Takaichi's China Test

Above is Sanae Takaichi when she was running for LDP president in 2021, holding forth at a rally of Tibetan, Uighur, Hong Kong and Taiwan independence activists inside LDP headquarters. Credit to Michael Cucek, Temple University, Japan

Japan Faces China’s Wolf Warriors

By Takuya Nishimura

Senior Fellow, Asia Policy Point

Former editorial writer for the Hokkaido Shimbun

You can find his blog, J Update here

November 25, 2025

A careless reference to a “Taiwan contingency” by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi drew a vocal official retort from China. As Beijing plays its “wolf warrior diplomacy” gambit against Japan, Tokyo has not responded with any effective countermeasures. Japanese foreign policy officials predict that the bilateral disputes will not be settled any time soon and that the negative consequences to Japan of such a failure are growing. It may also be true that China is using Takaichi’s comment as an excuse to broadcast its longstanding views on the place of Taiwan in China’s sphere of influence.

On November 7 at the Diet discussion, Takaichi said that a Chinese blockade around Taiwan deploying warships with the use of force would constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan. In such a condition, Japan could invoke its right to collective self-defense to justify activating its self-defense forces with a country with a close relationship with Japan. The “country” in this context is presumably the United States – although U.S. President Donald Trump has yet to demonstrate the closeness of this relationship.

 Before delivering her comment, Takaichi had had a middle-of-the-night (or early morning) meeting at 3 a.m. to discuss a possible “Taiwan contingency” with her staff. Although Takaichi told her staff after the Diet discussion that she might have gone too far, it is likely that her comment on Taiwan was what she meant as she had consulted with her diplomatic advisers. She has refused to retract her words.

China sees Taiwan as one of its core interests. As a result, Beijing would and did respond aggressively to Takaichi. Whether her remark was merely careless or whether it was an affirmative line in the sand mattered not to China. The Chinese Consul General to Osaka, Xue Jian, posted on social media a comment suggesting the beheading of the “filthy heard” of the Japanese leader. Beijing also issued recommendations to its citizens, including college students, not to travel to Japan. China demanded that the Takaichi administration retract the statement.

Moreover, China decided to treat Takaichi’s comment as a form of military intimidation. The People’s Liberation Army Daily regarded Takaichi’s observation as interference in China’s internal affairs and an infringement on China’s sovereignty. “Any external interference forces will be crushed to ashes,” the paper announced. Four China Coast Guard vessels entered territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands on November 16.

China continues to apply diplomatic pressure on Japan. China’s permanent representative to the UN, Fu Cong, sent a letter to UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, on November 21, stating that Japan had issued a threat of force against China for the first time. China froze again its imports of Japanese seafood by imposing stricter inspections of Japanese cargo. Until this decision, Japan had since May been able to export goods to China with few restrictions.

Other ostensibly private sector actions followed. Some Chinese airlines stopped flights to Japan. Chinese travel agencies cancelled reservations to hotels in Japan. These measures have begun to have an impact on the Japanese economy. The worst decision for Japan was China’s embargo of exports of rare earth minerals an action that Japan had experienced in 2010. Rare earth minerals are crucial for the production of cars and smart phones.

These measures represent China’s confrontational policy in foreign relations, which is called “wolf warrior diplomacy,” named after a 2015 Chinese film. Changing from traditional diplomacy avoiding controversy, China actively seeks its utmost interest by aggressively taking advantage of any diplomatic resources including economic sanctions or military pressure.

Japan’s position has been that Takaichi’s comment did not cross the line that her predecessors had drawn. The Prime Minister tried to explain this view by sending the Director General of Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau in Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Masaaki Kanai, to Beijing on November 18. China had none of it.

After Kanai’s meeting, Chinese media broadcast a scene with the the Foreign Ministry’s Director General Liu Jinsong looking down contemptuously on Kanai. Liu had his hands in his trousers’ pockets while Kanai looked to be bowing to Liu. Kanai was obviously not ready for the press.

Although hawkish groups in Japan have called on the government to declare the Consul General to Osaka a persona non grata and send him home, the previous four examples of Japan’s expulsion of foreign diplomats are based on crimes or a highly serious deterioration in bilateral relations. It is questionable whether the expulsion can be applied to the posting on SNS of a Chinese diplomat who is critical of the Japanese government.

The Takaichi administration has miscalculated in its diplomatic relations with China. She mostly had no idea that her comment would cause China to respond so stridently. “I’m not going to discuss a specific issue in this venue anymore,” Takaichi said before the budget committee of the Lower House. But a prime minister cannot be responsible for Japan’s sovereign people without discussing specific issues in the Diet.

Takaichi made her comment on Taiwan just a week after her meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea. She and her staff did not recognize the significance of China’s decision to meet with the new hawkish leader of Japan despite concerns of the Chinese (as well as other nations) about her visits to the Yasukuni Shrine and comments supporting revisionist history. Tokyo was not considerate and Takaichi’s surprise statement caused Xi to lose face with the Chinese public.

The first response of Trump to the contretemps was not to Takaichi’s advantage. When asked about it in an interview with Fox News on November 11, Trump observed that “a lot of our allies are not friends either.” Adding, he said “Our allies took advantage of our trade more than China did.” Japan had little advance knowledge of this change of U.S. policy from the Biden administration toward its allies or China. Trump takes a softer approach to China while eschewing close relationships with traditional allies.

A second and possibly more troubling event was Xi’s call to Trump in the morning of Monday, November 24. Xi’s purpose was to discuss Taiwan, specifically that Taiwan’s return to China is central to the post-World War II international order. At least one U.S. press report has linked Xi’s call to Takaichi’s statement, but there appear to be no reports that Xi mentioned Japan or Takaichi by name. It may be fair to say that China’s disproportionate response to Takaichi reflects a felt need that existed well before she came on the scene to promote its influence over Taiwan.

Trump called Takaichi that evening. Although she did not reveal the substances of their conversation about the Japan-China row over Taiwan, Takaichi told the press that she was briefed on the Trump-Xi call and Trump said she should call him whenever she wanted. The time lag between Trumps calls with China and Japan, however, appears to undermine her efforts to shape a “diplomacy that flourishes on the world’s center stage.”

Takaichi, as the first female premier of Japan, hopes to be the Margaret Thatcher of Japan. The conservative “Iron Lady” was a hardliner against the Soviet Union. But Japanese observers expect that Takaichi will more likely follow one of two recent and different models: Liz Truss of the UK or Giorgia Meloni of Italy. Truss’s tenure was brief: she stepped down shortly after her installation when the markets looked unfavorably on her tax cut policy that lacked reliable, alternative fiscal resources. Meloni has been more successful. She has adjusted her conservative agenda to account for the realities of domestic and international politics.

Thus far, Takaichi has been able to keep her relationship with U.S. President Trump on an even keel. Maintaining a dialogue with China is more difficult. Her active spending for an economic stimulus has met with skepticism from the market, which now shows a triple low of stocks, bonds, and the Japanese yen a reminder for Japan about the U.K.’s Truss Shock in 2022.

It is true that Takaichi has high approval rate in current polls, despite concerns on relations with China stemming from her own speech. However, the honeymoon period for theTakaichi administration is getting close to an end. If China’s measures start impacting Japan’s economy or security, the one-month-old Takaichi administration may similarly find itself in a Truss situation with questions about its survival.