In response to official statements by newly-selected Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, that Japan would become militarily involved in the Taiwan Strait if a conflict arose between Beijing and the secessionist-oriented current leadership of China’s province of Taiwan, Secretary of the Russian Federation’s Security Council Sergei Shoigu “criticized Tokyo, claiming that such a position was damaging the foundations of the two countries’ relations,” the online news service Sohu reported. “Shoigu emphasized that the U.S. and Japan have a ‘vassal relationship,’ and the latter is willing to sacrifice its own interests to please the former,” Sohu added.
Russian Foreign Ministry diplomat and spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also gave strong Russian backing to China. “Peace is a fragile thing; peace is a man-made thing,” she stated in an interview with Xinhua news agency adding that the Asia-Pacific region should be guided by peaceful and responsible political actions aimed at preserving peace and security rather than irresponsible or aggressive policies. “We know how Japanese militarism ended,” Zakharova warned. “It would be good if those politicians who come to govern Japan remember this, understand where irresponsible statements lead, and refrain from making them.”
In her Nov. 20 Foreign Ministry daily briefing with the press, Zakharova elaborated: “Eighty years have passed, and Japan still refuses to recognize the results of World War II, as enshrined in international law.” Xinhua reported further on Zakharova’s remarks: “A number of countries loudly declare their commitment to the one-China principle, but at the same time continue to cynically escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait and obstruct the peaceful reunification of China, she said. They supply weapons to the island, actively strengthen military and political contact, promote separatist sentiments, and use the Chinese province of Taiwan as an instrument of pressure and geopolitical containment of the People’s Republic of China, the spokesperson said.”
Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi is a well-known warhawk, who has also called into question Japan’s 1987 “Three Non-Nuclear Principles,” which state that Japan will never create, own or house nuclear weapons. With an anticipation of hosting U.S. nuclear submarines in the future, Takaichi has called the “third” prohibition of hosting nuclear weapons “unrealistic.” Japan, in this past year, in a precedent, has produced and shipped Patriot missiles to the U.S. These actions have caused China to react sharply, perceiving Japan’s growing orientation to return to its past militarism, including its seizure and colonization of China’s Taiwan in 1895, and its invasion of mainland China in 1931.
