Japan is learning that a more activist foreign policy brings higher risks as China issues increasingly direct threats about teaming up with Washington. It is no coincidence that pressure from Beijing is coming just as Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga prepares for his first meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden.
“China hopes that Japan, as an independent country, will look at China’s development in an objective and rational way instead of being misled by some countries holding biased view against China,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said to his Japanese counterpart, Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, in a phone call. He also made clear that China felt free to lecture Japan on its security alliance with the United States, a 61-year-old pact that both countries like to say is the closest in the world.
