Securing Taiwan: Separating the Two Sides of the Taiwan Strait in Japan’s China Policy

Abstract

ABSTRACT From the early 1950s to the early 1970s, Japan adhered to a policy of “Securing Taiwan” to safeguard its national interests and security. This policy was intended to protect Taiwan from China’s annexation and keep it in the Western bloc. In this article, I illustrate how conservatives in Japan pursued the policy both before and after its normalisation of diplomatic ties with Mainland China in the early 1970s. After the signing of the San Francisco Treaty in 1951, some in Japan began looking for opportunities to convince the Kuomintang regime in Taiwan to give up its claim to represent all of China and accept its true status as the ruler of Taiwan and the Penghu Islands. Securing Taiwan became one of Japan’s strategic goals and entailed separating politics from the economy in its foreign policy towards China. When Sino–Japanese diplomatic relations were restored in 1972, Japan denied the claim of Taiwan (the Republic of China) to represent all of China by recognising the Mainland (the People’s Republic of China). At the same time, Japan demanded that China recognise Japan’s right to maintain economic and cultural exchanges with Taiwan, so that the Securing Taiwan policy could be continued in the new era.