China on Tuesday (December 16, 2025) reiterated its demand that Japan retract Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks about Taiwan, more than a month after Ms. Takaichi said an attack on the democratically governed island could be deemed an existential threat to Japan.

“On key issues, Japan is still ‘squeezing toothpaste’ and ‘burying nails’, attempting to obfuscate and muddle through,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said during a regular press briefing, adding that Beijing is “firmly opposed to this”.

Diplomatic relations between Tokyo and Beijing have been at their lowest in years after Ms. Takaichi suggested a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a Military response from Tokyo.

Chinese fighter jets directed their fire-control radar at Japanese aircraft over international waters on Saturday (December 6, 2025) near Japan’s Okinawan islands in two separate incidents that Japan’s defence minister condemned as “dangerous”.

“These radar illumination went beyond what is necessary for the safe flight of aircraft,” Japan’s Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said in a post on X. Japan, he said, had lodged a protest with China over the “regrettable” incident.

The encounters over the islands, which are close to disputed territory claimed by both Japan and China, will likely ratchet up tension between the neighbours. Relations have already soured after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi warned that Japan could respond to any Chinese military action against Taiwan if it also threatened Japan’s security.

Democratically governed Taiwan is claimed by Beijing and lies just 110 kilometres (68.4 miles) from Japan’s westernmost Yonaguni Island.

Calls to China’s defence ministry outside of office hours on Sunday (December 7) were not answered.

Japan hosts the biggest overseas concentration of U.S. military power, including warships, aircraft and troops, with a big chunk of that contingent, including thousands of U.S. Marines based in Okinawa.

The U.S. State Department was not immediately available for comment.

The Chinese J-15 jets involved in the two incidents on Saturday (December 6) were launched from China’s Liaoning aircraft carrier, which was maneuvering south of the Okinawan islands along with three missile destroyers, Japan said.

On Thursday (December 4), China was deploying a large number of naval and coast guard ships across East Asian waters, which at one point numbered more than 100, Reuters reported citing sources and intelligence reports.

Taiwan’s government described that build-up as posing a threat to the Indo-Pacific region. Japan said it was monitoring Chinese activity closely.

Taiwan President Lai Ching-te showed his support for Japan on Thursday (November 20, 2025) with a lunch of Japanese-sourced sushi, after China indicated it would ban all imports of the country’s seafood in an escalating dispute over the Chinese-claimed island.

Tensions between the two countries ignited after new Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said this month that a Chinese attack on Taiwan threatening Japan’s survival could trigger a military response.

Mr. Lai, in pictures on his social media feeds, showed himself eating a sushi lunch of yellowtail from Japan’s Kagoshima and scallops from Hokkaido.

“Today’s lunch is sushi and miso soup,” he wrote on his Facebook and Instagram feeds, and used the same wording in Japanese on his X account. Taiwan’s government, which rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, has in recent years been subject to similar food export bans by China, including of Taiwanese pineapples and fish, in what Taipei has said is part of a Chinese pressure campaign.

Speaking to reporters at parliament earlier on Thursday, Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung said China’s use of economic coercion and military intimidation to “bully other nations are already too numerous to mention individually”. “At this critical juncture, we must also support Japan in effectively stabilising the situation and halting the Chinese communists’ bullying behaviour.”

Japan and Taiwan have a close though unofficial relationship and deep cultural and business ties. Japan ruled Taiwan from 1895 until the end of World War Two in 1945.