Weeks into the job, Japan’s new leader has come face-to-face with what it means to cross China’s red line on Taiwan.

China’s recent naval deployment around Japan comes on the heels of a war of words between Beijing and newly-elected Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi over Taiwan.

The China Security Report 2026, released by the National Institute for Defence Studies (NIDS) in Tokyo, argued that the strategic partnership among the three countries is becoming increasingly assertive, though marked by internal imbalances.

WHEN, in her first speech before parliament recently, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi strongly alluded to Japan getting involved militarily in an invasion by China of Taiwan, she did not just sound like she was echoing President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

By the time WWII reached Asia, China was already fractured between Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Army and Mao Zedong’s Red Army, two factions forced into an uneasy alliance against the Japanese invasion.

The recent 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender at the end of World War II inspired multiple publications on how Japan remembers its wartime history. However, there has been less said about the countries that Japan fought and their historical narratives ...