Japanese Destroyer Transit through Taiwan Strait Rattles China

The move came after harsh remarks from a Chinese diplomatic official and other forms of protest by China that followed Japan’s newly elected Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s statement that her country would be willing to defend Taiwan. Shortly after the drone event, Japan signaled it was moving ahead with missile deployment to this very island.

Following these developments, China and Japan’s coast guards gave vastly different accounts of a standoff between their boats near a group of islands in the East China Sea. Japan netted a Chinese trawler engaged in a spot of illegal fishing in its economic exclusion zone.

Now there are reports that a Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) destroyer has just sailed through the Taiwan Strait.

It is the first such passage since Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi took office last October and could further strain ties between the two Asian neighbors, which have soured since her remarks in November about a Taiwan contingency.The United States regularly sends warships through the Taiwan Strait to assert freedom of navigation in international waters. While Japan has not officially announced the passage, it appears to have been carried out on the belief that the country should take more resolute actions to counter China’s growing assertiveness….Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun criticized Japan at a press conference, saying it had deliberately sought to provoke China by dispatching the vessel, and that the status of Taiwan, a self-ruled island claimed by Beijing, is a “red line that must not be crossed.”According to Japanese and Chinese diplomatic sources, the Chinese government summoned Japanese officials to protest the vessel’s passage.

Chinese officials accuse the Japanese of… flexing its military muscle.

China said the presence of a Japanese Self-Defence Forces vessel in the Taiwan Strait is provocative, in a sign that ties between Asia’s two largest economies continue to be strained.“Japan’s dispatch of a SDF vessel into the Taiwan Strait to flex its military muscle and deliberately provoke trouble is compounding its mistakes,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said at a regular press briefing on April 17.“The Chinese military has handled it in accordance with law.”

The accusation is laughable in light of Chinese naval drills and sorties over Taiwan, the most recent of which resulted in a top Japanese diplomat underscoring his nation’s support.

Japan’s leaders appear to have reached the point where Beijing’s tantrums over Taiwan no longer intimidate, and they are quietly adjusting their posture accordingly.

As China rails about “provocations” while running its own warships, trawlers, and air drills around its neighbors, Tokyo is signaling that the era of passively absorbing communist bullying in the Western Pacific may be drawing to a close.

And that’s a good thing.