Fumio Kishida walks ‘fine line’ as Japan incurs China’s wrath over Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan trip

Days after Beijing axed a meeting with a Japanese official, Tokyo reiterated its commitment to a ‘free and open’ Indo-Pacific and stability in the Taiwan Strait
While Kishida could have opted for a more dovish position, Japan had no choice but to express displeasure when Chinese missiles fell inside its EEZ, one analyst notes

Japan

Julian Ryall

Published: 3:30pm, 5 Aug 2022

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Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday reiterated their commitment to a “free and open” Indo-Pacific region and stability in the Taiwan Strait, although analysts point out that Pelosi’s trip, at least in the short term, has had the opposite impact.

Since she visited Taiwan, Beijing has been carrying out large-scale military exercises near the self-ruled island, while a US aircraft carrier and its support fleet are operating in the Philippine Sea and Tokyo is monitoring events closely after five Chinese missiles splashed down inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

Yet as the US congresswoman’s East Asia tour winds down, it is apparent that Japan has been by far the firmest advocate of Washington’s position on Taipei, and the most willing to criticise Beijing for what Tokyo increasingly sees as the economic and military bullying of the island.

02:46

Mainland China launches largest military drill in the Taiwan Strait after Pelosi’s visit

Editorials in South Korean media on Friday, for example, were broadly critical of President Yoon Suk-yeol opting not to meet Pelosi, with his office variously stating that he was too busy and taking a holiday.

Yoon and Pelosi spoke by phone while she was in Seoul, but the JoongAng Daily said this was not an adequate diplomatic welcome for a representative of the South’s most important security partner.

Kishida, however, rolled out the red carpet after Pelosi arrived at the US military’s Yokota air base in western Tokyo late on Thursday.

As well as meeting the prime minister, Pelosi has held talks with Hiroyuki Hosoda, the speaker of Japan’s House of Representatives, and attended a plenary meeting of the lower chamber of the Diet, during which Hosoda read a statement of condolence for former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was shot dead last month.

Asean urges restraint as China holds war games after Pelosi’s Taiwan trip

Beijing expressed its discontent with Japan early, by cancelling a Thursday meeting between Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Japanese counterpart, Yoshimasa Hayashi, on the sidelines of the ongoing Asean conference in Cambodia.

In a statement, the Foreign Ministry in Beijing said China was “strongly displeased” with the joint statement issued by the G7 nations – including Japan – calling for China to resolve the tensions across the Taiwan Strait through peaceful dialogue.

On Friday, the representatives of China and Russia walked out of a meeting at the Asean event when the Japanese official began an address.

“I think Pelosi made a wrong and rather foolish decision to visit Taiwan, and I’m not sure why she’s being so provocative with this visit to Asia,” said Akitoshi Miyashita, a professor of international relations at Tokyo International University.

“If anything, countries should at this moment be looking to cooperate with China due to the war in Ukraine, because Beijing could very easily see this as a reason to move closer to Russia rather than the West,” he said.

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Pelosi may have been motivated by the upcoming US mid-term elections, and the need to demonstrate a strong foreign policy position for the Democrats, Miyashita said. But given Beijing was holding the key party congress in the coming months, it was always likely that it would respond firmly to any US actions that directly involved Taiwan, he added.

“I think the nationalist elements in Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party will be happy that Pelosi has been to Japan, but Kishida is walking a very fine line,” Miyashita said. “I also think the majority of countries in the region tacitly support Taiwan, but they have been very careful not to say anything that Beijing might interpret as being critical.

“In the circumstances, that might have been the best course of action for Kishida as well,” he said, although he conceded that Tokyo had no choice but to express displeasure when Chinese missiles fell inside Japan’s EEZ.

02:22

White House condemns Chinese missile launches over Taiwan as ‘significant escalation’

Yakov Zinberg, a professor of international relations specialising in East Asian affairs at Tokyo’s Kokushikan University, expressed less surprise at the firm line Kishida had taken towards China, although he said it may not sit entirely comfortably with the prime minister.

“My sense is that there is inertia in the government here since Abe was killed, with the party no longer sure on some of its policies or direction,” he said. “Kishida is more of a dove in the party and is known to have close ties with China before being elected prime minister.

“It is possible that in the future, when things have calmed down, Kishida may reconsider some of Abe’s policies that have simply been continued under this government,” he said. “At the very least, Kishida is going to do everything he can to de-escalate the situation.”

Beijing’s war games after Pelosi’s Taiwan trip spark South China Sea concerns

But Go Ito, a professor of international relations at Tokyo’s Meiji University, suggests that the ball is now largely in Beijing’s court.

“Pelosi is returning to the US now and everyone obviously hopes that we will go back to how things were before,” he said. “But a small action by either side right now could have very big repercussions. If China believes its anger was not sufficiently understood, then it might choose to take one more step.”

That “step” might involve a seizure of one of Taiwan’s outlying islands, Ito suggested.

“But if China goes beyond the status quo, there will have to be a response from Taiwan, from the US and from Japan,” he said. “And Japan has already stated that a crisis across the Taiwan Strait will be a crisis for Japan, so there will have to be a response.”