China’s Foreign Ministry indicated this Friday morning that it had summoned the Japanese ambassador following recent remarks by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi regarding Taiwan, an island claimed by Beijing. This is the latest episode surrounding a dispute that has soured bilateral relations in recent days.
Sanae Takaichi, a long-time and staunch China critic, told Parliament last week that an armed attack on Taiwan could justify sending Japanese troops to defend the island, under “collective self-defense” provided for by a law adopted in 2015.
If the emergency situation in Taiwan involves “the deployment of warships and the use of force, this could pose a threat to Japan’s survival, no matter how you look at it,” said Japan’s deeply conservative prime minister, who came to power on October 21.
China considers Taiwan to be one of its provinces that has not been successfully united with the rest of its territory since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. Beijing has not ruled out the possibility of using force to control the island.
“Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong summoned Japanese Ambassador to China Kenji Kanasugi on Thursday to strongly protest Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s wrong comments and actions regarding China,” the Chinese ministry said in a statement on Friday.
Responding to Sanae Takaichi’s comments, China’s consul general in Osaka, Xue Jian, threatened on Saturday on platform X to “cut off these dirty heads without the slightest hesitation”, without saying who exactly he was targeting. He did not name the Japanese Prime Minister, but cited press articles reporting his remarks. The message published by the Chinese diplomat was “highly inappropriate”, said Minoru Kihara, a Japanese government spokesman.
