Tokyo’s Taiwan Conundrum: What Can Japan Do to Prevent War?

Abstract

In response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s August 2022 visit to Taiwan, Chinese missile firings, with some landing in Japan’s claimed exclusive economic zone (EEZ), vividly confirmed for many Japanese the notion that “a Taiwan contingency is a Japan contingency.” Even before this latest flareup in tensions across the Taiwan Strait, Japanese officials and defense analysts were increasingly focused on how a military crisis over Taiwan could embroil Japan. Japan confronts a strategic conundrum regarding the Taiwan question. It prefers the status quo of Taiwan maintaining political autonomy, and it wants to avoid a cross-strait war that would be catastrophic for Japan. But this status quo is becoming more precarious, and Tokyo faces vexing dilemmas in fashioning a policy to prevent a war over Taiwan. Geographic location makes Japan a pivotal actor in a Taiwan contingency; and as a consequence, it is virtually impossible to avoid becoming involved either as a military target or as a military asset. Given its reliance on the United States for security, Tokyo has to deal with the classic alliance dilemma between abandonment and entrapment. But domestic constitutional, legal and political constraints make it difficult for Japan to become a great power in a traditional sense and thereby liberate itself from this alliance dilemma. And in the