Strategic Reckoning: Japan redefines Taiwan security

TAIPEI: A single word can crack the facade of a great power’s confidence.

That is what happened when Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi of Japan told lawmakers in Tokyo that a Chinese attack or blockade of Taiwan would constitute a threat to Japan’s “survival,” a legal threshold that would permit Japan to deploy its military overseas. She merely said aloud what has long been understood — that any crisis involving Taiwan would threaten Japan’s national security — but her comment was among the clearest public signals yet that Tokyo could help defend Taiwan from potential Chinese aggression.

Beijing reacted as if Takaichi had declared war. Chinese state media cast her as reviving militarist rhetoric from World War II, and a senior Chinese envoy posted what amounted to an online threat to behead