Taiwan Contingency Is Survival-Threatening Situation

In the discussion at Committee on Budget in the House of Representatives on November 7th, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi revealed her recognition that a contingency in Taiwan can be categorized as a “survival-threatening situation,” which is a condition for Japan to use force as an exercise of collective self-defense right. Although former prime ministers did not give a clear answer on it, Takaichi passed the line to a question of a veteran opposition lawmaker. It is concerned how China responds to it.

 

For decades after the World War II, Japan had been interpreting Article 9 of the Constitution as prohibiting exercise of collective self-defense right which means use of force for foreign country with close relationship with Japan. Former prime minister Shinzo Abe reinterpreted it and enable Japan to exercise collective self-defense right in a kind of situation, even if no direct attack on Japan is made. The situation is named “survival-threatening situation.”

 

The situation was included in the revision of laws for Japan’s security in 2015. The survival-threatening situation is defined as “a situation in which an armed attack against a foreign country that has a close relationship with Japan occurs, and as a result, threatens Japan’s survival and poses a clean danger of fundamentally overturning people’s right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”

 

In the budget committee, a lawmaker of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ) and former minister for foreign affairs, Katsuya Okada, asked Takaichi how she recognize a contingency in Taiwan. Okada referred to Takaichi’s comment in 2024 presidential election of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) that China’s naval blockade against Taiwan might make a case of survival-threatening situation for Japan.

 

Takaichi answered that it would depend on actual situation which could be allocating private vessels to disturb traffic or a situation in warfare with drones flying over. As Okada referred to LDP Vice-President, Taro Aso, who once commented that a contingency in Taiwan would likely be make a survival-threatening situation, Takaichi said that it could be a survival-threatening situation, if the situation escalates to use of force and deployment of destroyers.

 

The government of Japan supposes that the United States Force defending Taiwan will be attacked by China in the case of Chinese military invasion to Taiwan. If Japan regards it as a survival-threatening situation, it means that Japan makes military support for U.S. force. In that case, it is likely that Japan will be a target of China’s military operation, expanding warfare from Taiwan to Japan.

 

Former prime ministers did not make clear what kind of case might correspond to the situation. “It is difficult to say which case makes a survival-threatening situation, because it will be determined based on specifics of actual situation,” said Fumio Kishida in 2024. Abe raised a case of a survival-threatening situation as attack on an U.S. vessel with Japanese passengers or contingency in mine sweeping in Hormuz Strait.

 

Takaichi’s comment was based on a concept that contingency in Taiwan is contingency in Japan. However, it is still unclear whether the idea of fighting a war to protect Taiwan will be supported by majority of Japanese citizens. 

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