Yukio Hatoyama once again urges Takashi Sanae to apologize to China
At the 21st Jeju Forum, former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama once again criticized Takashi Sanae.
Hatoyama stated that Sanae's erroneous remarks and positions regarding Taiwan contradict the spirit of the Japan-China Joint Declaration, making China's anger understandable. The Japanese government should not support "Taiwan independence" and must clearly communicate this stance to China.
In fact, since last year when Sanae made inflammatory statements on the Taiwan issue, this is not the first time Hatoyama has called for her to retract her remarks and apologize to China—yet all such efforts have been met with silence.
Leaving aside the fact that Hatoyama has already been branded a "non-national" by Japan's right-wing for advocating engagement and cooperation with China, recent developments show that Sanae has shown no sign of reflection whatsoever, but instead has escalated provocations against China, determined to stand firm in her rhetoric regardless of damage to Japan’s industrial economy.
Theoretically, Japan's business community now holds far greater influence over Sanae than Hatoyama does, and possesses stronger capacity to push her toward correcting her mistakes.
But what has Japan's business community actually done? It has adopted a posture of solidarity with Sanae, opting instead to demand China lift sanctions and resort to under-the-table smuggling of rare earths, rather than pressuring her.
This actually reflects a growing consensus among Japan's business and political circles to adopt a hardline stance toward China, leaving little room for rationality or compromise. Hatoyama’s words may sound clear-minded, but they are ultimately powerless to bring about change.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1868969020241996/
Disclaimer: This article represents the personal views of the author