The honeymoon of the first woman to occupy the head of Government in Japan, Sanae Takaichihas ended abruptly caused by a serious diplomatic crisis of unforeseeable scope.
His recent statement in the Diet, in which he stated that a conflict in the Taiwan Strait could put the country’s very survival at risk and justify a joint military intervention with the United States, has been denounced by Beijing as “gross interference” in its internal affairs.
The Chinese reaction has not been long in coming and has reached unprecedented levels even by the already tense standards of the region.
The situation escalated when the Chinese consul in Osaka, breaking all diplomatic codes, wrote an unequivocally threatening message on social media: “The only thing left to do is cut off this dirty head without hesitation,” in direct reference to Takaichi.
Tokyo responded by declaring to the diplomat persona non grataan exceptional gesture that has raised the crisis to a level that Japan has not experienced for decades.
But the deterioration did not end there: the Chinese Foreign Ministry confirmed that the prime minister Li Qiang will not hold the planned meeting with Takaichi during the G20, and the Tokyo-Beijing Forum, one of the main platforms for civil and political dialogue between both countries, has been postponed indefinitely.
A brutal contrast if we remember that just three weeks before Takaichi and Xi Jinping They had shaken hands in South Korea, exhibiting fragile cordiality and having agreed on “mutually beneficial strategic relations.”
The origin of the clash—and the subsequent political earthquake—occurred unexpectedly when Takaichi declared in an ordinary control session of the Japanese Parliament that a possible Chinese attack against Taiwan—located just about 100 kilometers from Japanese territory— would constitute “a situation that threatens the survival of Japan”opening the door to a possible military response from Tokyo and the United States.
The statement broke with the traditional caution of Japanese leaders, who have historically avoided linking Taiwan with direct defense commitments.
Dangerous times
At a time when Beijing does not rule out the use of force to take the island and increases the intensity and complexity of its military maneuvers in the region, Takaichi’s words resonated strongly in both Tokyo and Washington, where the policy of “strategic ambiguity” remains the cornerstone of the US approach to a hypothetical conflict in the strait.
The tension increased even more when, asked in an interview on Fox News about the message from the Chinese consul in Osaka, the American president Donald Trump He avoided clearly condemning Beijing and, instead, attacked the United States’ own allies.
“Our allies have exploited us more in trade than China,” he said, reinforcing the idea that strategic partners like Japan benefit from the American security umbrella while maintaining large trade surpluses with Washington.
The message did not go unnoticed in Tokyo: just at a time of friction with China, the main guarantor of its defense publicly questioned the solidity of its alliances.
The exchange was interpreted in Japan almost as a warning that Tokyo could be left “alone in the face of danger.” If Takaichi expected unequivocal support from Washington after his words on Taiwan, Trump’s response suggested the opposite.
The American president, focused on redefining relations with his traditional allies and unwilling to take risks that could further strain the relationship with Beijing, made it clear that he was not willing to enter the game.
In the midst of a dialectical escalation between Japan and China, This American distancing would add a new level of uncertainty to the already complicated regional security scenario in the area.
For many observers, the controversy has revived memories of the so-called “wolf warrior” diplomacy, that stage in the early 2020s in which Chinese diplomats adopted a combative and theatrical style, responding on social networks to any criticism against Beijing with a tone as aggressive as it is unusual in traditional diplomacy.
Although in recent years Beijing had tried to moderate that approach to regain goodwill in the West, the reactions unleashed after Takaichi’s words suggest a return to those ways. Far from cooling spirits, the propaganda machine has smelled political blood and has once again deployed its rhetorical arsenal.
Within China, where anti-Japanese sentiment already exists, state media and some of the most influential voices in the nationalist ecosystem have amplified the outrage.
People’s Dailythe mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, accused Takaichi of “speaking without restraint” and warned that no one should “harbor the illusion of crossing Taiwan’s red line without paying a price.”
An account linked to the state channel CCTV even asked if “he had been kicked by a donkey”, while the controversial commentator Hu Xijin —former editor of Global Times— went even further, directly evoking the rhetoric of the Chinese diplomat in Osaka. “China’s battle blade for decapitating invaders is sharpened to a lethal edge. If Japanese militarism wishes to come to the Taiwan Strait to sacrifice itself on our blades, we will oblige,” he wrote.
More than words
China has recently been deploying an increasingly numerous and diversified arsenal of ballistic and cruise missiles based on units of the Chinese Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force, with models such as the DF-21, the DF-26 and the most recent hypersonic DF-17 that, according to analyzes by the Pentagon and specialized study centers, have sufficient range and precision to cover the entire Japanese archipelago and hit military and urban targets in a matter of minutes.
The annual report of the US Department of Defense and evaluations of think tanks They point out that they have an inventory of missiles that, according to the methodology used, can be counted in the thousands (estimates range from more than a thousand to several thousand missiles and hundreds of launchers), and that Beijing has reinforced both the number and operational complexity of its missile brigades.
That firepower is not just theoretical: in 2022, during maneuvers around Taiwan, five of the projectiles launched by China fell in the Japanese exclusive economic zone (EEZ), an episode that Tokyo described as “serious” for its security and that led to formal protests.
Since then, reports and analyzes (including studies on the vulnerability of bases and cities in the Pacific) have warned that the concentration and dispersion of Chinese launchers poses a real risk to targets in Okinawa, Yokosuka—home to Japanese and North American naval facilities—and even metropolitan areas like Tokyo if there were a large-scale conflict.
At the same time, sources agree that the exact number of launchers and missiles depends on how they are classified (tactical, operational, ballistic, cruise), and therefore specific numbers (for example, “1,500–2,000 launchers” or “more than 3,000 missiles”) are estimates that should be cited as such.
Given the escalation, this Monday Tokyo tried to put a stop to the crisis with diplomatic gestures of containment. There is noJapanese official for Asia and Oceania Affairs, traveled to Beijing to meet with his counterpart Liu Jinsongin a visit broadcast on video by Kyodo aimed at reiterating that Japan’s security policy has not changed and asking China to avoid measures that harm bilateral relations.
From Tokyo it was stressed that “several channels of communication are open”, in the words of the Chief Cabinet Secretary, who insisted that Beijing has been formally requested to take “appropriate steps” and that the travel warning issued by China is incompatible with efforts to foster strategic and mutually beneficial ties.
Beijing, for its part, toughened its tone: Premier Li Qiang reiterated his desire not to meet with Takaichi during the G20 summit and the Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Mao Ningdemanded that Japan rectify what he called “erroneous comments.”
In Taiwan, the president Lai ching-te He denounced what he considered a “multifaceted attack” by China against Japan and asked the international community to maintain attention on the episode, urging Beijing to show restraint and the behavior of a great power, instead of becoming a factor in regional destabilization.
The clash has left Takaichi politically isolated and strategically vulnerable, and raises the question of the extent to which poorly calibrated public statements can transform a rhetorical conflict exponentially into a crisis with unforeseeable global consequences.
At the same time, it reveals the limitations of external support in a scenario where the prudence of third parties, and Beijing’s enormous missile capacity, force diplomacy to be privileged to prevent rhetoric from becoming a real risk for peace in the Pacific.