Is Japan abandoning pacifism? Spat with China spotlights clash in regional security perspectives

With Beijing growing more assertive as it seeks to reshape the regional order, Tokyo is pushing back

- Lim Min Zhang China Correspondent Walter Sim Japan Correspondent

Nearly a month after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's remarks over Taiwan drew Beijing's fury, a steady drumbeat of propaganda continues to be published in China almost every day.

Opinion articles on official media have sounded the alarm that Japan is back on a path towards militarism, raising the spectre of an aggressive power rearming itself, akin to a repeat of World War II when Imperial Japan invaded China and Southeast Asia.

A recent editorial in the People's Daily, the Communist Party of China's official newspaper, said: "Militarism is resurfacing in Japan, and the very foundation upon which Japan has stood since the war – pacifism – is being shaken."

Such rhetoric has come on top of actions taken by Beijing – from diplomatic demarches and tourism boycotts to abruptly cancelled concerts and a continued ban on imports of Japanese seafood – in response to Ms Takaichi's Nov 7 response to an opposition lawmaker's questions in Parliament.

She had said that an attack on Taiwan by China that involves a naval blockade would constitute a "survival-threatening situation", implying that Japan could get involved militarily, in Taiwan's defence.

Clearly, China sees Ms Takaichi's comments as touching on its red line of Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing sees as a part of its territory to be reunified, by force if necessary – an issue it considers as internal, in which no other country should interfere.

China wants Japan to retract those remarks if the battered bilateral ties are to be mended – something Japan is firm about not doing because it sees them as a reiteration of its position on Taiwan, that it supports the peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue through dialogue, rather than bloodshed or use of force.