Takaichi's polished performance can't disguise her ulterior motives: China Daily editorial

There was a theatrical quality to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's recent performance in the Japanese Diet — a kabuki of "resolve", "righteousness" and recycled "fear" — in which China and other neighboring countries play the "stock villains" and Japan, once again, the role of "embattled sentinel of civilization". The script is familiar. But the props are new: missile batteries scattered across the Ryukyu archipelago, radar towers sprouting on subtropical islands, and a military budget swollen to levels unseen in decades.

The velocity with which Tokyo is rushing to escape its "pacifist past" is audacious. Yet the right-wing prime minister cloaks this race toward militarism in the language of "virtue". In her policy speech to the Diet on Friday she quoted from the Chinese classic Zuo Zhuan, or Chronicle of Zuo: "With faith, we do what is right, and with righteousness, we live our lives".

"Faith" in what, exactly? If "faith" means resurrecting the security logic that led Imperial Japan down the path of aggression — a past still denied, apologies still hedged, compensation still evaded — then "righteousness" is nothing more than a fig leaf worn to hide the truths of history. Invoking classical Chinese moral philosophy while rushing toward militarization is insult, not homage.

The so-called "missile archipelago" taking shape along Japan's southwestern islands, just 110 kilometers from China's Taiwan island at its closest point, is less a defensive hedge than a geopolitical provocation. Yonaguni and its neighbors, once known for wild horses and coral reefs, are being refashioned into forward operating nodes in a potential "Taiwan contingency". Missile batteries, electronic warfare units and F-35 deployments transform these islands into what one analyst called a "kill chain" enabler — a phrase that sounds less like deterrence and more like choreography for catastrophe.

Takaichi insists this is about "peace". But to Japan's neighbors it is the opposite.

On Tuesday, China's Ministry of Commerce placed 20 Japanese entities — including major industrial companies — on an export control list targeting dual-use technologies. The message was unmistakable: economic and trade relations do not immunize Japan from political recklessness. Tokyo may believe it can fortify the islands without consequences; Beijing is demonstrating otherwise.

The economic stakes are not theoretical. China remains Japan's largest trading partner, accounting for roughly one-fifth of its exports. The restrictions on rare earths, battery materials and precision components will ripple through Japan's automotive, electronics and defense sectors. At a time when Japan's growth remains fragile and its debt exceeds 250 percent of GDP, the Takaichi government's moves to raise defense spending to 2 percent of GDP — about 9 trillion yen ($60 billion) — look less like prudence than fiscal brinkmanship. More than 1.2 trillion yen has already been earmarked for remote-island "defense" alone, money diverted from a stagnant economy that Takaichi simultaneously promises to revive.

It is a curious growth strategy.

Polls show high approval for the "defense" spending among those under 30, those that have no memory of Japan's war past. But generational amnesia is not strategic wisdom. The Battle of Okinawa is not ancient history to those whose families still bear its scars. Turning the Ryukyu Islands into a forward missile belt risks making them potentially battlefields again — in a conflict that is neither inevitable nor wise.

And then there is Washington, the ever-present targeted audience of Japan's right-wing politicians. Takaichi's planned visit to the United States next month will be billed as "alliance management", but it also resembles a sales pitch: Japan as indispensable bulwark, missile host and loyal tariff absorber. Tokyo has swallowed US trade measures that are battering its auto and steel sectors, even as it doubles down on "security" alignment. The commission is clear — flatter Washington, endure economic pain and hope the alliance dividend outweighs the cost.

To Beijing, Takaichi says she is open to dialogue. In practice, nearly every policy move — missile deployments, expanded joint drills, reinterpretations of collective self-defense — treats China more as "a hostile neighbor" than the good one it is.

Recasting the archipelago as a chain of launch pads risks turning neighbors into adversaries and contested waters into corridors of escalation. The tragedy is that none of this is inevitable. East Asia's prosperity has been built on trade, not trench lines. Japan's postwar miracle was founded on peaceful collaboration, not aggressive preemption.

History may not repeat itself, but it does send reminders. The last time Japan convinced itself that militarization was "defensive", the region paid in blood and ashes. Today, the language is more polished, the missiles more precise, the strategy more colluding. But the underlying gamble remains essentially the same.

If "faith" is to mean anything in Tokyo's new moral vocabulary, it should be faith in responsible diplomacy, in historical honesty, and in the hard, unglamorous work of coexistence.