China has escalated its dispute with Japan by formally accusing Tokyo of threatening armed involvement in a Taiwan conflict, delivering its sharpest warning yet in a letter to the United Nations. The complaint, sent by China’s UN ambassador Fu Cong to Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Friday, marked a new peak in the two week row triggered by comments from Japan’s new prime minister.
Fu said Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi had committed “a grave violation of international law” when she recently told lawmakers that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could meet the threshold for a Japanese military response. The letter accused Japan of “attempting an armed intervention” and warned that any such move would be treated as aggression.
According to a statement from China’s UN mission, Fu wrote that “China will resolutely exercise its right of self defence under the UN Charter and international law and firmly defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
The confrontation began on November 7, when Takaichi said during a parliamentary session that a potential attack on Taiwan, located just over 100 kilometres from Japanese territory, could create “a situation threatening Japan’s survival”. That designation under Japanese law allows a prime minister to deploy Japan’s Self Defence Forces.
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Her comments departed from the long standing strategic ambiguity maintained by both Tokyo and Washington, and they provoked an immediate backlash from Beijing. For China, which considers Taiwan part of its territory and refuses to rule out the use of force, the remarks struck at one of its most sensitive political lines.
Japan’s Foreign Ministry and the prime minister’s office did not respond to Reuters requests for comment on Saturday regarding Fu’s letter. Takaichi, a conservative nationalist who entered office last month, had already drawn Beijing’s ire, but this latest exchange has pushed the bilateral relationship into what many analysts describe as its most serious crisis in years.
The dispute has moved well beyond diplomatic notes and public statements. In recent days, China has said Japan’s position has “severely damaged” trade cooperation. Several concerts by Japanese performers in China have also been cancelled without clear explanation, fuelling speculation that they are linked to the political row.
Fu urged Japan to “stop making provocations and crossing the line” and called on Tokyo to withdraw what he described as “erroneous remarks” that challenge China’s “core interests”.
The timing of the confrontation comes ahead of the eightieth anniversary of Japan’s World War Two defeat, a moment Beijing often uses to highlight Japan’s wartime aggression and China’s role in shaping the postwar global order. Chinese officials have been increasingly drawing attention to two historic declarations, the Cairo and Potsdam documents, which they say form the basis of China’s sovereignty claim over Taiwan.