The Politics of the Japan-China Spat and the Taiwan Contingency

On 7th November, during questions in Japan's Diet, Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae, potentially accidentally, broke a Japanese political norm by providing a concrete example of a situation that met the required threshold for JSDF deployment: a military blockade involving battleships around Taiwan. China's diplomatic response was swift, it furiously demanded a retraction and apology; and although insisting that she remains adherent to the established "strategically ambiguous" norms of previous Japanese governments, Takaichi has refused to do either. The concerts of Japanese artists in China have been cancelled, bans on Japanese seafood have been re-established, and kinetic military activity in the East China Sea has escalated. The Japan-China relationship is the worse it has been for more than a decade. However, is any of this indicative of change, or is it just the latest bout in a long-running shadow boxing match between regional rivals over one of the most sensitive security issues in the region, if not the world: the Taiwan contingency. Join us as we decode the diplomatic spat between China and Japan and reflect upon the broader politics surrounding the Taiwan contingency and what it means for security in the Indo-Pacific.