"Recently, Japanese leaders have made blatantly provocative statements about Taiwan, which has seriously damaged the climate for exchanges between our people," the Chinese embassy in Tokyo wrote on social media.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said last week that armed attacks on Taiwan could prompt Japan to send forces to support the island under so-called “collective self-defense.” After China summoned Japan’s ambassador, a Japanese government spokesman stressed that the country’s stance on Taiwan was “unchanged” and called for “peace and stability.”
The government in Beijing considers Taiwan to be part of China, but in practice Taiwan has been self-governing and separate since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, when rival governments took over in Beijing and Taipei respectively.
