mostly being described as “a row” or “spat” \u2014 then back to Trump and Epstein.) Let me walk you through what it looks from Beijing and Tokyo, with help from ChatGPT on the translations.<\/p>\n

The trigger was a comment in by the new Japanese prime minister, Sanae Takaichi. She told a parliamentary committee that a Taiwan contingency involving the use of force might constitute a “sonritsu kiki jitai<\/em>” (a “survival-threatening situation” \u2014 I think we’d use the phrase “existential threat”) for Japan under its 2015 security laws, and justify the exercise of collective self-defense, using Japan’s self-defense forces.<\/p>\n

Beijing exploded. China summoned the Japanese ambassador in Beijing<\/a> for a formal d\u00e9marche<\/em>, and it allowed the PRC consul general in Osaka, Xue Jian, to post a (now-deleted) tweet calling for her decapitation\u2014”that dirty head that trespassed should be cut off, are you ready?” The Xue Jian post has, of course, become a media event of its own. Beijing issued a travel advisory<\/a> urging Chinese citizens to avoid Japan, and told students to “carefully reconsider” study plans. It stepped up coast-guard activity near the Senkakus<\/a>, and cancelled the Xi\u2013Takaichi bilateral at the G20<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But this arid account doesn’t begin to convey the way the Chinese and Japanese media are talking about this. The Chinese coverage is nothing short of hysterical. To read the Party-line outlets, you’d think Takaichi had just ordered the immediate re-invasion of Manchuria. Her comment, they said, was an evidence of a “dangerous rightward turn” in Japanese politics. They’re calling it a “sky-collapsing opening<\/a>“, accusing her of “reckless ranting” and tearing up the China-Japan relationship.<\/p>\n

The headline in a widely circulated China Daily<\/em><\/a> article:”If China and Japan go to war, Japan will be destroyed<\/em>“. They found the inevitable panel of “peace-loving international friends” \u2014 including Okinawan peace activists and pro-PRC overseas Chinese \u2014 to denounce Takaichi as the reincarnation of “Japanese militarism”. The peace activists dutifully warned that the Japanese people would be “dragged into catastrophe” by their government. A CNR<\/em> column<\/a> accuses her of “brazen provocation”, and claims that “Taiwan compatriots are also outraged” at the prospect of Taiwan being turned into a battleground between China and a “militaristic” Japan.<\/p>\n

The Party line: Taiwan is a “settled” internal issue; any talk of Japanese collective self-defense in the Strait is aggression and a “serious violation” of the post-1945 order. Takaichi represents “unrepentant militarism.” Chinese pieces quote her opponents at length<\/a> to argue that “sober Japanese elites” are deploring her recklessness. Chinese-language coverage of the travel advisory is not treating it as a minor consular notice. They’re claiming it’s the first coercive step.<\/p>\n

In Japan, this is front-page foreign policy news, not a minor gaffe. Mainichi<\/em><\/a> ran an editorial saying, more or less, that Takaichi’s words were legally consistent with the 2015 security laws, but prime ministers should be more discrete about hypothetical military contingencies and show more prudence. Opposition figures are saying she “went too far” and threw the relationship into “a very grave state”. They called it “frivolous” for a commander-in-chief to talk so specifically about use-of-force scenarios.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, there’s clearly a domestic constituency that sees this as long overdue. Some in her party see any hint of retraction as “weakness toward China”, and they’re praising her for drawing a firm line on Taiwan. (The coverage about whether to expel Xue Jian is divided: His post was a death threat, obviously, but the Foreign Ministry seems reluctant to escalate this further.)<\/p>\n

TV explainers are reminding viewers that the 2015 security legislation already contemplated a Taiwan contingency \u2014 what’s new is that the prime minister has now said this out loud. And a prime minister with an openly revisionist profile \u2014 that’s definitely new.<\/p>\n

So there’s a lot of signaling going on. Beijing is signaling to its own public: “We’ll never again let Japanese militarism threaten China. The Party is the bulwark against a repeat of the 1930s.” To Tokyo: “We’ll punish any step toward military involvement in the Strait, first with economic coercion \u2014 then worse. We are not kidding about this.” To the wider region and Washington: “Japan is a destabilizer \u2014 this woman isn’t right in the head. If things go wrong in the Taiwan Strait, blame Tokyo. Remember Pearl Harbor.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Update, 23 November<\/strong>: Welcome, Instapundit<\/em> readers! Please do have a look around at some of my other posts you may find of interest. I send out a daily summary of posts here through my Substack<\/em> \u2013 https:\/\/substack.com\/@nicholasrusson<\/a> that you can subscribe to if you’d like to be informed of new posts in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Claire Berlinsky explains why we should be paying far more attention to what our media are treating as a minor diplomatic spat as Beijing reacts furiously to the new Japanese PM’s comments: You need to see the Chinese media today to get a feel for this. Front pages of the relevant organs are devoted to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,24,28,5,683,13],"tags":[754,432,456,213,269,144],"class_list":["post-99188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-japan","category-media","category-military","category-pacific","category-usa","tag-coastguard","tag-diplomacy","tag-hysteria","tag-newspapers","tag-propaganda","tag-taiwan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-pNO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99188"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99227,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99188\/revisions\/99227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}