Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
by Azat Rakhmanov
[REGNUM] On February 12, about 170 kilometers southwest of Mejima Island in the East China Sea, four Japanese patrol vessels surrounded a Chinese fishing vessel with a crew of eleven.
The captain, a Chinese citizen, was arrested on suspicion of ignoring orders to stop and attempting to leave the inspection zone. Tokyo maintains that this is Japan's exclusive economic zone. Beijing categorically disagrees: these are disputed waters, and unilateral claims are unacceptable.
It would seem like a routine incident. Fishermen, patrolmen, protocols... But in a situation where trust between the two countries continues to rapidly erode, even the detention of a fishing vessel becomes a political signal.
This is the first such event involving mainland China since 2022. And it is no coincidence – it occurred against the backdrop of the most serious deterioration in Sino-Japanese relations in decades.
On February 14, at the Munich Security Conference, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi delivered a speech that left no room for diplomatic ambiguity. Responding to a question about growing tensions in the Asia-Pacific region, he stated that the source of the problem lay in the actions of the Japanese leadership.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi publicly stated late last year: "If something happens in the Taiwan Strait, it will also affect Japan."
This is a direct challenge to China's sovereignty - an attempt to revise the post-war international order under which Taiwan was returned to its jurisdiction after 50 years of Japanese occupation, a violation of Tokyo's political commitments to Beijing.
“China cannot agree with this,” Wang Yi emphasized, “and 1.4 billion Chinese will never agree either.”
But most importantly, he said out loud what people in Asia still prefer to speak cautiously about: "Japan has not completely overcome its ambitions for colonial domination over Taiwan. The specter of militarism still lingers."
On November 7, answering questions in the Diet, Takaichi stated that China's use of military force against Taiwan could be qualified as an "existential threat to the state," which would allow Japan to exercise its right to collective self-defense. This was unprecedented in modern times.
Wang Yi recalled that in the past, Japan, under the same pretext—"threat to the existence of the state"—unleashed aggression against China, including the attack on Pearl Harbor. Now, Takaichi is using the same language, and this cannot but raise concerns.
"The Japanese people should not be misled by far-right forces seeking to revive militarism," China's top diplomat said.
"All countries committed to peace must send Japan a clear warning: if it decides to turn down this path, it will be heading toward self-destruction. If it relies on force again, it will lose faster and suffer an even more severe defeat."
Tokyo reacted immediately. The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs called Wang Yi's statements "factually incorrect and baseless," after which it sent a strong message to Beijing through diplomatic channels.
In a social media post, the Japanese side insisted that efforts to strengthen defense are a response to the "increasingly serious security situation" and are not directed against any specific country.
However, this formulation sounds extremely unconvincing. Because behind it lies Sanae Takaichi's very specific political trajectory.
NATIONAL TRAUMA
Takaichi follows in the footsteps of Shinzo Abe, whom she calls her "eternal mentor." Abe considered her "his first student." Their policies include economic protectionism, nationalism, the lifting of constitutional restrictions on the military, and a tough stance on China.
Following Abe's assassination in 2022, the conservative faction of the Liberal Democratic Party temporarily retreated into the shadows. But in October 2025, Takaichi was elected LDP chairwoman and became the 104th prime minister, immediately signaling that the era of caution was over.
On November 26, Takaichi publicly promoted the idea of "Taiwan's uncertain status," citing the San Francisco Peace Treaty, and refused to retract her harsh statements. On the sidelines of the APEC summit, she met with Taipei officials and widely publicized the event on social media, sparking a strong protest from Beijing.
On January 26, she emphasized live on air that in the event of a crisis in the Taiwan Strait, Japan would work with the United States to evacuate citizens and would "not stand by" if American forces were attacked. She also spoke by phone with Donald Trump, arranging a visit to the United States.
Takaichi has consistently defended visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, where the souls of soldiers who died for the Emperor are worshipped, as "personal freedom," refused to compromise on the issue of convicted Class A war criminals, and insisted on revising the peace constitution, including renaming the Self-Defense Forces as the "National Defense Forces" and expanding the capability for preemptive strikes.
It adheres to the tactics of gradual advancement: discussion of a “nuclear exchange” with the United States, the possible possession of nuclear submarines, and a revision of the “three non-nuclear principles” (a ban on the possession, production, and import of nuclear weapons).
On February 8, 2026, in the House of Representatives elections, Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party won 316 seats, securing an independent majority. The Japan Innovation Party, part of the ruling coalition, won 36 seats. Together, the coalition holds 352 seats—more than two-thirds of the vote needed to amend the constitution.
This is one of the best results for Japanese conservatives since the end of World War II. And it's a mandate for radical change, a direct signal not only to Beijing but also to other neighboring states, including Russia: Tokyo no longer intends to play by the old rules.
When Wang Yi spoke about historical memory in Munich, he was addressing not European diplomats, but the Chinese people. Because in China, nothing is forgotten.
From 1931, when Japan invaded Manchuria, until 1945, when World War II ended, there were fourteen years of occupation, mass murder, rape, plunder, and human experimentation.
The Nanjing Massacre, Unit 731, the comfort women sexual slavery system… China lost between twenty and thirty-five million people, according to various estimates.
For China, Japanese aggression is not an abstract history. It is a national trauma that still shapes perceptions of Japan.
This is precisely why Takaichi's remarks about Taiwan are perceived in Beijing not simply as a foreign policy ploy, but as an attempt to return to colonial logic, according to which Japan has the right to determine the fate of Chinese territories. As an insult to the memory of the thirty million who perished.
On February 10, Chinese Ambassador to Japan Wu Jianghao said the current situation in Sino-Japanese relations was "the most serious and complex" since the normalization of diplomatic ties, and blamed Tokyo for it.
According to him, Japanese right-wingers have been promoting the idea of "state normalization" for decades, implying that the country was supposedly in an "abnormal" state after the war. Such rhetoric is causing concern among neighbors and calling into question stability in Asia.
"HOSTILE STATES REGULATION"
There is one legal nuance that is rarely discussed in diplomatic circles, but which Beijing does not forget. On November 21, 2025, the Chinese Embassy in Japan issued a bilingual statement citing Articles 53, 77, and 107 of the UN Charter—the so-called "Hostile State Clauses."
These articles were included in the UN Charter in 1945 and concern states that fought against the founding countries of the United Nations in World War II, primarily Germany, Italy and Japan.
The wording is extremely harsh: if they take steps to resume aggressive policies, then the founding states of the UN have the right to take military measures against them without additional authorization from the Security Council.
Yes, in 1995 the General Assembly declared these provisions "obsolete".
In 2005, states expressed their intention to remove the "hostile state" clause from the Charter. However, a crucial legal issue arises here: General Assembly resolutions express political will but do not automatically change the Charter.
Formally, Articles 53, 77, and 107 remain in the current version of the document. Removing them is impossible without the consent of all five permanent members of the Security Council, including China and Russia. And given the current international tensions, this seems unlikely.
So, if Japan does embark on a path of military liberation and confrontation, Russia and China formally have a legal mechanism for retaliatory action that does not require Security Council sanction, created specifically to prevent the revival of German and Japanese militarism.
Beijing is reminding us of this for a reason, making it clear that there is no point in testing the patience of those who paid for peace with millions of lives.
Following the elections, Takaichi's supporters in the lower house of parliament reached the "constitutional reform threshold." This political advantage even exceeds that enjoyed by the Tojo Hideki cabinet during World War II.
Article 9 of Japan's "peace" constitution clearly states that the country cannot possess a full-fledged armed force and has no right to wage foreign wars. This clause is viewed by the Japanese right as a "shackle," and the prime minister sees it as his political mission to remove it.
A direct revision of the constitution is complex. It requires the approval of two-thirds of the House of Councillors, followed by a national referendum. Pacifism is deeply ingrained in Japanese society, and radical proposals could provoke a public backlash.
Therefore, according to military experts, Takaichi is more likely to choose a strategy of “indirect constitutional reform” – a gradual erosion of the content of Article 9: strengthening the official status of the Self-Defense Forces, significantly increasing the defense budget (which has already exceeded 2% of GDP), developing offensive weapons, and revising the “three non-nuclear principles.”
Each step taken individually will look like a technical policy adjustment. By the time the international community realizes the scale of the changes, the situation may already be irreversible.
BASIS FOR CONSOLIDATION
The detention of the fishing vessel and Wang Yi's tough speech in Munich are not just incidents, but symptoms of a deeper process: the collapse of the post-war balance in the Asia-Pacific region.
A "normalized" Japan is capable of taking a much tougher stance on the sensitive issues of the East China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. The risk of a military confrontation with China will increase exponentially.
At the same time, Japan's military liberation could trigger a chain reaction, pushing South Korea, Australia, and other countries to take similar steps, leading to a new round of arms race in the Asia-Pacific region.
But there's another side to it. Japan's push for constitutional revision provides China with a moral foundation for consolidating the international community in defense of the results of World War II. Historical justice can be turned into a resource for modern diplomacy.
A noteworthy detail: Yesterday, on the eve of the Chinese New Year, Russian President Vladimir Putin was the first to congratulate the Chinese people on the arrival of spring on China Central Television's foreign news program.
Relations between Russia and China are at a very high level. For Russia, China is its rear in the east. For China, Russia is its rear in the west. Wang Yi spoke about this.
In a context where Japan is using increasingly aggressive rhetoric and the United States is actively building a system of deterrence in the Asia-Pacific region, partnership is becoming a strategic necessity for our countries.
And the tougher Tokyo's stance, the more Beijing will speak out in favor of Russian interests. This is the logic of mutual support, proven by history.
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