Japan and China in growing row after PM Takaichi says Taiwan conflict could trigger military deployment

New prime minister says an attack on Taiwan could trigger the deployment of her country’s self-defence forces if the conflict poses threat to Japan

Japan and China are embroiled in a row about Tokyo’s potential military involvement in the event of a conflict over Taiwan.

Beijing reacted angrily this month after Japan’s new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, said an attack on Taiwan could trigger the deployment of her country’s self-defence forces if the conflict posed an existential threat to Japan.

Insisting that Japan could exercise its right to collective self-defence – or coming to the aid of an ally – Takaichi said Tokyo had to “anticipate a worst-case scenario” in the Taiwan Strait.

If an emergency in Taiwan involved “warships and the use of force, then that could constitute a situation threatening [Japan’s] survival, whichever way you look at it”, she told a parliamentary committee. “The so-called Taiwan contingency has become so serious that we have to anticipate a worst-case scenario.”