By Andrew Martin

The recently elected prime minister of Japan, Sanae Takaichi, arrived in Australia this week; she is looking to strengthen military ties and will meet with her Australian counterpart, Anthony Albanese. Elected on a platform of increasing Japan’s assertiveness in the Asia-Pacific, she is promising to rejuvenate Japan’s military and resurrect its economic prosperity. She has pledged to defend Taiwan if China attempts to reclaim it.

In most geo-political analysis of the Asia-Pacific, the relationship of Taiwan and its historical ties to Japan is often overlooked. We are told that China is the biggest threat to our security. Japan is viewed through the prism of Western imperialist alliances as a “democratic” success, but rarely from the perspective of encircling and threatening China. What is too often forgotten is the legacy of Japan’s colonial conquest of China and other parts of Southeast Asia.

Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi secured a decisive victory in the snap election on 8 February, which she presents as justification for hardening Japan’s foreign policy. Her election is a foreboding sign in an ever-unstable world, because she seeks to revive elements of Japan’s militarist past. Prior to her election, she stated to parliament that if there was a confrontation over Taiwan involving “warships and the use of force, then that could constitute a situation threatening [Japan’s] survival, whichever way you look at it. The so-called Taiwan contingency has become so serious that we have to anticipate a worst-case scenario.”

She comes to Australia to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the signing of the Basic Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation between Australia and Japan. In 2007, PM John Howard furthered this alliance by signing the Australia-Japan Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation with Japanese PM Shinzo Abe which was renewed in 2022. Japan is Australia’s second largest trading partner and its largest supplier of coal and gas.

Japanese and Australian Aggression

Japan is the most likely antagonist to trigger a flashpoint that drags the region into war. According to the Tokyo based Genron NPO public opinion survey, 89% of Japanese respondents demonstrated hostile attitudes towards China. This has been politically cultivated. The survey has been conducted for twenty years. In 2005 only 38% of Japanese people responded with poor impressions of China.

The legacy of the Second Sino-Japanese War still shapes perceptions of China in Japan where conservative politicians have downplayed or contested atrocities like the Nanjing Massacre. This rewriting of history doesn’t just affect views of the past—it fosters an imperial resentment toward China. Visits by politicians to the Yasukuni Shrine—where convicted war criminals are enshrined rightly provoke Chinese condemnation, which Japanese media and politicians sometimes portray as interference or hostility.

The Japanese ruling class have achieved this using expanding military exercises that encircle eastern China, each framed as defence of its security interests. These are propaganda exercises used to soften the public up for war.

These exercises pose the risk of triggering open confrontation and are deliberately provocative. Earlier in April the Japanese warship JS Ikazuchi transited the strait of Taiwan on the anniversary of the day Japan ceded sovereignty of the island. The message couldn’t be clearer – a more militarist Japan seeks to revive its past glory of imperialist domination and maintain its hold on Taiwan.

Prior to the visit of Takaichi, Foreign Minister Penny Wong will visit Tokyo to meet her counterpart H.E. Motegi Toshimitsu to discuss energy security and “other issues of shared interest” regarding the “Indo-pacific”. She will also visit China to ensure that Australia’s trading relationship is preserved.

The Australian government may be seeking to balance its military alliances with its trading relationships, but it will have little influence in constraining Japan from reviving its imperial ambitions and neither does it have any intention of doing so. It is a willing accomplice in fostering tension between Japan and China, because it has signed new multi-billion-dollar military contracts for naval vessels. It will purchase eleven Mogami class frigates from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

According to the pro-war thinktank, ASPI, “Australia is well placed to become a key node in a regional Mogami supply chain”. Eight of the frigates are intended to be built in Australia.

Japan’s relationship with China has become increasingly hostile throughout the turn of the 21st century as it has gradually moved away from its post-war pacifism. Japan’s ongoing military expansion will give it the world’s third-largest defence budget by 2027.

The Remilitarisation of Japan

Japan has been slowly remilitarising for decades and has reinterpreted article 9 of its constitution which renounces war. Article 9 was considered the pride of Japan by the liberal sections of its ruling class. The clause formally renounced war as a sovereign right and rejected the use of force to settle international disputes. It states that Japan will not maintain “land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential,” and that the state does not recognise the right of belligerency. After the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the pacifist constitution was accepted as part of the post-war geo-political architecture.

It enabled Japan to re-industrialise rapidly without extensive military expenditure. In 2014, Shinzo Abe moved the country towards a doctrine of “collective self-defence” which allows it to fight alongside its allies even if it is not directly attacked. Additionally, although historically taboo in Japan, it has recently acquired long range cruise missiles.

These are ostensibly land-to-ship missiles produced by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (the manufacturer of the WWII zero fighter planes). However, with a range of over 1000km, they could easily reach mainland China. Japan also plans to deploy U.S-made 1600 km Tomahawk missiles on its naval destroyers.

Prime Minister Takaichi’s cabinet approved a record defence budget in December, surpassing 9 trillion yen (about US $58 billion) for the fiscal year starting in April; focused on strengthening Japan’s retaliatory strike capabilities and bolstering coastal defences through the deployment of cruise missiles and unmanned weapons systems.

Integration with the U.S

Japan is a central pillar of U.S military alliances, with the U.S holding major bases in Japan such as Okinawa. Japan is integrated into U.S command, logistics and missile systems and participates in its war games, (such as Talisman Sabre in Australia). It is indispensable to any US strategy to contain China.

There are fifteen major U.S bases in Japan out of a total of 120 military installations and the United States Forces Japan (USFJ) commands 55 000 troops. In 2024 the US and Japan announced they would be modernising the command into a joint-force headquarters directly integrating the Japanese military into US operations. There are few countries so closely integrated with the U.S command systems as Japan.

Taiwan Flashpoint

Japan has explicitly linked its security to Taiwan’s fate. Japan is one of Taiwan’s most valuable partners, particularly as it lacks formal diplomatic ties with most of the world. Japan ruled over Taiwan (formerly known as Formosa) from 1895 to 1945. Sections of Taiwan’s ruling class feel nostalgia for Japanese rule which, through the Meiji era, modernised the island.

When Japanese troops originally occupied the capital city of Taipei, they were welcomed by local business leaders to subdue rioting troops who had not been paid. Popular resistance to Japanese occupation grew into an insurgency and guerilla warfare. Japan faced a guerilla war for the next seven years before consolidating its control over the island. But even though the Japanese were ousted in 1945, Taiwan can never be said to have been liberated. Its ruling class has fostered cultural divisions between people of the mainland and Taiwan, despite Taiwanese people being ethnically Chinese.

The notion that Taiwan’s “self-determination” must be defended is an extremely faulty proposition. After Japanese rule came the rule of Chiang Kai-shek, military commander of the Kuomintang (KMT) who had eliminated its own left wing. During the late 1920s the KMT had wiped out over 100 000 communists and suspected sympathisers.

After losing the Chinese civil war, the KMT retreated to Taiwan in 1949 and imposed decades of martial law. During what was known as the White Terror, political dissent was crushed and thousands were imprisoned or executed.

The KMT regime inherited and reused Japanese colonial administrative systems—centralised governance, policing, and economic control. Many of its elites were educated in Japan and to this day have an affinity with its culture. It became a strong part of the anti-communist bloc aligned with the U.S and its postwar economic development became deeply linked to Japan.

Current Flashpoints

Japanese firms invested heavily in Taiwan’s industrialisation, building on links that were formed during the colonial period. Taiwan is thus both an economic outpost of Japan and an integral part of U.S attempts at the containment of China.

Taiwan’s TSMC silicon chip manufacturer is establishing chip making in Japan, the U.S and Germany. It is manufacturing the most desirable commodities in the world; the silicon chip is the unparallelled peak of the value chain with R&D costs in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Fuelled by AI development, TSMC’s revenue is $36 billion with a net profit of over $17 billion representing a 50% year-over-year growth. Control of this resource ensures the imperial core has an edge in technological development. Controlling Taiwan, which sits only 130km from the mainland ensures China is encircled by the imperialist powers.

Japan could also trigger other flashpoints. The Diaoyu Islands (known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan and Tiaoyutai in Taiwan) are a group of islets in the East China Sea that Japan claims are uninhabited, located about 170 km northeast of Taiwan. Japan administers the islands, but China and Taiwan both claim sovereignty, leading to frequent naval standoffs.

The issue of sovereignty has remained unresolved since the first Sino-Japanese war. Tensions escalated following the 1968 identification of possible hydrocarbon reserves which Japan laid claim to in 2012 and have continuously conducted maritime patrols of the islands.

When Japan was forced to leave Taiwan, it did not specify who would rule and the PRC has never been able to govern Taiwan. This has allowed imperialism to foster a Taiwanese “identity” that is based on the political exigencies of empire, rather than a distinct ethnicity or culture.

The brutality of KMT rule dilutes the historical memory of the crimes of Japanese colonialism. Taiwan’s pro-imperialist politicians of the last two decades have sought to strengthen ties with Japan seeking to emulate its work ethic and westernised culture and reframe Japanese rule as a positive legacy.

History is full of ironies. In modern Taiwan, the KMT is seen as the “pro-unification/pro-China” party, while the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is pushing the idea of a distinct Taiwanese identity. The KMT suppressed local languages and formation of Taiwanese national identity to strengthen their claims over the mainland. This gave political space for a political opposition to arise that called for “self-determination” and localisation. Hence the party that once enforced a Chinese identity over the island has created the conditions for its erosion.

Japan has fully taken advantage of this conjuncture and has positioned itself as a benefactor of Taiwan. Its colonial past is being whitewashed and is economically integrated with the province.

The Freedom of Navigation exercises led by the U.S with the participation of its allies including Australia, South Korea and Japan through the waters surrounding Taiwan pose a direct threat to China. The instability of the Trump regime sharpens the political tensions of the region but ironically may also have bought China more time to defend itself.

No U.S administration will allow China to succeed, because it threatens the power of its empire. It is also ideologically hostile to China because it dares to construct socialism. The U.S ruling class once thought by allowing China into the WTO, the contradictions of a market economy would politically fracture China. Now it is assessing more violent options.

Military aggression is generally the last resort of dying empires. China has been able to establish itself as a reliable partner for development and peace. While the world is entering a new cold war, China has many advantages and will survive if it can play the long game and manage to break its relative isolation.