hankyoreh

(Clipart Korea)

China is ramping up pressure on Japan following Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s claim that Japan could exercise its right to collective self-defense in the event of a contingency in Taiwan, severing ministerial-level lines of communication and warning of further countermeasures.
 
If China-Japan relations sour to a point of no return, it is possible that Beijing could play its trump card of banning exports of rare earths to Japan while cracking down on Japanese companies operating in China.
 
A diplomatic source based in Beijing revealed Thursday that a meeting of culture ministers from South Korea, China and Japan, scheduled for Monday in Macau, has been postponed. The three countries take turns to host this meeting, which was launched in 2007, with China being the host of the 2025 meeting.
 
This announcement shows that China has gone as far as severing ministerial-level lines of communication with Japan amid the snowballing fallout from Takaichi’s remarks. 

Chae Hwi-young, South Korea’s minister of culture, sports and tourism, and various officials at the Korean Cultural Center in Hong Kong were due to appear for the meeting to represent South Korea.
 
The state-run Global Times published an op-ed warning of possible “consequences” for Japan, stating, “China possesses rich options to ensure that any actions or words undermining China’s core interests will come at their due cost.”
 
The most forceful measures that China could possibly take are thought to be the banning of rare earth exports to Japan and penalizing Japanese companies that rely heavily on the Chinese market.

Japan has reduced its dependence on China, but still requires rare earths sourced from the country for its cutting-edge manufacturing sector. When Beijing cut off its supply of rare earths to Japan during the 2012 territorial dispute over a cluster of small islands known as the Senkakus in Japan and the Daioyu Islands in China, it hamstringed Japanese businesses. 

While Japan no longer relies on China for 80%-90% of its rare earths as it did in 2012, around half of rare earths entering the country are reportedly sourced from China. When China recently ramped up export restrictions during its ongoing trade feud with the US, Japanese businesses that build cars, batteries and motors also felt the squeeze. 

One possible outcome is that China could come down on Japanese businesses operating in the country using regulatory and domestic legal grounds — meaning that Beijing could pressure Japan by putting the screws to Japanese automakers like Toyota, Honda and Nissan, which make a significant portion of their sales in China.

It’s a tactic we’ve seen from China in the past. As tensions were running high between China and South Korea over the latter’s deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system in 2017, Beijing suspended operations of Lotte Mart branches in the mainland for supposed violations of the country’s fire safety act. Eventually, Lotte Mart withdrew from China altogether. 

China’s military has also been sending strong warning signs to Japan. With no ruling out that Beijing could go as far as exerting outright military pressure, China appears to be rallying its fighting spirit to both apply indirect pressure on Japan while also uniting the public on the cause.

On Thursday, the China Military Bugle, the official X account of the Chinese armed forces, posted an illustration of Takaichi sitting atop a barrel of explosives and striking a match. 

“The Taiwan question is at the Core of China’s core interests and the first red line that must not be crossed. Any external force that plays with fire will ultimately face the consequences of self-destruction,” the caption read. 

The various branches of the Chinese military have also begun to aggressively signal their patriotism and readiness to fight. 

In a video posted one day earlier by China’s South Sea Fleet, an armed soldier says, “We are always ready for battle to start tonight.”

“We will run to the battlefield the moment we are ordered,” he said. 

By Lee Jeong-yeon, Beijing correspondent

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]