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Takaichi's "hawkish" approach to China

Submitted by soryang on Sun, 11/16/2025 - 8:42pm

This is a major story in East Asia.

This picture in Simone's article shown in the X post depicts the March 1, 1919 popular uprising in South Korea against Japanese colonial rule. Simone distinguishes Korean popular views concerning China and the Taiwan issue from those of Japan's far right prime minister Takaichi.

It's not just the Pentagon's dream

There is in Taiwan a legacy Japanese collaborator class descended from the colonial period. Taiwan's DPP represents these interests, although here that party is commonly thought of as the pro-American party as well, it's social roots lay in the Japanese colonial period. Ironically, the KMT by and large represents the pro-mainlander constituency. The US didn't have to say anything to get Takaichi to commit these recent diplomatic blunders. She is extreme right wing. This has always been her natural inclination. She wants to get rid of Japan's article 9 constitutional restrictions on offensive warfare. She is a Japanese war crime denialist. She is an ideologue who lives in a past world that no longer exists. Gone with the wind as the US expression goes.

Prime Minister Takaichi has already set up a committee to draft an amendment to gut what's left of Article 9. This is nothing new or out of character for her. The US administration has unwisely been encouraging this. It is extremely destabilizing. Most people don't understand that Japan has revanchist goals, held among the LDP right wing elites and other right wing extremists. The right wing in Japan thinks of Taiwan as historically part of a greater Japan and dreams of old imperial glory when Japan was a "normal nation."

The Indo-Pacific policy was generated by Abe, Takaichi's mentor. Abe the grandson of war criminal Nobusuke Kishi. Among his ilk in the LDP, Taro Aso, another right wing LDP heir from WWII era war criminal elites who think fondly of the former WWII fascist alliance, and believe that Japan is superior racially to its neighbors. These same people are convinced that China wouldn't be what it is today without having had the benefits of Japanese tutelage. I just read a history book touted by CSIS, China and Japan, Facing History, by Ezra Vogel, that promotes the latter view of modern China as the product of Japan's influence. Japanese like Takaichi also attribute South Korea's success to itself as well and regard it as an ungrateful upstart. Japan has not only the security interest that they wish to retain in Taiwan, but they also maintain a desire to use Taiwan for their own purposes. Taiwanese who collaborated with Japan against the Chinese mainland and other Asian states during the horrors of its military campaigns in the Great Pacific War are also commemorated at the Yasukuni Shrine, which Takaichi has visited regularly.

Here's an interesting excerpt from Asia Pacific Journal Japan Focus:

Some of the emperor’s more candid remarks are cited by Tajima in 昭和天皇拝謁記 (The Showa Emperor’s Private Journal). Some surprised even me. Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, enacted in 1947, renounced war and prohibited the maintenance of military forces. The emperor never publicly expressed his views on this in official settings. However, these memoirs revealed for the first time that he frequently voiced dissatisfaction with the provisions of Article 9 to aides like Tajima and repeatedly advocated for the necessity of rearmament through constitutional revision.

According to Tajima’s account, the emperor was not necessarily positive about postwar democracy and lamented that students participating in political movements was a “troublesome matter”. Analysis of handwritten drafts of waka poems believed to have been written by the emperor shortly before his death reveals for the first time that he sympathized with former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi. Kishi had faced strong student opposition while attempting to advance the revision of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty and resigned after the Diet ratified the treaty.

“The Showa Emperor repeatedly advocated for the necessity of rearmament”: Interview with Ryuichi Kitano by David McNeill

东宫插曲爱殇 The Song of Love and Sorrow from the Eastern Palace

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Japan
Takaichi
China
taiwan
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Submitted by humphrey on Mon, 11/17/2025 - 12:07am

The rest of the tweet:

Many westerners, despite the prevalence of weebs, do not understand Japanese politics. Ever since the rise of populism in recent years, the internal struggle between the professional bureaucrats and populist big mouths like Takaichi within the ruling LDP has been boiling over.

What Takaichi said about Taiwan doesn't even have broad support among her cabinet members, let alone coalition partner parties. So it's the entire political machinery of Japan is doing damage control for her big mouth.

She's extremely amateurish, as seen by how she acts like a little girl when meeting other world leaders at the recent APEC summit. This diplomatic crisis turning into a geopolitical blunder is evident of that amateurish nature.

The rest of the tweet:

The PLA’s message is simple:
Taiwan is China’s internal affair.
Foreign interference won’t be debated,
only answered.

Japan played with words.
China switched the domain from rhetoric to rules of engagement.

Beijing is drawing the real border now: the line between diplomacy and war.
And once the military draws that line, politicians don’t get to walk it back.

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Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Mon, 11/17/2025 - 7:31am
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... talking about World War II. He said."While Europe was fighting Fascism in the West, China was fighting Fascism in the East. Japanese fascism. A persistent and vile characteristic that periodically erupts in the Japanese psyche, fouling the lives of its neighbors down the centuries.

I am very enamored with the exquisite sensibility of the Japanese culture. I've occasionally lived in Japanese communities, and they have influenced and refined my aesthetic. But even Japanese literature suggests that there is something dark and twisted that can rise up in the Japanese soul.

#

A new contribution to the effort to explain the Tao and Chinese philosophy:

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Submitted by soryang on Mon, 11/17/2025 - 9:36am
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@Pluto's Republic

I watched it a few days ago and really enjoyed it. One side point that I found amusing was that the professor on his channel apparently has some videos promoting The Villages, an over 55 community in central Florida which is something of a haven I guess for retirees. I didn't expect a serious scholar of Eastern Culture to live in such a venue. It's Americana at its best.

I appreciate the professor's effort on the far east. Thanx for posting!

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語必忠信 行必正直

Submitted by soryang on Mon, 11/17/2025 - 8:24am
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Thanks for those posts Humphrey!

From what I've seen, Taiwan Plus (English language broadcast) is a DPP mouthpiece. Lae Ching-te, the ROC "President," adds fuel to the fire. Chinese live fire exercise in the Yellow Sea, seems fairly removed from the point of contention.

Panel discussion on CGTN's The Point below. I've cued to the point where Warwick Powell, gets warmed up and does the best analysis after some meandering in the early part of the discussion.

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語必忠信 行必正直

Submitted by QMS on Mon, 11/17/2025 - 8:48am
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.
But the idea of altering the constitution to push for
more militarization does not bode well for the Japanese
people, so much as kow-towwing to US empire desires.
Do not think this will pan out well for the region.

Thanks for the point!

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Zionism is a social disease

Submitted by usefewersyllables on Mon, 11/17/2025 - 9:49am
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it will pan out well for the species, at least to my way of thinking.

Trump will have his wartime-president gig, with brand-new wars of his choosing. The only questions are "which war comes first?", and "which will be the last?". No smiley.

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Twice bitten, permanently shy.