In 2021 Taiwan and the Taiwan Strait have made it back into US-Japan joint statements. Tokyo and Washington have talked (more or less) openly and on the record about what to do jointly in the worst-case scenario: a US-Chinese conflict over Taiwan. On 5 July, then Japanese Deputy Prime Minister and the country’s Finance Minister Taro Aso announced that Japan would join the US in defending Taiwan against a Chinese invasion, treating an attack on Taiwan as an «existential threat» to Japanese security and territory. The quality and scope of Japanese contributions to US-led military operations in a Taiwan/Taiwan Strait crisis scenario depend on the circumstances and the crisis scenario. The devil would be very much in the details. However, fortunately, China is very unlikely to attack or invade Taiwan (any time soon) even though Tokyo and Washington – together with other like-minded countries in the region – are preparing for various worst-case scenarios. What China calls Western containment to «suppress» China and secure US (military) hegemony in the region is in reality Tokyo and Washington jointly preparing for various worst-case scenarios in reaction to Chinese very assertive regional security policies in general and policies related to territorial claims in particular
