Beijing’s anti-Tokyo fit risks blowback, signals weakness

SEOUL, South Korea — A Japanese diplomatic mission to China aimed at defusing tensions that have heated up between the two nations over Taiwan appears to have failed.

After two weeks of friction, Tokyo is on the defensive, but experts say Beijing’s rage could be a cover for domestic problems — and may undermine the communist giant’s multilayered attempts to portray itself as a reasonable global actor.

Beijing’s blustering over Taiwan has had one likely unintended effect on internal Japanese politics since the crisis began: Blunt-spoken Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, a China hawk, has seen her approval ratings skyrocket.

Sound and fury

Japan’s Foreign Ministry Director for Asian and Oceanic Affairs Kanai Masaaki on Tuesday concluded his trip to Beijing, where he had huddled with his Chinese counterpart, Liu Jinsong.

Few details have emerged, but a video clip circulating across Chinese social media Tuesday showed Mr. Masaaki apparently bowing toward Mr. Liu, who pointedly had his hands in his pockets.

Still, Beijing officialdom remains indignant.

“The current situation in China-Japan relations is rooted in the fact that Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi openly made wrong remarks related to Taiwan, grossly interfered in China’s internal affairs, seriously violated the one-China principle … and undermined the political foundation of China-Japan relations,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a briefing Tuesday, per state news agency Xinhua.

The crisis was triggered on Nov. 7 when Ms. Takaichi responded to a question in a parliamentary committee of the Diet.

“The so-called Taiwan contingency has become so serious that we have to anticipate a worst-case scenario,” she replied, adding that a conflict over Taiwan would be a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan.

Her wording indicated that Japan’s Self-Defense Forces could be activated for collective defense.

Japan’s southernmost island lies just 68 miles from Taiwan. Japan also hosts the largest overseas contingent of American GIs stationed overseas, notably on the southern island of Okinawa, a key staging point for a potential U.S. defense of Taiwan.

Her comments sparked multipronged fury from China’s communist government, which claims the democratically ruled island as a renegade province.

Beijing’s consul in Osaka, in a social media post, threatened to slice Ms. Takaichi’s throat. The foreign ministries of both nations summoned their counterpart ambassadors for dressing-downs.

On Sunday, four Chinese Coast Guard vessels cruised through Japanese waters off the uninhabited but disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands for around 90 minutes. Japan administers them; China claims them.

Beijing has warned tourists and students not to visit Japan, though reports on the number of trip cancellations are unconfirmed. Two Japanese films have reportedly had their China distribution frozen.

Japanese authorities have also warned nationals in China to take care. In 2024, there were two attacks on Japanese citizens in China, one resulting in the death of a 10-year-old schoolboy.

Bilateral relations are arguably at their lowest point since 2012. Similar dynamics are in play.

That year, political tensions over the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands spiraled. China protested against Japan and halted tours to the island nation. Multiple Japanese companies withdrew investments from China, while both countries’ coast guards faced off around the islands.

Tensions cooled, but regularly flare up.

Turmoil in China?

Ms. Takaichi, Japan’s first female prime minister, took power last month. A protégé of the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, she hit it off with one of his close associates, President Trump, during his visit to Japan in October.

She is considered a nationalistic security hard-liner, sympathetic toward Taiwan. The island is close to Japan emotively as well as geographically: It is Tokyo’s only former colony with fond memories of imperial rule.

Ms. Takaichi boasts wide ministerial experience in areas including Science and Technology, Youth Affairs and Gender Equality, and Economic Security. However, she lacks diplomatic chops: Her sole related experience was as minister for Okinawa and Northern Territories Affairs.

Mentioning Taiwan in the Diet was “undiplomatic and amateurish,” said Haruko Satoh, who teaches regional relations at the Osaka School of International Public Policy. “To say it as prime minister was sending the wrong signals to China.”

And though Abe said essentially the same as Ms. Takaichi, he did so only after leaving office in 2021, making her comments “unprecedented,” noted Shaun O’Dwyer, a political philosophy professor at Kyushu University.

Beijing’s acrimony may flag internal insecurities.

“How fragile is the Chinese Communist Party that it becomes so offended by a talking point in another capital about a conflict on its border?” asked Drew Thompson, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore — noting that any combat around Taiwan “would inevitably spill into Japanese air and sea space.”

“Beijing clearly has control over escalation dynamics,” added Mr. Thompson, a former director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia for the U.S. secretary of defense.

Beijing risks impacting its already battered regional reputation.

In 2017, it deployed economic coercion against South Korea after Seoul permitted a U.S. anti-missile system on its soil. In 2019, it did similar to Australia after Canberra demanded a probe of Beijing’s role in COVID.

“Using coercion against trade partners undermines Beijing’s narrative that it is a safe and reliable partner,” said Mr. Thompson. “It’s the same when China professes it is a source of peace and stability while its diplomats are threatening violence to heads of state: It’s disgusting, unacceptable and unbecoming.”

Beijing has been promoting nationalistic pride this year, the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in the Pacific, a conflict remembered in China and throughout the region for the widespread atrocities committed by Japan.

Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted a massive victory parade, with the leaders of Russia and North Korea attending. New films have appeared about the 1937 Nanjing Massacre and Japan’s biological warfare outfit, Unit 731.

“My take is — as in any country — when a government tries to whip up patriotic sentiment, they want to obfuscate,” said Ms. Satoh. “I think for China now, social and economic issues are real and worrying.”

It has struggled to recover economically from COVID and to manage a real estate crisis, while suffering brain drain. Beijing has also purged its military brass multiple times, citing corruption.

Meanwhile, Ms. Takaichi is seeing her popularity soar. A Sunday Kyodo poll found her Cabinet’s approval rate hit 69.9% — up 5.4% points from one month earlier.

Japanese citizens are retaliating against Chinese ire with asymmetric, millennial tactics.

“They have responded not with nationalist rhetoric but with memes that parody and ridicule those bellicose threats,” Mr. O’Dwyer said. “It takes a lot of sting out of threats of intimidation.”

A drop in Chinese tourists, who some Japanese consider intrusive, might even gratify Ms. Takaichi’s supporters.

“This may be welcomed in many corners of Japan suffering from overtourism,” said Mr. Thompson.