In the fragile mosaic of international diplomacy, few matters are as perilous to disturb as the Taiwan question. Recent erroneous and insensitive remarks by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, suggesting that any Chinese military action around its Taiwan island could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, amount to far more than a grave diplomatic misstep. They reflect a profound misreading of history, a violation of the solemn principles that have sustained peace in East Asia for half a century, and a deeply flawed chain of logic that collapses under scrutiny, especially considering that “survival-threatening situation” is a legal term that allows Japan’s premiers to deploy the country’s Self-Defense Forces.

At the heart of this controversy lies a tragic irony: The Taiwan question partly exists because of Japan’s own imperial aggression. Prior to the late 19th century, Taiwan was  part of China’s coastal administration, governed for centuries under Fujian province as part of Quanzhou prefecture. This continuity was violently ruptured by the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) — an unjust war of colonial expansion waged by a rising Meiji Japan against a weakened Qing Empire. The resulting Treaty of Shimonoseki forced China to cede Taiwan and the Penghu Islands to Japan.

This was no peaceful transfer but an immoral act of colonial coercion that tore the island from its motherland by force of arms and subjected it to 50 years of foreign rule. Thus, the current division across the Taiwan Strait is not an accident of modern geopolitics but partly a direct legacy of Japanese invasion.

Against this background, Takaichi’s assertion that events around Taiwan could “threaten” Japan’s own survival is not merely misguided — it is logically incoherent. Her reasoning commits multiple fallacies of logic.

First, a false cause fallacy: She implies that Taiwan’s fate automatically determines Japan’s security, though no necessary causal link exists between the two.

Second, a non sequitur: The premise that instability near Japan equates to an existential threat does not follow from the facts.

Finally, a false equivalence — in equating Japan’s self-defense with intervention in China’s internal affairs.

The reunification of Taiwan with the Chinese mainland has no factual bearing on Japan’s territorial integrity, economic survival, or constitutional sovereignty. To claim otherwise is to build foreign policy on illusion — and to invite unnecessary peril.

Takaichi’s line of argument is not only illogical but historically tone-deaf. Japan — the very nation that once severed Taiwan from its motherland through invasion — now presumes to play the moral guardian of its separation? Such rhetoric collapses under the weight of history’s irony. The notion of a “survival-threatening situation” that Japan peddles today is, in truth, a belated echo of the “existence-threatening” war it once imposed on China.

Even more troubling, the prime minister’s remarks violate the diplomatic foundation of postwar East Asia. The 1972 China-Japan Joint Statement— the cornerstone of normalized relations — declares unequivocally that “the government of the People’s Republic of China reiterates that Taiwan is an inalienable part of the territory of the People’s Republic of China. The government of Japan fully understands and respects this position of the government of the People’s Republic of China, and it firmly maintains its position under Article 8 of the Potsdam Proclamation”. To reinterpret this settled understanding as a license for potential military action is to tear at the very fabric of Japan’s postwar peace policy and to undermine the credibility of its pacifist constitution.

Asia’s future stability depends not on how loudly Japan speaks, but on how wisely it remembers history

After Japan’s defeat in World War II — exactly 80 years ago — the island of Taiwan was lawfully returned to China, in accordance with the Cairo Declaration (1943), the Potsdam Proclamation (1945), and Japan’s Instrument of Surrender (1945), all of which explicitly required Japan to relinquish territories seized by force, including Taiwan and the Penghu Islands. The island’s present separation from the mainland is not the result of any international legal act but of the unfinished Chinese Civil War (1945–49) — a domestic conflict. Its continued abnormal division endures largely because of postwar foreign interference in China’s internal affairs, not because of any legitimate or lasting international dispute.

History also offers humbling parallels. During the American Civil War, when 11 states attempted secession under the Confederate banner — claiming the same “right to self-determination” that separatists now invoke — France’s Emperor Napoleon III, though sympathetic to the Confederacy, never publicly issued inflammatory statements supporting their cause. Neither France nor any responsible government dared to encourage civil fragmentation in another sovereign nation. That Japan’s prime minister now does what even imperial Europe refrained from — publicly rationalizing separatism within China — is ludicrous and diplomatically reckless.

Japan’s path forward cannot lie in resurrecting the language of past militarism or dressing strategic anxiety as moral principle. True statesmanship demands historical humility and a disciplined logic rooted in fact, not fear. The moral responsibility of a nation that once invaded and occupied Taiwan is to promote dialogue, reconciliation, and peace, not to indulge in speculative “threats” that reopen old wounds.

For Japan to cast itself as the armed defender of an abnormal status quo its own imperialism helped to create is the height of irony. The ghosts of Shimonoseki still linger, warning that the line between “protection” and “possession” is perilously thin. The responsible and logical course — the only course consistent with Japan’s pacifist pledge and historical accountability — is to lay those ghosts to rest through measured diplomacy, not to awaken them through bellicose rhetoric.

Asia’s future stability depends not on how loudly Japan speaks, but on how wisely it remembers history.

The author is an economics and politics analyst, an award-winning columnist of the Philippine Star and Abante, and moderator of the Pandesal Forum.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.