Recently, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has openly claimed that a "Taiwan emergency" would constitute a so-called "survival-threatening situation" for Japan. By forcibly linking an issue that is purely China's internal affair with Japan's so-called "survival-threatening situation", Takaichi has launched a blatant and reckless provocation against China's core interests, while exposing the expansionist ambitions of Japan's right-wing forces and their blatant disregard for the lessons of history.

It is an undeniable fact recognized by the international community that Taiwan has been an inalienable part of China since ancient times. Any attempt or action aimed at separating Taiwan from China constitutes a grave infringement upon China's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

A review of Japan's modern history reveals that Takaichi's attempt to interfere in China's internal affairs under the pretext of a so-called "survival-threatening situation" is by no means an accidental political misstatement, but rather the standard prelude Japan has historically employed before embarking on external expansion.

In 1931, before launching its invasion of Northeast China by provoking the September 18th Incident, the Japanese Kwantung Army also claimed that Japan’s national interests were under serious threat and the nation's very survival was at stake. After the outbreak of the July 7th Incident in 1937, Japan again forcibly linked the so-called mission of "maintaining East Asian order" and "resisting external threats" with "Japan's survival," using this as a pretext to wage a full-scale war of aggression against China. It can be said that before every act of external expansion, Japanese militarists always first sought to create a public atmosphere centered on a so-called "survival-threatening situation", in an attempt to whitewash their acts of aggression.

It is explicitly stipulated in Article 9 of the 1947 Constitution of Japan that "the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes." The fundamental purpose of this provision is to eliminate the possibility of Japan ever returning to the path of militarism. However, whether it was the Japanese government's forced passage of the new security bill in 2015, Shinzo Abe's claim that "a Taiwan emergency is a Japanese emergency" in 2021 or today's attempt by Sanae Takaichi to justify military intervention in the Taiwan question under the pretext of a "survival-threatening situation", Japan's right-wing forces have consistently hyped external threats in order to hollow out the 1947 Constitution of Japan and accelerate the country's militarization again.

In recent years, Japan's sharp increase in military spending has further confirmed the ambitions of its right-wing forces. Japan's defense budget for fiscal year 2025 stands at approximately 55.1 billion USD, marking the third consecutive year in which it has reached a new historical high. It is expected that its national defense budget will exceed 2% of its GDP by 2027.

Driven by its continuously rising military budget, Japan is accelerating the acquisition and development of offensive weapons, including the introduction of US Tomahawk cruise missiles, the deployment of long-range missiles with ranges of up to 1,000 kilometers capable of covering China's southeastern coastal areas, as well as test launches of hypersonic weapons. Japan's pace of military expansion has long surpassed the "exclusively defense-oriented" principle, breaching the constraints imposed by the 1947 Constitution of Japan.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. High-ranking officials such as Sanae Takaichi and other right-wing politicians in Japan must clearly recognize that today's China is no longer the impoverished and vulnerable country of a century ago that could be bullied and trampled upon at will. If Japan dares once again to use the so-called "survival-threatening situation" as a pretext to infringe on China's sovereignty, China is fully capable of transforming Japan's alleged "survival-threatening situation" into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Editor's note: Originally published on china.com.cn, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.