Japan said on Monday it had lodged a protest with China over what it called “highly inappropriate” and threatening remarks made by a Chinese diplomat aimed at Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.
The controversy erupted after China’s consul general in Osaka, Xue Jian, posted a comment on social media reacting to a statement Takaichi made in parliament on Friday. The prime minister had said that a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan could constitute an “existential threat to Japan,” potentially triggering a Japanese military response in self-defence.
Takaichi’s remarks followed her meeting with a Taiwanese representative at the APEC summit in South Korea earlier this month, a move that angered Beijing.
On Saturday, the Chinese diplomat shared an article from the Asahi newspaper about Takaichi’s comments and wrote above it: “If you stick that dirty neck out where it doesn’t belong, it will be cut off immediately. Are you ready?” The post was later deleted.
“Although the intent of the post was not entirely clear, it was highly inappropriate,” Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said on Monday. He confirmed that Japan’s foreign ministry and its embassy in China had lodged a strong protest with Beijing and demanded the post be removed.
‘Existential threat’
On Monday, Takaichi defended her original statements in parliament. “Although I raised several possible scenarios, I also said that the government would make a decision on whether the situation constitutes an existential threat to Japan, taking all information into account,” she said.
While she denied saying Japan would deploy its military in such a scenario, her acknowledgement that the situation could be classified as an “existential threat” goes further than previous governments in defining how Japan might respond to a conflict over Taiwan, Bloomberg reported.
Under Japan’s pacifist constitution, the use of its military is strictly limited. However, a 2015 law reinterpreted the constitution to allow for the use of military force for collective self-defence in limited cases, including a “situation that poses an existential threat to Japan.”
In another post, the Chinese diplomat said that considering a Taiwan-related emergency an existential threat to Japan was a “fatal path chosen by foolish politicians.”
US Ambassador to Japan, George Glass, shared the deleted post on X, formerly Twitter, saying that Xue had threatened Takaichi and the Japanese people. “The mask slips… again,” he wrote.
In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said on Sunday that Xue’s post was a response to Takaichi’s “erroneous and dangerous” remarks about Taiwan, and demanded that Tokyo “seriously reflect on its historical responsibilities,” Reuters reported.
When asked if Japan would expel the Chinese diplomat, Kihara said Xue had made “several inappropriate statements” and that Tokyo had made multiple requests to Beijing to take appropriate action.
