PRC Launches Campaign to Isolate Japan

The Jamestown Foundation | Matthew Fulco

The People’s Republic of China has moved from economic pressure to a campaign to isolate Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi over her pro-Taiwan stance, nearly a year into the dispute. Beijing is working through Japan’s domestic opposition, the UN Security Council and the U.S.–Japan relationship. Matthew Fulco judges that the effort is unlikely to succeed.

Beijing has hosted pro-PRC Japanese politicians and businesspeople, among them former Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya, who has led the Japan Association for the Promotion of International Trade since July. At the UN it resists Takaichi’s call to remove the “enemy state” clauses in Articles 53, 77 and 107 of the charter. After the September summit in Washington, a White House fact sheet recalled that the United States and China fought side by side in World War II. Fulco says Takaichi has handled this well. He expects pressure to continue as the PRC prepares for the 21st Party Congress in the fall of 2027.

Comment

The UN Charter’s enemy state clauses are dormant law, and Matthew Fulco treats them chiefly as a propaganda instrument. Article 53 allows enforcement action against former enemy states, but Article 27 requires all five permanent members to concur on substantive decisions. Washington, London and Paris would veto any such move against Japan. Japan’s legal exposure is therefore close to nil, and the cost it bears is reputational.

Removing the clauses is harder than keeping them, and the mechanism favours Beijing. Under Article 108, an amendment adopted by the General Assembly takes effect once two-thirds of members ratify it, including all five permanent members. China therefore holds a veto over the very text Takaichi wants changed. The 1995 and 2005 acknowledgements that the language is obsolete left the text untouched, which suggests why the label survives.

Guo Jiakun, the foreign ministry spokesman, has already cast the clauses as a safeguard against defeated states posing a future threat. Because Fulco’s reading places Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Finland under the same definition, an amendment would clear more than Japan’s record. Takaichi’s September 22 appeal could draw support from those six states, yet an amendment would still depend on Beijing’s permanent Security Council seat.

Strategic Question for Discussion

If the UN again recognises the “enemy state” clauses as obsolete, as in 1995 and 2005, what does Beijing gain by leaving them in the Charter?

The pattern suggests Beijing gains a standing rhetorical resource at little cost, since Article 53 cannot be used against Japan while Washington, London and Paris hold vetoes. My assessment is that the value lies in repeated chances to cast Takaichi as a militarist, which Fulco says lands less well with other UN members than at home. That value would shrink if the six other states in the clauses’ definition openly backed her appeal.

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