In the first half of January 2026, the crisis in relations between Japan and the People’s Republic of China continued to escalate. In addition to previous measures, China banned the export of dual-use goods to Japan on January 6 that could in any way enhance Japan’s military potential.
Rising Relations and Creeping Disagreements
From 1972 to the first half of the 1990s, Japan-China cooperation was often considered its heyday. During this period, the 1972 Joint Communique was signed, restoring official relations between the countries and defining their terms; The Treaty of Peace and Friendship of 1978 was signed, laying the political and legal foundation for peaceful bilateral relations; Emperor Akihito visited China in 1992; and in 1995, Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama issued a statement apologizing for Japan’s military aggression during WW2.
The provisions set forth in the 1972 communique (Japan’s understanding and respect for China’s declaration that Taiwan is an inalienable part of PRCs territory) and the 1995 Murayama Statement (recognition of Japan’s war crimes and an apology to China for them) defined the rules to which both countries must have adhered.
Despite this period of apparent cooperation, relations were not entirely smooth. Contentious issues began emerging, foreshadowing later conflicts between Japan and China.
For example, during the normalization of relations in the 1970s, the two sides failed to resolve the issue of the Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands, postponing it until later. And when “later” arrived, disputes over their ownership significantly worsened relations between the countries.
China was also displeased by the fact that, despite the official severance of relations between Tokyo and Taipei, Japan-Taiwan trade remained significant ($8.4 billion in 1985), and tourism ties were maintained.
In the early 1980s, China expressed dissatisfaction with Japanese high school history textbooks, which downplayed the scale of Japanese war crimes against China. At that time, Japan agreed to amend the disputed textbooks. China also expressed dissatisfaction with Japanese Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, dedicated to the souls of fallen soldiers, including war criminals. Beijing saw all this as Japan’s attempt to shirk responsibility for the damage inflicted on China during World War II, but Murayama’s statement seemed to resolve this misunderstanding.
Japan is moving away from Murayama’s statement
All of these controversial issues developed in the 2000s and 2010s. The administration of Koizumi Junichiro proved quite provocative for the Chinese government. This prime minister advocated for improving economic relations with China, which pleased the Chinese administration. However, the latter was seriously displeased with Japan PM’S stance on revising historical memory.
Koizumi visited the Yasukuni Shrine every year throughout his term as prime minister. Each visit provoked official protests from Beijing, and Koizumi’s statement on May 16, 2005, that these visits were Japan’s business and no one else’s, only worsened relations between the two countries. Furthermore, a major scandal over historical memory occurred a month earlier, in April 2005, when the Japanese Ministry of Education reapproved a school history textbook that whitewashed Japan’s wartime atrocities. These events sparked and fueled massive anti-Japanese demonstrations in more than 100 Chinese cities in April and May 2005.
Japan, in turn, began providing China with fewer concessional loans (until they ceased altogether in 2007). Japan had previously used this mechanism, hoping to turn China into a loyal ally that would forget Japanese war crimes and territorial disputes. It was likely during these years that the Japanese government finally realized that this calculation had failed.
Thus, during the Koizumi years, the Japanese government effectively abandoned the provisions stated by Maruyama, essentially reopening disputes that had already been resolved. Later, Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe resumed the policy of revising history in textbooks and visiting the Yasukuni shrines, continuing to provoke China.
The Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands Conflict
The problems of “dormant conflicts” in Japan-China relations have overlapped with two other factors: Japan’s desire to reassess its relationship with China and its place in Asia-Pacific policy, and China’s significant military and economic rise by the early 2010s. The result of these confluences was the Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands conflict, which in many ways resembles the dynamics of contemporary events.
On September 7, 2010, a Chinese fishing vessel rammed two Japanese Coast Guard patrol vessels in disputed waters approximately 12 kilometers northwest of the islands. Following the collision, the vessel’s crew members were arrested, and its captain faced possible imprisonment. This was a significant step up from the previous practice of deporting violators in such cases. The Chinese government demanded the unconditional release of the crew and captain, but this was refused.
In response, Beijing suspended all diplomatic meetings at the ministerial and higher levels and, most painfully (and similar to current events), imposed an embargo on the export of rare earth minerals to Japan. Unable to withstand this pressure, the Japanese government accepted China’s terms.
We would like to highlight two points regarding this case. First, China’s effective use of economic leverage. Japan is more economically dependent on China than China is on Japan, and this is especially true for rare earth metals. This is a tool that China could use today in its confrontation with Sanae Takaichi if her administration oversteps its bounds. Second, Japan and China have once again resolved the conflict itself, but not the fundamental reason it arose—the territorial dispute over the islands.
As a result, another crisis erupted in 2012, during which the Japanese government purchased three disputed islands of the Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands from a private owner. It did this to prevent Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara from acquiring them, as he could have used the islands to provoke China. However, Beijing did not appreciate this gesture.
Mass anti-Japanese protests erupted in major Chinese cities, larger and more protracted than the 2005 demonstrations. The Chinese government dispatched naval patrols to the disputed islands, strengthened surveillance of the East China Sea, and announced the creation of a new air defense identification zone, which includes the disputed islands. It was only in November 2014 that Japan and China agreed to gradually resume diplomatic and security dialogue. However, the dispute itself was once again frozen, not resolved. As a reminder to Japan of this, China regularly deploys coast guard vessels near the islands.
What lessons can be learned from these events?
Since the 2000s, Japan and China have been engaged in conflicts that have resulted in the emergence of new norms in their relations. The tenure of Koizumi Junichiro has normalized Japan’s reassessment of its crimes against China during World War II. The crises surrounding the Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands have normalized Japan’s more aggressive policy toward the disputed territories and China’s similar response, including highly effective economic pressure.
The author’s initial expectations that Sanae Takaichi would compromise with Beijing regarding her remarks on Taiwan have not materialized. Japan’s new prime minister refuses to make concessions, exacerbating the conflict.
It is difficult to predict how the current conflict will develop. However, it can be said that, firstly, China has not yet used its “ultimate weapon” against Japan—an embargo on rare earth metal exports—and therefore Tokyo should proceed with caution. Secondly, it is likely that a new normal will emerge in relations between the two countries after the crisis is frozen (as it usually happens). Sanae Takaichi is seeking to normalize the rhetoric about Japan’s special security interests in Taiwan. Whether this will be successful depends on the Japanese administration (which, however, is moving the country in a slightly different direction), China, if it decides to increase pressure on Tokyo (and the country has the tools to do so), and the United States, which could either support Japan or sideline it in an attempt to normalize relations with China.
Daniil Romanenko, Japanologist researcher from the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences
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