Overview
- Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Kihara said the government will not retract Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s statement that a Taiwan contingency involving the use of force could qualify as an existential crisis, adding it does not change Japan’s conventional position.
- Japan’s Asia-Oceania Bureau Director Masaaki Kanai met China’s Asia director Liu Jinsong in Beijing, but the talks ended without bridging gaps over Tokyo’s stance on Taiwan.
- The government approved a cabinet answer disclosing that the Self-Defense Forces had used 34 designated specific-use airports and ports nationwide through October, including seven locations in Hokkaido, marking the first public accounting of usage.
- China lodged a formal protest over the prime minister’s remarks, and at least one planned Japan–China expert meeting was postponed following the Diet exchange.
- Opposition leader Yuichiro Tamaki urged leaders of both countries to reaffirm the 2018 maritime and air communication mechanism to help prevent accidental incidents.