Japan’s Taiwan Policy – Is Deeper Engagement the New Normal?

On September 3, Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide revealed that he would not run again for leadership of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). "I want to focus on the coronavirus response," Suga, whose popularity had been flagging in the runup to the Tokyo Olympic Games in August, told reporters. "I judged that I cannot juggle both [the fight against Covid-19 and the preparations needed to run in the party election] and that I should concentrate on just one of them."

The question now is who will succeed Suga as LDP leader – and thus prime minister – during this unprecedented crisis for Japan’s public health, economy, and national security. With an internal party election scheduled for September 29, potential premiers have already stepped up. The pandemic and its handling may not be the only key issue that will shape the outcome of the race. Foreign policy – specifically, Japan’s relations with China and its position on Taiwan – looks to be among the topmost concerns among voters.

Kishida is no foreign-policy hawk. He is widely perceived as moderate – balanced and open-minded, even liberal. His potential competitors for the LDP leadership – Kono Taro, who succeeded Kishida as foreign minister before taking over the defense portfolio late in Abe’s final term; Ishiba Shigeru, who served as defense minister from 2007 to 2008 under prime minister Fukuda Yasuo; and Takaichi Sanae, Abe’s minister of state for Okinawa and Northern Territories affairs from 2006 to 2007 – are regarded as much tougher and tend to take a fighting stance against those who might threaten Japan’s national interests and security.

In this light, Kishida’s comment about Taiwan, therefore, may not reflect his personal view but should be regarded as an indication of the prevailing perspective in Japan, not just in political circles including within the Japanese Communist Party but broadly among the population.

Conflict in the Taiwan Strait is widely seen in Japan as one of the biggest security risks the country faces. Most Japanese consider Taiwan as a de-facto country, not a part of China. A Nikkei and TV Tokyo poll in April found that 74 percent of respondents favored Japan taking efforts to ensure stability in the Taiwan Strait, with 13 percent opposed.

In its coverage of the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony, public broadcaster NHK showed just where the Japanese are on the Taiwan issue when it defied International Olympic Committee protocol and introduced the Chinese Taipei team as “Taiwan”. Japanese citizens and, to be sure, Taiwan people lauded the gesture.

Since Joe Biden took office in the United States, Japan has taken a tougher diplomatic stance over Taiwan. When Suga visited the White House in April, the first foreign leader to meet Biden since his inauguration, the two leaders stressed “the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait” and encouraged the “peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues” in their joint statement, the first time since 1969 that the matter was referred to in a Japan-US post-summit communiqué. The exact same sentence made it into the leaders’ declaration issued after the G7 summit hosted by the UK in June.

Concern for the Taiwan Strait and support for Taiwan in Japan stems from fears of China among Japanese. According to an NHK poll conducted after the G7 summit in June, 80 percent of respondents feel threatened by Beijing’s expansive maritime policies in the East and South China Seas. Furthermore, Japan business leaders are worried about the threat posed to trade and commerce posed by instability in the region. “If these risks materialize in Taiwan, a severe supply chain shock from the semiconductor industry could greatly depress the global economy”, Nogimori Minoru, senior economist at the Japan Research Institute, argues in a recent Japan Research Institute JRI Research Journal analysis.

In an account of the 2+2 talks posted on his personal blog, Sato said that the LDP group brought its recommendations to the table. The conference lasted 90 minutes, a half hour longer than planned, with the legislators discussing how Tokyo and Taipei could strengthen cooperation based on planning for a possible “Taiwan emergency”.

The Japanese side also raised the importance of Taiwan participating in World Health Organization (WHO) activities to enable it to confront the Covid-19 pandemic effectively. They urged Taiwan to apply as soon as possible to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the most ambitious rules-based trade agreement across the Asia-Pacific region, which Japan led to conclusion after the US withdrew from the pact in 2017. Given the absence of official diplomatic relations between Tokyo and Taipei, party-to-party diplomacy becomes more relevant. “This framework could be effective if the ruling-party lawmakers formulate common goals and then make proposals to the governments,” said Sato.

The perspective on the Taiwan Strait of Sato and his colleagues, which reflects the views of the Japanese political, business and academic mainstream, could have a strong influence the next Japanese prime minister for two reasons. First, solidarity and closer cooperation with Taiwan in the face of the difficulties of managing the relationship with China would be a popular policy for the new administration. Second, doing so would fit with the emerging Biden strategy in the Indo-Pacific and the approach to Beijing.

Washington is of course Tokyo’s most important ally. The Biden administration has been quick to signal its aim to strengthen its relationship with Taipei and support Taiwan’s efforts to expand its international space even as Beijing has sought to block them.

In April, the president sent to Taiwan an unofficial bipartisan delegation of retired senior officials – Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of state in the administration of George W Bush; James Steinberg, who held the same job when Barack Obama was president; and Christopher Dodd, who served as a senator from 1981 to 2011. “I can tell you one thing about President Biden’s administration,” Armitage told Tsai when they met her. “He has only one purpose in mind, and it’s not vexation. His purpose is only to support the continuation of this great democracy, which you all have built and which you are now leading.”

On NHK’s Sunday Debate program broadcast on September 5, Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu pointed out that “the US’s priority has now shifted from the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific”. Tokyo would welcome this move and expect the US government to invest more in the region generally and in the security of the Taiwan Strait in particular. This change would affect Japan’s future discourse with China on their territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands, or Diaoyu Islands, as they are called by the Chinese. “I do not deny that Japan is doing more and moving forward more than in previous times on Taiwan issues,” said a Japanese career diplomat engaged in Asia policy. “China may get angry and upset, but this is an unstoppable process.” In other words, no matter who succeeds Suga, deeper engagement with Taiwan is the “new normal” in Japanese foreign policy.