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(Bloomberg) — Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is facing her first major diplomatic test less than a month into office, after angering China with remarks about Tokyo\u2019s position on the red line issue of Taiwan.<\/p>\n
Takaichi this month became the first sitting Japanese leader in decades to publicly link a Taiwan Strait crisis with the possible deployment of Japanese troops, prompting Beijing to unleash a flurry of economic reprisals and threats of more retribution.<\/p>\n
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China\u2019s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning at a briefing on Monday re-upped a demand for Takaichi to retract her comments about the self-ruled island Beijing considers its territory. Making clear the terms for deescalation, she called on Japan to: \u201cStop crossing the line and playing with fire, retract the wrongful remarks and deeds and honor its commitments to China with real action.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sanae Takaichi Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota\/Bloomberg <\/p>\n
So far, Takaichi has refused to recant. Elected by her party as a nationalist who\u2019d show strong leadership, Takaichi would face significant political blowback if she bowed to Beijing. That\u2019s creating a standoff between Japan and its largest trading partner with little off-ramp in sight, as Chinese state media implies Beijing could impose sanctions and cut diplomatic, economic and military communication channels if things spiral.<\/p>\n
Kunihiko Miyake, a former Japanese diplomat based in China, said he didn\u2019t expect Takaichi to back down and didn\u2019t think she had to. \u201cIf China is pressuring us to weaken Takaichi it\u2019ll probably have the opposite effect,\u201d he said, noting her high approval ratings, which have reached over 80%. \u201cThey are fueling her engine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Takaichi may have made a strategic error, he added, but history has shown that when Japan and China spar over sensitive issues an agreement typically comes after a months-long diplomatic freeze.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough China\u2019s reaction has been very strong so far, it\u2019s very calculated,\u201d said Rui Aoyama, a professor of Japan-China relations at Waseda University in Tokyo. \u201cChina is aiming to deal a blow to Japan\u2019s economy, but I don\u2019t think there\u2019s an intention to cut ties.\u201d<\/p>\n
The danger for Takaichi is if China turns the screw on Japan\u2019s economy and businesses more than expected. Beijing\u2019s supply of critical minerals that Tokyo\u2019s auto industry relies upon is among its clearer chokeholds. Further weaponization of rare earths might complicate matters by attracting the attention of US President Donald Trump, who claimed his trade truce with China had \u201csettled\u201d the issue over rare earths \u201cfor the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
That pledge came on the same trip the Republican leader told Takaichi: \u201cAnything you want, any favors you need, anything I can do to help Japan, we will be there.\u201d<\/p>\n
WATCH: China warned students planning to study in Japan of heightened risks for Chinese citizens in the country as a diplomatic spat sparked by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi\u2019s comments on Taiwan showed no signs of easing.Source: Bloomberg <\/p>\n
While China\u2019s ties with Japan have been rocky for decades over disputes spanning Tokyo\u2019s invasion of its neighbor in the 1930s to competing territorial claims, in recent months relations had stabilized. The forthright views of Takaichi, who visited Taiwan\u2019s President Lai Ching-te in April months before she took office, could now undermine that progress. <\/p>\n
As crisis mode kicked in, Tokyo on Monday dispatched a top diplomat to Beijing to try to calm ties. China\u2019s Foreign Ministry said it had no information on that visit, and told reporters Premier Li Qiang had no plans to meet with the Japanese leader this weekend at the G-20 leaders\u2019 summit in South Africa. <\/p>\n
Without a resolution, Beijing will likely ramp up pressure. China in recent days has urged its citizens \u2014 who make up about a quarter of all visitors to Japan \u2014 to avoid its Asian neighbor citing safety risks. Tour operators so far haven\u2019t seen any significant flight or hotel cancellations, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. <\/p>\n
For Beijing, Takaichi\u2019s remarks were not a blunder as some have suggested, but in keeping with her right-wing stance, two researchers at a top government think tank in Beijing wrote on Sunday in state media. They called her \u201ca spokesperson for Japan\u2019s new militarism,\u201d citing Takaichi\u2019s frequent visits before taking office to the Yasukuni shrine honoring Japan\u2019s war dead, and a plan to boost defense spending.<\/p>\n
All previous Japanese leaders have deflected on the question of what would be a \u201csurvival threatening situation\u201d to Japan, maintaining strategic ambiguity and saying they would make a decision based on the circumstances at the time. Takaichi\u2019s response marked a departure from that stance.<\/p>\n
\u201cTakaichi has contradicted long years of wise and careful views by giving a direct answer,\u201d said Kazuhiko Togo, visiting professor at the University of Shizuoka in Japan. \u201cFormer Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was Takaichi\u2019s mentor, would not have done this. Someone needs to tell her that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Henry Wang Huiyao, founder of the Center for China and Globalization research group in Beijing, said the Japanese government should take more action to walk-back her remarks. He added that when former US President Joe Biden strayed from strategic ambiguity and said his country would defend Taiwan, US officials would quickly clarify there was no change in position.<\/p>\n
The last time China\u2019s ties with its neighbor spiraled to this extent was in 2012, after Tokyo decided to nationalize contested islands known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China \u2014 an uninhabited but possibly resource-rich area in the East China Sea. Back then, bellicose rhetoric in China\u2019s state media helped fuel anti-Japanese protests in more than a dozen cities. <\/p>\n
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This time around, Xi Jinping is likely to be more cautious about stoking nationalism. A spate of violence against Japanese citizens in China, including the stabbing to death of a schoolboy last year, has shown the dangers to provoking such anger, meanwhile Beijing is generally wary of public demonstrations of any kind, especially amid growing malaise over the slowing economy.<\/p>\n
The Japanese embassy in Beijing has urged citizens to take precautions amid rising tensions between Japan and China, according to a notice issued on its website on Monday evening.<\/p>\n
While the 2012 stand off produced a months-long boycott of Japanese products, the impact was contained. Japan took a roughly 10% hit to exports \u2014 a dent Takaichi might gamble she can ride out, given wider global volatility over trade flows.<\/p>\n
Japan\u2019s carmakers \u2014 among the companies impacted last time around \u2014 have reduced their reliance on the Chinese market from a decade ago, but the importance of China\u2019s supplies of rare earths and semiconductors has risen, according to Tatsuo Yoshida, senior analyst for autos at Bloomberg Intelligence.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf a rare-earths embargo is exercised, it will disrupt auto production, particularly rare-earth rich products like electrified vehicles,\u201d Yoshida said. \u201cBut I think there will be a time-lag as suppliers, automakers and trading companies must have built up inventories as a contingency plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, the longer the dispute continues the more it is likely to weigh on Japan\u2019s economy, running counter to Takaichi\u2019s goal of producing stronger growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cStill, I don\u2019t expect this to escalate to an extent we saw in 2012,\u201d said Atsushi Takeda, chief economist at Itochu Research Institute. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s in China\u2019s interests to get into a deep spat with Japan while it is also confronting the US.\u201d<\/p>\n
–With assistance from Sakura Murakami, Lucille Liu and Toru Fujioka.<\/p>\n
(Updates with analyst voice.)<\/p>\n
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\u00a92025 Bloomberg L.P.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Bloomberg) — Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is facing her first major diplomatic test less than a month…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":386815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[9710,3638,74,170,54824,50,146010,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-386814","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-beijing","9":"tag-bloomberg","10":"tag-china","11":"tag-japan","12":"tag-japanese-prime-minister","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-sanae-takaichi","15":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115568939062622301","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}