PUBLISHED
January 04, 2026
US arms sales to Taiwan have pushed an already precarious arrangement into a far more volatile phase, and what is being supplied no longer sits comfortably within the language of “defensive” support.
At the same time, the regional blade has been sharpened from another direction. Japan’s embrace of “counterstrike” capabilities, its expanding role in arms exports and its deepening operational alignment with US forces show a structural shift in posture.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s statement soon after taking office that any Chinese military action against Taiwan could be grounds for a Japanese military response leaves little ambiguity about intent.
These moves, taken together, place Taiwan and Japan along the forward line of a strategic architecture increasingly organised around China as the primary object of containment.
Across the Indo-Pacific, US-led alliance structures have thickened with unusual speed.
The so-called “Squad” has openly dubbed China “the aggressor in the East and South China Seas”. The Quad, once framed as a loose consultative forum, is now a proper mechanism designed to counter Beijing’s rise rather than simply manage regional dialogue.
Similarly, the AUKUS pact intensifies this logic. Under AUKUS, the United States and the United Kingdom will transfer nuclear-submarine technology to Australia, delivering advanced Virginia-class vessels that US strategists openly describe as tools to counter China’s naval expansion.
US Congressman Joe Courtney has even called the pact “China’s worst nightmare”, arguing that it will “blunt China’s regional advantage” in the Pacific.
Imperial subcontracting
Japan occupies a structurally distinctive place within this architecture. Since the 1951 US-Japan security pact, Tokyo has functioned as a keystone of American power in Asia. Japan remains an “unsinkable aircraft carrier”, integrated into an American-led imperium following the destruction of its own prewar empire.
Japan’s pacifist constitution, particularly Article 9, drafted by US occupation authorities, was never simply a moral renunciation of war but was embedded within a carefully managed division of labour.
Since the Korean War, the understanding has been that the US would provide offensive capability and the Japanese Self-Defence Forces (JSDF) would concentrate on the less likely and smaller-scale impact of any spillover from regional conflicts. This arrangement ensured Japan’s subordination within alliance planning while preserving US strategic primacy.
In practice, Japan relies on the US nuclear umbrella, hosts more than 50,000 American troops, and provides bases, logistics and diplomatic alignment.
This structural asymmetry has made the alliance an imperial subcontract whereby Japan effectively purchases security guarantees by playing a junior role in American-led strategic projects. US strategy gains flexibility and reach. In return, Japanese leaders secure patronage and protection.
Recent shifts under successive governments and now under Takaichi have not overturned this logic. Rather, they have updated it. Japan’s move from narrow self-defence toward “counterstrike” capabilities, expanded arms exports and routine escorting of US forces (137 joint missions since 2017) signal remilitarisation, but on Washington’s terms.
Taiwan as the test case
Against this backdrop, Taiwan becomes more than a regional dispute. It functions as a test case for the post-1945 anti-imperialist settlement.
Strategically, Taiwan is where alliance politics, military technology and unresolved history intersect most dangerously.
A Chinese military study by CIIS characterises US strategy as relying on “self-damaging extreme ‘win lose’ competition, selective revisionist coercion, alliance network encirclement and proxy wars”, warning that this challenge must be “faced… head-on” through “comprehensive measures to safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests”.
While Washington maintains “strategic ambiguity” on Taiwan’s formal status, it is simultaneously transforming the island into a heavily militarised forward position.
Arms transfers have escalated dramatically — Trump’s $11.1 b weapons package in 2025 alone — while this militarisation is framed as the defence of democracy. Observers point out that such policies are driven less by concern for Taiwan’s people than by the island’s utility as leverage against China.
Against this backdrop, China’s position rests on historical continuity and international law rather than opportunism. Beijing maintains that Taiwan has been part of China’s territory since ancient times, grounding its claim in the Cairo and Potsdam Declarations and arguing that the island’s status was “sealed with seven locks” by history and international legal consensus.
This interpretation is widely recognised internationally and reaffirmed by major states, including Russia, with Foreign Minister Lavrov stating that Taiwan is “an inseparable part of China” and opposing independence “in any form”.
The People’s Republic of China, as the successor state to the Chinese nation that fought Japanese imperialism and reclaimed lost territories after World War II, sees the Taiwan question not as one of expansion, but of completing national reunification disrupted by civil war and foreign intervention.
The postwar international order never recognised Taiwan as a sovereign entity separate from China, and contemporary moves toward formal independence are inseparable from US strategic design. The danger is not democracy in Taiwan, but the weaponisation of that democracy by an external power seeking to contain China’s rise.
Seen in this light, the core contradiction is not between China and the Taiwanese people, but between China’s long-term national reunification project and a US-led strategy that treats Taiwan as a “fire-arm” aimed at the mainland. Militarisation and separatist escalation do not enhance Taiwan’s security but deepen its vulnerability by placing it on the frontline of great-power rivalry.
Normalisation of militarism
However, Japan’s remilitarisation is not unique. Germany’s post-2022 Zeitenwende reveals a parallel process in Europe. Both former Axis powers were forcibly demilitarised after 1945 and given constitutions under Allied supervision. Japan’s constitution explicitly renounces war, while Germany’s Basic Law criminalises wars of aggression and limits the Bundeswehr to defence.
In both cases, Cold War pressures quickly softened these restraints.
For decades, strong anti-war taboos shaped political culture in both societies. Japanese public opinion embraced “peace nationalism”, while German parties like the Greens and Social Democrats built identities around pacifism. Recent crises have produced a dramatic inversion.
After Russia invaded Ukraine, Germany announced a historic Zeitenwende, committing over €200 billion to defence spending and amending its constitution to allow open-ended military borrowing.
Japan followed a parallel but legally distinct path. Rather than amending Article 9, Tokyo relied on reinterpretation and emergency legislation. In 2014, Abe’s Cabinet decided, without a referendum, that Japan could exercise “the right of collective self-defence”.
The 2022 National Security Strategy explicitly calls for counterstrike capabilities, cyber and space warfare readiness and deeper integration with US forces.
For decades, Japan capped defence spending at around 1 percent of GDP, a restraint that began to loosen under the nearly decade-long leadership of Shinzo Abe, when the budget rose to roughly 1.1 percent. Under Sanae Takaichi, Japan is now set to reach the 2 percent benchmark by March — two years ahead of schedule —and is widely expected to push spending even higher, particularly after NATO adopted a new target of 5 percent of GDP.
Takaichi’s revised defence policy aims to expand Japan’s military capabilities through unmanned combat systems and long-range missiles, while scrapping remaining restrictions on arms exports.
A government-commissioned panel has urged Japan to consider developing a nuclear-powered submarine to enhance long-range deterrence, drawing concerns from atomic bomb survivors and pacifist groups.
