The Latest Complaint from China Is More Quibble Than Cognitive Warfare

このページを日本語で読む

"China is complaining again."

That was the exasperated reaction of a Japanese government official the other day. Asked what Beijing was objecting to this time, the official said it was yet another complaint over the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer Ikazuchi, which passed through the Taiwan Strait on the 17th.

There is nothing improper about a destroyer passing through the Taiwan Strait, which is international waters. Even so, a spokesperson for the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, which oversees operations around Taiwan, posted the following statement on social media.

"It sent the wrong signal to separatist forces advocating Taiwan independence. We will remain on high alert and firmly defend national sovereignty and security, as well as regional peace and stability."

According to the April 18 edition of the Asahi Shimbun, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson also said Beijing had protested to Japan, claiming the passage "seriously threatened China's sovereignty and security."

Treaty of Shimonoseki Claim

In any case, one might have expected the matter to end there. It did not.

This time, the Global Times, an online outlet affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party's official newspaper, the People's Daily, weighed in on April 19. Citing expert opinion, it noted that the Ikazuchi's passage came exactly 131 years after the signing of the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki, the peace treaty by which the Qing dynasty ceded Taiwan to Japan. The article claimed the timing was "no coincidence."

How many Japanese people could even name the date the Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed? To suddenly invoke an event from 131 years ago is baffling.

Cognitive Warfare, or Just Overreach?

China is now intensifying its use of cognitive warfare: efforts to influence people's psychology and thinking, including through AI-generated disinformation, and steer their behavior. The aim is to divide a target country's society by manipulating public opinion and spreading false information, ultimately leading it to poor policy decisions. This complaint, however, does not even rise to that level.

Perhaps China has engaged in cognitive warfare so obsessively that it has fallen into the trap of overinterpreting every word and action by the Japanese government and people as politically calculated or hiding some deeper intent. When Taiwan is involved, Beijing seems to become so worked up that its own powers of perception begin to fail.