How China’s two-for-one diplomatic threat forced Japan’s Takaichi to back down

One year after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks on a Taiwan contingency froze Beijing-Tokyo ties, a Japanese media report has detailed a failed diplomatic mission to turn the table. The episode, revealed by the Yomiuri newspaper on Sunday, occurred during a meeting in Beijing on November 18 last year between Masaaki Kanai from the Japanese foreign ministry and his Chinese…