World Affairs

China and Japan: Uneasy Neighbours in East Asia

Massive Demonstrations in Iran Against the Clerical Regime

By Shashi P.B.B. Malla

China and Japan are at odds again.

China and Japan – frenemies, trading partners and uneasy neighbours with a tortured bloody history they still struggle to navigate —  are freshly at each others rhetorical throats as 2026 begins (AP/Associated Press, Jan. 8).

And it’s over the same sticking points that have kept them resentful and suspicious for many decades: Japan’s occupation of parts of China in the 20^th Century, the use of military power in East Asia, economics, and politics – and of course, national pride.

From insinuations that Chinese citizens face dangers in Japan to outright accusations of resurgent Japanese imperialism, this first week of the year in China has been marked by the Communist government scorning Tokyo on multiple fronts and noticeably embracing the visiting leader of another crucial strategic neighbour: South Korea.

The latest chapter in Japan-China tensions surged in November 2025 when Japan’s new prime minister Sanae Takaichi waded into choppy bilateral waters.

She said, in effect, that if China moves militarily against Taiwan, she would not rule out involving Japan’s constitutional defence-only military.

That did not go over well in Beijing which has acted against Tokyo over the years for far less.

“Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s erroneous remarks concerning Taiwaninfringe upon China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, blatantly interfere in China’s internal affairs, and send a military threat to China,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said a week after Chinese military exercises around the island ended.

“We urge Japan to face up to the root causes of the issue, reflect and correct its mistakes”(AP).

That is hardly uncommon language, China frequently demands Japan ponder the path it has taken and correct its ‘erroneous’ course.

Itsrhetoric sure but it goes far deeper.

And sometimes it is hard to tellwhat is real and what is ginned up for domestic political consumption.

Because when it comes to the China-Japan relationship, anger remains a powerful and enduring tool on both sides.

And there is no indication that’s going away anytime soon.

A long history of antagonism

From the time Japan colonised Taiwan in 1895 after a war with Qing Dynasty China, a deep suspicion and at times outright enmity has existed between the two countries.

It worsened in the 1920s and 1930s after Japan’s brutal occupation of parts of China resulted in torture and deaths that the Chinese resent to this day.

At the same time, Japanese leaders – including Ms. Takaichi – have thrown incendiary political footballs like visits to the Yasukuni Shinto Shrine in Tokyo, a memorial to Japanese who gave their lives in the nation’s wars – including some war criminals from the Sino-Japanese wars.

China like clockwork, responds with nindignation.

Japan lost World War II to the Allied Powers and relinquished offensive military powers under a US-drafted constitution, even as the current Communist Chinese government was establishing the People’s Republic in 1949.

Since then, any hint of Japanese military assertiveness has drawn great umbrage in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Disputes over territory, such as an island chain called Diaoyu in China and Senkaku by Japan, spike occasionally.

The enmity, pulled out when something is perceived as aggressive or anger is required for a domestic audience, lurks barely beneath the surface, ready to pop.

Even today, cartoons circulate online in China depicting Japanese as demonic, aggressive and anti-China.

Last week has been an illuminating case study.

First, China slapped restrictions on ‘dual-use exports’ to Japan – anything it said, that Japan could adapt for military use.

Though it did not specify what the ban includes, anything from drones to rare earths could be considered dual-use.

The lack of specificity allows China to adjust its approach as it goes – making it more or less strict depending on where the political winds are blowing.

Japan then demanded that the move be rescinded.

“These measures, which only target Japan, deviate significantly from international practice, its Foreign Ministry said, calling China’s actions ‘absolutely unacceptable and deeply regrettable’ (AP).

This came days after Japan protested mobile digging rigs in the East China Sea.

While the Chinese Commerce Ministry did not mention a rare earths curb, the official newspaper China Daily, seen as a government mouthpiece, quoted anonymous sources saying Beijing was considering tightening exports of certain rare earths to Japan.

The focus then turned to a gas called dichlorosilane, used in computer chip manufacturing.

The Chinese Commerce Ministry said it had launched an investigation into why the price of dichlorosilane imported from Japan had decreased 31 percent between 2022 and 2024.

“The dumping of imported products from Japan has damaged the production and operation of our domestic industry,” it said (AP).

Finally, China’s Arms Control and Disarmament Association, a ‘non-governmental agency’ (inasmuch as any agency in China can be non-governmental) release with some fanfare a report provocatively titled ‘Nuclear Ambitions of Japan’s Right-Wing Forces: A Serious Threat to World Peace.’

It spent 29 pages outlining worries and accusations that Tokyo harbours dangerous nuclear ambitions.

But it also went broader, invoking once again its stance that the nation’s right-wing leaders – and by extension, the whole country itself – have ‘failed to reflect on Japan’s history of aggression’.

“Japan has never been able to fully eliminate the scourge of militarism in the country,” the report said, “If Japan’s right-wing forces are left free to developpowerful offensive weapons, or even possess nuclear wqeapons, it will again bring disaster to the world.”

The Seoul Card

As part of the equation: China’s visible pivot to another regional neighbour, South Korea whose president spent four days in Beijing.

Seoul has a bumpy history of its own with Japanese aggression and also sporadic – though generally less intense – friction with Beijing, a long time supporter and ally of its prime rival North Korea.

Chinese media gave splashy coverage to Lee Jae Myung’s visit, touting new Beijing-Seoul agreements on trade, environmental protection and transportation – and notably technology, given the dual-export ban.

“This time .  .  . de-escalation and a return to the status quo [ between China and Japan ] may not be as easily achieved,” Sebastian Maslow, an East Asia specialist and associate professor of international relations at the University of Tokyo wrote in The Conversation last month.

“With diplomatic channels in short supply and domestic political agendas paramount, an off-ramp for the current dispute is not in sight” (AP).

Iran

Protests sweeping across Iran crossed the two-week mark with country’s government acknowledging ongoing demonstrations despite an intensifying crackdown and as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world.

The demonstrations began on December 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to US Dollar $ 1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear programme.

The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.

The death toll in protests has grown to at least 72 people killed, with over 2,300 others detained (AP).

Many from the regime have also been killed.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has signalled a coming clampdown, despite US warnings.

Trump doubled down on threats against the Iranian government: “If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get very hard by the United States”(NYT).

Tehran has escalated its threats, with Iran’s attorney general, Mohammad Movahedi Azad, warning that anyone taking part in protests will be considered an ‘enemy of God,’ a death-penalty charge.

The statement carried by Iranian state television said even thosewho ‘helped rioters’ would face the same charge.

US Support

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered support for the protesters.

“The United States supports the brave people of Iran,” Rubio wrote on the social platform ‘X’.

The State Department warned separately “Do not play games with President Trump. When he says he’ll do something, he means it.”

Trump was recently briefed on options for possible military strikes, but has not yet made a final decision about another  intervention, after Washington joined Israel’s 12-day war against the Islamic Republic in June of last year (NYT).

Support & Encouragement from Exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi

Iran’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who previous had called for protests, repeated in his latest message for demonstrators to take to the streets.

Reza Pahlavi lives in exile in the United States and has a sizable following in the diaspora.

He urged protesters to carry Iran’s old royal lion-and-sun flag and other national symbols used during the time of the Shah-in-Shah to ‘claim public spaces as your own.’

Pahlavi’s support of and from Israel has drawn criticism in the past – particularly after the 12-Day war – which had raised nationalistic tones in the past.

Demonstrators have shouted in support of the Shah in some protests, but it isn’t clear whether that’s support for Pahlavi himself or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution under Ayatollah Rohallah Khomenei.

“Our goal is no longer just to take to the streets. The goal is to prepare to seize and hold city centres,” Pahlavi said in a video (AFP/Agence France Presse, Jan. 12).

The writer can be reached at: shashimalla125@gmail.com