Would Japan defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack?

In a parliamentary debate in early June about Covid, Japan’s prime minister Yoshihide Suga said that Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan had been ‘imposing strong restrictions on privacy rights.’ Whether by mistake or on purpose, Suga had crossed the Rubicon of acceptable China-Japan diplomatic language by implying that Taiwan was a country. If it was a mistake, it was one he repeated several times.

China’s response was immediate. A foreign ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin, accused Suga of a flagrant breach of ‘the Sino-Japanese Joint Statement and its solemn and repeated commitment of not seeing Taiwan as a country.’ It is a precious tenet of China’s foreign policy – indeed it is written into their constitution – that Taiwan is only their province.

‘There is only one China in the world and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory,’ declared Wang Wenbin. He warned that ‘the Taiwan question bears on the political foundation of China-Japan relations, the basic trust and good faith between the two countries and the international rule of law and justice.’