China Declares Japan a Threat to Regional Peace

China escalated its diplomatic offensive against Japan on October 8, with a senior envoy telling the United Nations that Japan has become “a prominent factor threatening regional peace and stability,” while the Foreign Ministry renewed demands that Tokyo severely punish a former Japanese soldier who stormed the Chinese embassy with a knife.

The two statements, delivered on the same day and published by Chinese state media on October 9, mark the sharpest public criticism Beijing has aimed at Tokyo in a year of mounting friction.

A UN Rebuke Over ‘Re-Militarization’

Speaking at the First Committee of the 81st UN General Assembly, which handles disarmament and international security, Chinese delegation head Sun Xiaobo accused Japan’s government of denying its history of aggression, glorifying war crimes, and accelerating what he called “re-militarization,” according to Xinhua News.

Sun, who also serves as director-general of the Foreign Ministry’s Department of Arms Control, framed his remarks around the 80th anniversary of the opening of the Tokyo Trial, the post-World War II tribunal that tried Japanese war criminals.

“Japan’s current administration denies its history of aggression, glorifies war crimes, and worships WWII war criminals, while continuously strengthening its military and expanding armaments,” Sun said. “It has become a prominent factor threatening regional peace and stability.”

He pointed to a sitting senior Japanese official who he said openly discussed the possibility of possessing nuclear weapons, allegedly seeking to abandon Japan’s “Three Non-Nuclear Principles.” He also criticized Japan’s proposal to delete the so-called “enemy-state clauses” from the UN Charter, describing it as “the latest example of Japan challenging the post-war international order under the cloak of ‘national normalization.’”

“Japan should deeply reflect on its history of aggression, thoroughly break with militarism, completely give up its ‘re-militarization’ scheme,” Sun said.

Beijing has repeatedly invoked the Tokyo Trial anniversary to press historical grievances. In a May statement marking the 80th anniversary of the tribunal’s opening, the Foreign Ministry warned that “the poison of Japanese militarism has not been cleared,” accusing right-wing forces of distorting history and pushing constitutional revision, as noted by the Chinese Embassy in Albania.

Embassy Attack Demands Renewed

Separately, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a daily briefing that Japan’s handling of the embassy attack would test whether Tokyo can fulfill its obligations under international law and would bear on “Japan’s national credibility and international image,” according to the official transcript of the October 8 press conference.

The case centers on Murata Kodai, a serving officer of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force holding the rank of third-class lieutenant. On March 24, he climbed the wall of the Chinese embassy in Tokyo carrying a knife and forced his way in—an incident China has called “unprecedented in the international community.”

The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office formally indicted Murata on July 27 on charges of building intrusion, violation of the Firearms and Swords Control Law, and coercion, as China Daily reported. At the first public hearing at the Tokyo District Court on October 1, Murata pleaded guilty to the unlawful knife intrusion but denied the coercion charge, according to a Beijing Daily report.

“A serving officer of the Japanese Self-Defense Force intruding into the Chinese embassy in Japan with a knife and issuing violent threats to Chinese diplomats is a malign incident unprecedented in the international community,” Mao said. “It seriously violates the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.”

In the same briefing, she said the episode exposed “deep-seated problems including rampant right-wing forces in Japan and the failure to manage and educate SDF personnel,” and repeated China’s demand that Japan “severely punish the perpetrator to deter others.”

The Chinese Embassy in Japan issued a similar demand immediately after the October 1 hearing, saying the case “has clear facts and conclusive evidence and admits no denial whatsoever,” according to China Youth Daily.

“China and the international community are watching how Japan handles this case,” an embassy spokesperson said.

A Year of Escalating Friction

The two statements land amid the deepest crisis in China-Japan relations in years. It began in November 2025, when Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae suggested Japan might intervene militarily if China attacked Taiwan—remarks Beijing has demanded she retract.

China responded with a wave of economic and diplomatic countermeasures, restricting Japanese seafood imports, discouraging tourism to Japan, cutting off diplomatic channels with Tokyo, and limiting exports of critical minerals and rare earths. Those pressures have deepened in recent months: Chinese tourist numbers to Japan fell 59 percent year-on-year in August, while exports of rare-earth magnets to Japan dropped 52 percent in July and a further 17 percent in August, according to the New York Times.

Takaichi has sought to re-engage Beijing, dispatching delegations of lawmakers and business leaders, but Chinese officials have publicly insisted her “erroneous words and deeds” on Taiwan remain the main obstacle. Analysts note the two sides lack a trusted intermediary, particularly after Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party lost its longtime coalition partner Komeito, which had served as a communication channel with China.

The two October 8 statements, while addressing distinct issues, project a coordinated, multi-front pressure campaign. The UN remarks advance a structural critique of Japan’s security policy for a global audience, while the embassy case leverages international law and a criminal proceeding to portray Japan as unable to control extremism within its own military.

What to Watch

Several questions remain open. The Tokyo District Court has yet to hand down a sentence for Murata, and the next hearing date has not been announced. Whether Japan responds substantively to Sun’s accusations about the “enemy-state clauses” and nuclear policy is also unclear.

Attention now turns to whether Takaichi and Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the APEC forum in Shenzhen in November 2026. Neither side has confirmed such a meeting, and analysts suggest any thaw would hinge on whether Beijing considers Tokyo’s stance acceptable.

For now, Beijing’s message is unmistakable: it intends to keep Japan under sustained diplomatic pressure on both historical and security grounds—and to make the embassy attack a lasting test of Tokyo’s credibility.