Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has made removing the UN Charter’s so-called enemy state clauses a personal cause, Kyodo News reported on October 11. Her push has opened a fresh line of dispute with the Communist government in China that would rather the World War II-era language stay put.

The provisions cover the Axis powers defeated in the war, Japan, Germany and Italy among them. They allow action against any of these countries without a Security Council mandate, provided the aim is to block a return to aggression.

Obsolete clauses

As far back as 1995, the General Assembly declared the clauses obsolete and urged their swift removal. A decade later, member states including China endorsed a 2005 World Summit outcome document committing to strike them out. The text has nonetheless survived.

In September, Takaichi used her first appearance before the General Assembly in New York to call for the wording to be deleted. No sitting Japanese premier had raised the issue in over two decades, since Junichiro Koizumi. Those around her say she pressed for its inclusion while the speech was being drafted. Takaichi has in the past called the clauses a source of deep humiliation and according to a source in her office referred to in the Kyodo report, China is what drives her focus: Beijing having once supported scrapping the provisions has changed its tack and claims they still apply.

That stance was on display last November. China’s embassy in Tokyo, representing one of the Security Council’s five permanent members, invoked the clause on social media. In doing so, Beijing argued that the UN’s founding states keep the right to act should Japan turn aggressive again.

Subsequently, after Takaichi’s New York address, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun once again went with Beijing’s opposition, using the reflexive predictability so often seen from the Chinese capital. He said the clauses serve to stop fascism and militarism from once more endangering global peace.

Across the region this is seen as somewhat ironic given China’s official 2026 defence budget of CNY1.91 trillion ($285bn) being five times the size of Japan’s JPY9.04 trillion ($57bn) spending on its own Self Defence Forces. The real gap is likely wider still as China’s published figure excludes significant items such as defence-related research and development. Because of this, independent estimates such as SIPRI’s put Beijing’s actual military spending well above the official number.

Chinese motives

As a result, Japanese officials are rightly dismissive.

Japanese foreign ministry figure described the provisions as effectively defunct, essentially reiterating General Assembly comments over 30 years ago.

And at least one diplomatic source suggested Beijing may be trying to shape perceptions in a bid to drive a wedge between Tokyo and Washington.

Whatever China’s motives, Takaichi has vowed to keep lobbying other governments for deletion. She told lawmakers on October 7 that no state now had any basis for invoking the clauses.

To this end, the row is little more than another strand in a steadily worsening relationship. Beijing has grown sharper in accusing Japan of remilitarising as Takaichi lifts defence budgets and capabilities even if the numbers pale in comparison to funds spent by the ruling Communist Party in Beijing.

In doing so, Takaichi’s government justifies that course by pointing to an increasingly hostile security environment seen across regional capitals as caused by Chinese aggression in the region around the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. Ties fell sharply in November 2025, after Takaichi told the Japanese Diet that the nation’s Self-Defence Forces might respond to a Chinese attack on Taiwan, the self-ruled democracy to the southwest of Okinawa.

How little room Tokyo’s softer signals currently have to land in Beijing had already become clear days earlier, in the reaction to Takaichi’s October 5 policy speech.

Opening an extraordinary session of the Diet that day, she described China as an “important neighbouring country” and said she wanted a “constructive and stable” relationship. She promised to pursue mutually beneficial ties built on common strategic interests across every area. Takaichi coupled that with a reminder that on security Japan would “assert what must be asserted”, or, put more briefly, “say what must be said.”

The Chinese playbook

Over the past few years, Beijing’s modus operandi has been to repeatedly escalate pressure on its neighbours while presenting itself as the wronged party. In many ways, China has perfected the role of playing the victim, at least in its own eyes. The pattern is consistent: a coercive act at sea or in the air, followed by an official narrative of Chinese restraint and foreign provocation. This MO has played out again and again, from the waters off the Philippines to the skies above Japan's southwestern islands, the gap between what China does and what it says widening all the time.

As such, Tokyo's decision to speak more plainly about the risks around Taiwan is, in that light, less a provocation than a long-overdue recognition of East Asian reality.

Fukushima science reinvented

When Japan began releasing treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi plant in August 2023, Beijing banned all Japanese seafood imports. Chinese officials and state media consistently described the discharge as "nuclear-contaminated water" and portrayed China as a potential victim of Japanese recklessness.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, however, had concluded that the release met international safety standards. Subsequent independent monitoring, including sampling in which Chinese scientists later took part, found no harmful contamination.

Beijing also opted to stay silent on a key comparison. Several Chinese coastal nuclear plants, such as Qinshan and Yangjiang, have reported annual tritium discharges well above the ceiling Japan set for Fukushima in recent years.

The South China Sea bully

Then, at Second Thomas Shoal, Beijing repeatedly cast the Philippines as the provocateur for resupplying its small garrison aboard the grounded BRP Sierra Madre. Video released by Manila told a different story to international audiences: Chinese coast guard vessels firing water cannons at Philippine boats and ramming them.

The low point in that particular area came in June 2024, when Chinese personnel armed with knives and axes boarded Philippine navy boats, seized equipment, and left a Filipino sailor without a thumb. Beijing described its conduct as professional and restrained.

Not too far away at Scarborough Shoal a similar script was read. In August 2025, two Chinese vessels collided with each other while chasing a Philippine coast guard ship. Weeks later, Beijing announced a "nature reserve" on the disputed feature, presenting a move to tighten its grip as environmental stewardship.

These claims sit uneasily alongside the 2016 arbitral ruling under UNCLOS, which rejected China's expansive "nine-dash line". Beijing has of course in the decade since dismissed that ruling as null and void.

In August 2024, a PLA Y-9 surveillance aircraft belonging to the Chinese air force entered Japanese airspace near the Danjo Islands off Nagasaki in what was the first confirmed violation of Japan's airspace by a Chinese military aircraft. Beijing's response implied there had been no hostile intent and criticised Tokyo for overreacting.

Weeks later, the 306m aircraft carrier Liaoning sailed between the islands of Yonaguni and Iriomote east of Taiwan, entering Japan's contiguous zone. Around the Senkaku Islands, Chinese coast guard ships have maintained a near-constant presence, setting successive records for days spent in the surrounding waters and periodically entering Japanese territorial seas.

And in December 2025, Japan reported that Chinese carrier-based fighters had directed fire-control radar at Japanese aircraft near Okinawa, site of a number of US bases.

Beijing's answer was to accuse Japan of dangerous harassment in a repeat of the standard blame others, play the victim ‘go-to’ so often employed by China.

Taiwan’s daily dance with Chinese aggression

Over in Taiwan, eighteen months prior, and days after President (William) Lai Ching-te's inauguration in May 2024, Chinese military forces launched the "Joint Sword-2024A" exercises around the self-governing island nation. Further large-scale drills followed, including "Strait Thunder-2025A" and "Justice Mission 2025". Each was framed as a defensive response to so-called "separatist provocations", although Taipei had taken no military action and its leaders had repeatedly sought to preserve the status quo.

The most revealing episode to this end came in November 2025, with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments about a move against the democracy potentially being a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan.

As expected, Beijing's response was out of all proportion. China issued travel warnings against Japan, reimposed a meaningless seafood ban, and wrote to the UN Secretary-General alleging a revival of Japanese militarism. The rest of Asia sighed and ignored Beijing. China’s consul general in Osaka posted online that the "dirty neck" that intrudes should be cut off as throughout, Beijing played its overused victim card, insisting that it was the injured party.

Why Japan is right to stand firm

For Japan, Taiwan is not an abstraction. Yonaguni, Japan's westernmost inhabited island, lies roughly 110 km from Yilan country in northeastern Taiwan, and any blockade or conflict in the Strait or around Taiwan would put Japanese territory, citizens and US forces based in Okinawa directly in the line of fire of Communist forces sent forth by Beijing.

The economic stakes are just as stark. The great majority of Japan's energy imports pass through the sea lanes around Taiwan and the South China Sea claimed by Beijing. Any power able to control those waters at will would hold a hand on Japan's economic throat as well as being able to control the bulk of the world’s most advanced semiconductor production – a business sector Taiwan has all but made its own in recent years, controlling 90% of advanced foundry output.

As East Asia stands, Beijing's aggression has risen whether Tokyo has spoken softly or firmly. Supporters of Japan's current course argue that clarity, a stronger defence posture and deeper ties with the United States, the Philippines and Australia are what deter conflict, and on this view, Japan is defending the status quo rather than threatening it.

China on the other hand has few, if any legitimate backers of its moves to intimidate the rest of East Asia.