This may go on forever. If the Japanese government continues to refuse to disavow its reasonable statement that Japan would probably help neighbor Taiwan if Taiwan were attacked by the People’s Republic of China, the PRC will continue to mope and excoriate and retaliate.
ABC News reports that ambassadorial rebuffs and trade-related retaliation by the Chinese government continue apace. The headline and blurb speaks of “surfacing” and “ratcheting up” of tensions that perhaps bubbled up out of the ground like a geyser (January 9, 2026).
A week in which longtime tensions between neighbors China and Japan ratcheted up economically and politically drew to a close with no sign of improvements Friday as the Chinese ambassador in Tokyo rebuffed his host nation and the Japanese reported delayed shipments to suppliers in China because of the spat.
The two developments capped a week where China made clear its displeasure with Japan by instituting new export controls, condemning what it called Tokyo’s renewed militarism and cozying up to another regional neighbor, South Korea, during its leader’s visit to Beijing.
On Friday, the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, People’s Daily, kept the jabs coming.
“New militarism will lead Japan back into the abyss,” it said in an editorial. “History serves as a stark warning, yet the Japanese right wing is repeating its old tricks.”…
“Japan’s future lies not in the dangerous fantasies painted by the right wing, but in the thorough reckoning with its history of aggression,” People’s Daily said.
The People’s Daily is up to its old propaganda tricks. One may repudiate unwarranted aggression while endorsing the right of self-defense. A PRC attack on Taiwan would, of course, be an unprovoked and unjustifiable act of aggression, the purpose of which would be to end the Republic of China and subjugate the Taiwanese to totalitarian rule. Such an invasion would threaten the region generally, not just Taiwan.
The CCP itself does not engage in any “thorough reckoning with its history of aggression” either of Mao’s time or since. A meaningful reckoning would involve, for one thing, stopping. Neighboring countries and the people of China, in particular the members of its most viciously persecuted groups, can attest that the aggression is not stopping.
