The exchange of letters between China and Japan at the United Nations centres on sharply divergent interpretations of sovereignty, security, and the post-war international order. Firstly, Ambassador Fu Cong argues that Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks on a potential “Taiwan contingency” violate the UN Charter, undermine World War II settlement documents, and breach Japan’s commitments under the 1972 Sino-Japanese Joint Statement, framing them as evidence of renewed militarisation. Japan rejects these claims, reaffirming its exclusively defence-oriented policy, adherence to international law, and its stated position that peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait should be maintained through peaceful dialogue. While both sides invoke the authority of the United Nations, the exchange highlights how regional security disputes are increasingly internationalised through UN procedures and competing narratives.
Key Takeaways for Europe
· Prevent marginalisation through institutions, not escalation
Learn from Japan’s fear of exclusion, but respond by strengthening EU procedural leverage in the UN rather than adopting alliance-driven security rhetoric.
· Condition of great-power stabilisation in the UN framework
Ensure that any US–Russia or US–China stabilisation is anchored in United Nations Security Council processes and cannot bypass EU or European government participation.
· Protect the legitimate role of the General Assembly
Resist securitising the United Nations General Assembly as a surrogate battleground; prioritise norms, process, and institutional continuity.
· Make EU participation operationally indispensable
Retain control over sanctions, reconstruction, humanitarian implementation, and monitoring so that no agreement can be realised without European involvement.
Introduction
In late 2025, diplomatic tensions between China and Japan over Taiwan escalated into a visible confrontation at the United Nations. Statements by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi linking a potential Taiwan contingency to Japan’s national survival prompted a forceful response from China, including formal communications to the UN Secretary-General, in which China accused Japan of provocative behaviour and violations of the post-war international order. Japan’s mission to the UN rejected these claims and reaffirmed Tokyo’s defensive posture and adherence to international law. The exchange was amplified by coordinated messaging from official Chinese and Japanese sources and unfolded largely through UN procedures rather than bilateral channels.
This episode is analytically significant not primarily because of its implications for East Asian security, but because it illustrates how regional disputes are increasingly channelled through multilateral institutions at moments of strategic uncertainty. For Europe, the relevance of this episode lies in its structural parallel to a different but related concern: the persistent risk of being marginalised when great powers pursue stabilisation or accommodation.
The Japanese reasons
Japan’s behaviour in this dispute is best understood against the backdrop of its historical experience of exclusion during the 1971–72 Sino-US rapprochement. The so-called Nixon shock generated a durable strategic reflex in Tokyo, centred on the avoidance of surprise through alliance consolidation. Over subsequent decades, Japan sought to ensure that any future accommodation between Washington and Beijing would occur within parameters that safeguarded Japanese security interests. In recent years, this logic has translated into sharper public signalling, particularly in Taiwan, and a greater willingness to frame regional security concerns in international forums.
This strategy has proven effective in one respect: it raises the political and alliance costs for the United States of engaging in stabilisation that could be interpreted as disadvantaging Japan. At the same time, it generates escalation dynamics that narrow diplomatic space and encourage counter-mobilisation by China. Multilateral institutions, including the United Nations, become arenas for alliance signalling rather than platforms for collective problem-solving. These costs are manageable for Japan because its strategic leverage is primarily anchored in alliance proximity and regional deterrence, rather than institutional authority.
Europa vis-à-vis Japanese position
Europe faces a structurally similar anxiety, albeit in a different strategic theatre. Historically, major adjustments in European security, from the Cold War détente to post-Cold War arms control, have often been negotiated bilaterally between Washington and Moscow, with European actors consulted only after key parameters had been established. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has temporarily reinforced transatlantic cohesion, but it has not eliminated the structural possibility of future US–Russia stabilisation driven by escalation fatigue, domestic political change, or global strategic recalibration. From this perspective, Europe confronts a dilemma analogous to Japan’s post-Nixon predicament: how to avoid becoming a passive object of great-power bargaining.
Despite this shared concern, Europe cannot replicate Japan’s strategy without undermining its own sources of influence. Unlike Japan, Europe lacks a unified deterrence posture and operates through a complex constellation of states and institutions. Attempts to raise relevance through rhetorical escalation would expose internal divisions within the European Union and weaken Europe’s credibility as a coherent actor. More importantly, Europe’s power is deeply embedded in the credibility and functioning of multilateral institutions. Aggressively securitising UN forums risks eroding the very arenas in which Europe exercises disproportionate influence relative to its military capabilities. Escalation also creates incentives for great powers to bypass institutions altogether, thereby accelerating the marginalisation Europe seeks to prevent.
Europe’s comparative advantage lies instead in procedural power: the capacity to shape decision-making processes, norms of legitimacy, and the conditions under which outcomes are accepted and implemented. This form of power is most visible within the UN system, where European states are densely embedded across Security Council practices, General Assembly coalitions, sanctions regimes, humanitarian agencies, and post-conflict reconstruction mechanisms. While Europe cannot determine outcomes unilaterally, it can influence how accommodation is structured and operationalised, ensuring that stabilisation remains institutionally anchored rather than purely bilateral.
Within the Security Council, this procedural leverage allows Europe to condition, rather than block, great-power accommodation. By insisting that issues likely to be subject to bilateral bargaining, such as ceasefires, sanctions adjustment, or arms control, remain framed as multilateral concerns, European actors can reinforce expectations of transparency and collective deliberation. Such practices do not prevent stabilisation but embed it within institutional settings where European participation becomes unavoidable.
The General Assembly plays a complementary but distinct role. It is the primary arena in which Europe can mobilise broad coalitions and shape normative discourse, yet it is also particularly vulnerable to securitisation when the Security Council is deadlocked. The China–Japan episode demonstrates how easily the Assembly can be transformed into a surrogate battlefield for alliance signalling. For Europe, preserving the Assembly’s legitimacy-producing function is essential. This requires prioritising procedural norms, sovereignty, proportionality, humanitarian access, and institutional continuity over issue-specific deterrence narratives that mirror alliance politics.
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The central lesson Europe should draw from Japan is therefore not one of escalation, but of strategic vigilance translated into institutional control. Japan sought to avoid exclusion by raising the cost of accommodation; Europe should seek to avoid exclusion by shaping the rules under which accommodation occurs. By anchoring negotiations in multilateral formats, embedding outcomes in UN procedures, and retaining control over implementation mechanisms such as sanctions regimes, reconstruction finance, and monitoring mandates, Europe can ensure that no durable great-power stabilisation can be realised without its participation. In an international system increasingly characterised by selective multilateralism and bilateral bargaining, Europe’s most credible strategy is not to harden confrontation, but to institutionalise indispensability.
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Acknowledgement: This commentary was prepared as part of the project “Redefining Multilateralism through Relationality: China’s Diplomacy in the United Nations”, supported by the National Science Centre (Poland) under Grant Agreement No. UMO-2024/53/B/HS5/02879.
