Japan has been doubling down on it’s rhetoric against China and the new PM has even started a campaign to get rid of the article 9 provisions in the constitution. This has inflamed tensions and China would have a reasonable case for war if Japan landed troops onto sovereign Chinese soil.
But…China wouldn’t nuke them?
I mean I’m not saying they wouldn’t fight back, obviously, but China has a no first strike policy. Unless Japan launches nuclear weapons first, China wouldn’t launch them in the first place. This has been the policy ever since China first developed nuclear weapons. [I mean, the only other use case is that if China actually feels like they need to use it to prevent occupation/invasion of China. That’s what the nuclear arsenal has been developed for, to make occupation too costly for imperialist powers. I guess technically you could argue a deployment onto Taiwan would count, but…its kinda just dumb? It’s not like Russia nuked Ukraine after it invaded Kursk. Xi isn’t sitting at his computer like “hehe yes I love nukes let’s blow up people.”]
Imo the most likely case would depend on escalation. I think if it’s limited to just a conflict over Taiwan island China would probably just blockade Japan and force a deal. [I mean…they could try a ground invasion bit I don’t think most Chinese people would actually want to do that given the immense resources required].
Sorry, I just keep seeing it said that “Japan will learn when they realize china has nukes this time,” even by non-chinese communists. And honestly it’s just…not funny? Like if it is a joke, I don’t see the punchline. If it’s not, then it’s foolish mental behavior at best and outright callous at worse. I’d expect those kinda things from Han nationalists with the username “Yonglesgreatestsoldier” or something.
i mean, anime people are pretty reactionary, but with such high rates of suicide, the lack of motivation for anything different to consoom anime and j-pop, and their submission to the US, japan is basically like the worst korea and doesn’t have enough people ready to die for the nippon bourgs
china doesn’t even need to nuke japan, just need to stop the anime figurine supply to royally f*ck them
China would be better off “nuking” Japanese social media with pro-communist messaging aimed at young people, who, like everywhere else in the world, see little possible future under the current system. Like the US, Japan’s capitalist system is crumbling, so the old guard is using the old tried and true method of resorting to fascism and nationalism.
I think the method of not interfering at all is far more effective. It does sound weird; but I personally think that if any attempt at meddling is made by China overtly or even just something that’s not completely covert it will be taken “to the end-zone” so to speak. America will use that, more than it already does with baseless accusations against BRICS, to associate any movement related to socialism or even leftism as “Chinese-influenced” and seek to terminate it by any means necessary with a free casus belli to do so.
China doing otherwise gives them no credibility, no basis to any of their accusations. It makes them seem more estranged and gives added emphasis to the hypocrisy. It also establishes a precedent that they respect national sovereignty…more so than the IMF or what the west has to offer.
Not sure they have to interfere directly. TikTok was single-handedly responsible for waking US citizens to Israeli crimes and genocide, and that was marketed as a teenage dance video app. Lending a voice to the voiceless seems to work wonders.
Personally, it seems to me that many of us have been acculturated to expect some sort of swift-instant-justice.
You can see this demonstrated quite clearly in a lot of online media / video compilations.
The nuclear weapon probably demonstrates some form of this instant justice- even if accompanied by the deaths of untold innocent lives.
Let me say that I agree with you on the jokes not being funny, but I take it as some form of mental cope- to think that China could simply and without much effort- deliver what many think Japan (and by extension their least favorite country: The U.S) owes China, suffrage.
A little bit off topic, but why TF does right wing nationalism (which is supposed to be all about exclusive self determination of one’s own country) always end up compromising with American interests?
We saw this with Ukraine, Britain, Canada, and now Japan. I’m sure there are many many others.
To answer your question, the invasion of China won’t be conducted by Japan. It will be a joint task force consisting of the US, South Korea, the Philippians, and Japan.
As it is, a simulation of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan has the US + Allies able to hold off the invasion, but with massive losses, including 2 of its 10 aircraft carriers, Taiwan losing its navy and Japan losing half its fleet of fighter jets and a quarter of its navy. China would lose 1/15 of its air force and 1/6 of its navy.
In short, China doesn’t need nukes.
https://socialbites.ca/politics/reimagined-csis-war-gaming-on-taiwan-2026-and-beyond
And it’s not just Japan. South Korea and the Philippians are experiencing a military buildup as well. Otherwise these countries do not have the qualifications to invade China alongside the US.
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/south-korea-track-become-defence-powerhouse
why TF does right wing nationalism (which is supposed to be all about exclusive self determination of one’s own country) always end up compromising with American interests?
Two things:
One, right-wing nationalism is always anti-communist so they naturally will ally with the dominant Anti-communist power.
Two, a lot of those movements (or at least their most prominent representatives) are often astroturfed by Americans in the first place.
Nukes are kinda weird. As far as I can tell, there really isn’t any reason to actually use them unless you’re going scorched earth (literally), as in pretty much either genocidal or tit for tat against an enemy that’s trying to be genocidal toward you. Using them without dire backlash so far worked only once in history because at the time, the US was the only one who had them and I’m sure because of how well positioned the US was at the end of the war to get away with it. Since then, the proliferation has created the policy of MAD, Mutually-Assured Destruction, effectively creating a stalemate mindset toward nukes: what benefit is there in going scorched earth (even for the most barbaric colonial/imperial forces) if the enemy can also go scorched earth?
So instead we see decades of sieges conducted through economic policy, color revolutions, conventional bombings, and so on. Which nevertheless can be extremely murderous, including toward civilians, it just doesn’t happen all at once the way a nuke does. The more insidious nukes are the violent campaigns of imperialism and colonialism that have genocided peoples over territorial control and this framed in terms of “civilizing”, “peacekeeping”, “freedom.”
As for China, it shows no interest in, nor benefit to be gained from, such violent policy, nuke or otherwise. Its people will undoubtedly defend its interests, but not with interest toward annihilating others. Neither the material conditions, nor worldview, are there to support such barbaric action. The more salient point is the economic power that its building and the ways it can use this to hit military interests with precise restrictions (such as in the rare earth minerals stuff that was going on with the US - they may have made a deal since? I’m not sure offhand), focusing on damaging warmongers without hurting civilians in the way that US sanction-wielding does. This isn’t to say they can’t defend themselves if attacked, but there is no reason to believe they would view it in some gleeful way as an opportunity to go scorched earth.
That said, I guess the less literal view of “China has nukes this time” is that China is far from helpless and if Japan tries to fuck with them the way imperial/colonial Japan did in the past, it’s not going to go well for Japan at all. Another way to put it is, China is the economic and military powerhouse this time, so Japan should be glad it’s not run by imperialists of a Chinese kind who like the idea of revenge and take the opportunity to work on relations instead. They are probably too dependent on US controls right now though, warping them toward self-defeating interests.
They’re most certainly joking but I agree they’re not doing a very good job at it.
