For decades, Japan ’s security relationship with Taiwan has been left deliberately vague. But in the wake of the recent visit to Tokyo of the US secretary of state and the secretary of defence, during which security and the rise of China dominated the agenda, Japan’s leaders are likely to come under pressure to make their stance more explicit. Japan’s ambiguity has until now enabled it to enjoy cordial relations with both Beijing and Taipei. Tokyo officially accepts Beijing’s ‘One China’ principle – that mainland China and the island of Taiwan are both part of the same country – and consequently has formal diplomatic relations with Beijing and not Taipei. However, on an unofficial level, ties between Japan and Taiwan are strong, due to shared history and cultural values. While in the past Japan could get by with this ambiguity, experts say a confluence of factors – including growing pressure from the US, shared security concerns over Beijing’s perceived aggression towards Taiwan, and a Japanese public that is largely sympathetic to its island neighbour – is putting Tokyo under pressure to clarify its stance. Recent moves by Beijing to step up military exercises around Taiwan – which Beijing regards as a renegade province to be reunified with the mainland, by force if necessary – have been widely interpreted in Japan as an effort to destabilise or intimidate the island and have consequently united the Japanese public behind it. The politicians appear to be listening – the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has a team dedicated to discussing how to keep Japan in line with the Taiwan policies of the new US administration of President Joe Biden . “Taiwan is geopolitically important not only for Japan and China but for the whole world, and China’s military aggression against Taiwan will have a serious negative impact on the world economy,” said Jin Matsubara, a former chairman of the National Public Safety Commission and presently a member of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, the centre-left party that is the largest opposition force. “Although the Japanese government only has formal diplomatic ties with Beijing, there is very strong pro-Taiwan sentiment among the Japanese people because of our historical ties and because we share the values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law,” said Matsubara, who is a member of the all-party Japan-Taiwan Parliamentary Group. The group has more than 230 members, accounting for nearly one-third of all members in the Diet, Japan’s parliament, and indicating the depth of support for Japan’s southern neighbour. US and Japan warn of China’s ‘coercion, destabilising behaviour’ Japan’s sense of affinity with Taiwan is greater than its ties with South Korea, which was similarly a Japanese colony in the early decades of the last century, analysts point out. Taiwan’s former President Lee Teng-hui serving in the Japanese army as an officer while studying at Kyoto University, once declaring in an interview, “I was Japanese until the age of 22.” The people of Japan were also impressed when Taiwan came to their aid a decade ago at the time of the Fukushima disaster, Matsubara said. “Japanese people have never forgotten that Taiwan offered warm support immediately after the devastating earthquake and tsunami struck eastern Japan on March 11, 2011, reminding us of the precious bond between Japan and Taiwan,” he said. “And that is why when China announced it would ban imports of Taiwanese pineapples from March 1, 2021, a nationwide campaign to buy Taiwanese pineapples started in Japan to protest against what the Japanese people see as China’s bullying and to offer support to Taiwan,” he added. “If Beijing keeps putting pressure on Taiwan and denies its people democracy and basic rights – just like Beijing did in Hong Kong – then I believe the Japanese government will succumb to public pressure and explicitly side with Taiwan,” Matsubara said. Tokyo’s concern goes far beyond the well-being of the people of Taiwan, however, and is evolving from a sense of fraternal friendship to a deepening belief that the two governments need to be prepared to work together in the event that Beijing moves to seize the island by force. That echoes the agreement between Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi and his US counterpart, Lloyd Austin, during their discussion in Tokyo last week. “Taiwan is very close to the disputed Senkaku Islands and Okinawa Prefecture and Japan’s concerns over the security situation in the region go back to the 1960s, although it has in the past rarely been talked about in public out of concern for antagonising China,” said Akitoshi Miyashita, a professor of international relations at Tokyo International University. “But while in the past Japan would have remained quiet, the government is now confronting the issue far more openly,” he said. “That is partly because Tokyo is under greater pressure from the United States to declare that it is committed to the security of the region and I believe that if there was some sort of military clash over Taiwan, then Japan would at the very least provide logistical support.” The island of Taiwan is also militarily critical to the region, analysts say, as the central link in the “first island chain” off the coast of the Asian mainland that has served to hem the Chinese navy into its coastal waters and make it almost impossible to sortie into the Pacific without being detected. To Japan, it is also crucially located amid the sea lanes that transport much of Japan’s energy supplies and trade . In addition, it is a symbolically vibrant democracy that is also one of the top 20 industrial economies in the world and among the world’s most advanced manufacturers of semiconductors. Those elements make it an important partner in the campaign for a free and prosperous Indo-Pacific region. Japan tells China it ‘can’t tolerate mass arrests’ under Hong Kong’s security law There was also almost certainly a quid pro quo in play, Miyashita added, with Japan under pressure to back the US in return for Washington siding with Tokyo on the uninhabited Senkaku Islands, which are claimed by Beijing, where they are known as the Diaoyus . The issue had also served to unite domestic parties, he said, adding that there was a “strong consensus across the political spectrum that Taiwan is very important to Japan and that must be reflected in government policy towards China.” Robert Dujarric, co-director of the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies at the Tokyo campus of Temple University, said many Taiwanese had a favourable attitude towards Japan and would far rather work with Tokyo than Beijing as China would use any cooperation as a way of “taking over” the island. “From Japan’s perspective, Chinese control of the island would be a major strategic threat to Japan and we have to assume that since the late 1990s, when China began to be seen as a threat, that there have been discreet discussions on security and geopolitical issues between Tokyo and Taipei,” he said. And, he added, an act of aggression against Taiwan by China would be the “red line” for Japan that Beijing’s actions in Hong Kong could not be. “With Hong Kong, there was very little that any other country could do,” Dujarric said. “It is geographically part of China and the only possible thing that Japan might have been able to do would have been to induce expats and Hong Kong people to move to Japan. “But Taiwan, on the other hand, is the red line for everyone and the US will move to defend the island,” he said. “If the US went to war over Taiwan, then it would be very difficult for Japan not to be sucked into that conflict.”