Why This Topic Landed in Japan

Fear of doing business in China is a recurring theme in Japan, and two China stories landed together.

China's amended National Defense Mobilization Law, enacted on August 28, takes effect on October 1. Under it, once a national-defense mobilization is decided and stockpiled supplies fall short, governments at the county level and above can requisition civilian resources and impose a duty to comply on organizations and individuals, with legal procedures and compensation attached. The law does not name foreign capital, and it does not authorize the immediate, unconditional seizure of "all foreign firms, individuals, and equipment." It spread in Japan as "Japanese companies will be conscripted."

Separately, at the recent U.S.-China summit Xi Jinping said the two had "fought as allies in World War II," and Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council rebutted that "the one that fought alongside the United States was the Republic of China"—a continuation of the U.S.-China thaw that Japanese boards have followed all week. Netizens seized on the point that the People's Republic was founded in 1949 and did not exist when the war ended in 1945 to attack Beijing's account. Taiwan's rebuttal is its authorities' political claim.

Key Reaction Themes

  • Alarm over China risk — The largest share warned that Japanese firms still operating in China have only themselves to blame if their assets are seized, and that factories and technology there could become military logistics.
  • Attacks on Beijing's historical account — Comments leaned on the 1949 founding date to cast China as a historical revisionist and to back Taiwan's version.
  • Cooler, skeptical reads — A smaller group discounted the threat, arguing China would have acted long ago or cannot sustain a third front alongside Ukraine and the Middle East.

What Japanese Netizens Are Saying

China's amended mobilization law takes effect in October

An amended National Defense Mobilization Law, letting the state requisition civilian resources in an emergency, is reported to take effect in October.

日本経済新聞 電子版（日経電子版）
日本経済新聞 電子版（日経電子版）
@nikkei
·

中国、「台湾統一」に備え総力戦準備　10月法改正で民間資源を軍事徴用 nikkei.com/article/DGXZQO…

www.nikkei.com中国、「台湾統一」に備え総力戦準備　10月法改正で民間資源を軍事徴用【北京=田島如生】中国は10月、有事の際に民間のインフラや先端技術といった資源を迅速に軍事転用するための改正国防動員法を施行する。輸送力の確保や軍事物資の調達を担う司令塔組織も立ち上げた。台湾有事を見据え、国を挙げた総力戦に備える狙いだ。国防動員法の改正は2010年の制定以来初めて。改正法は計82条で国防動員を「経済・社会力を国防力へ転換する活動」と定義した。中国の経済社会が平時から戦時へと円
Reply
Read 466 replies

Comments:

  • "Are there still Japanese companies that haven't pulled out?"
  • "Their factories will get taken; investing in China is the height of pointlessness—though the likes of Iwaya keep getting duped."
  • "Uniqlo will become military uniforms too, then—Japanese investors in Fast Retailing should sell their shares already."
  • "So they were projecting onto Japan the very thing they didn't want said about themselves—which one's the militarist state?"
  • "That's just a National General Mobilization Law."
  • "Are they seriously going to take on Taiwan? With Ukraine and the Middle East, they can't do three fronts—two at most."
  • "Requisitioning even foreign capital—do they want to repeat Zimbabwe's self-inflicted economic sanctions?"
  • "China has fully gone onto a wartime footing; as expected, China is far too dangerous a partner for Japan to ally or make friends with."
  • "As you'd expect from a military-dictatorship state."

Taiwan rebuts a "WWII allies" remark, reviving a cross-strait history fight

After Xi called the U.S. and China wartime allies, Taiwan countered that the Republic of China was the one that fought alongside the United States.

ロイター
ロイター
@ReutersJapan
·

中国が台湾の批判に反発、第2次大戦の歴史認識巡り reut.rs/4jw2hCr reut.rs/4jw2hCr

www.reuters.com中国が台湾の批判に反発、第2次大戦の歴史認識巡り中国政府は３０日、第２次世界大戦を巡る中国の歴史認識を台湾が批判した​ことを受け、「烈士を冒涜（ぼ‌うとく）している」と台湾を非難し、戦争に関する中国側の説明に疑問を呈することは歴​史への裏切りだと主張した。
Reply
Read 19 replies

Sources: Reuters, 2ch

Comments:

  • "The Chinese Communists were just running around dodging the fight."
  • "Did they forget what day their country was founded?"
  • "The People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, right? The Pacific War ended in 1945."
  • "They reset their history in the Cultural Revolution, so they don't know."
  • "The Chinese Communists are historical revisionists, after all."
  • "Even a layman can see this—Trump and Xi Jinping are both way too sloppy."
  • "Today's China is the one that shot the exhausted Republic of China in the back and took over the country—is that right?"
  • "While calling it Nationalist-Communist cooperation, they were shooting the Nationalists in the back."
  • "There's a Chinese Communist Party saying: 'A lie told a hundred times becomes truth.'"
  • "Honestly I think Taiwan's claim matches history—is the story different in China?"
  • "And yet they turn a blind eye to Tiananmen."
  • "It's all in how you say it—running away when the Japanese army showed up can be called 'guerrilla warfare' too."