Taiwan Believes Japan Will Help Defend Against China
Opinion polling shows that trust in Tokyo is surprisingly deep.
Foreign Policy
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Ever since former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared in 2021 that “a contingency for Taiwan is a contingency for Japan” Taiwanese-Japanese relations have continued to solidify to historic highs. When current Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi stated in November 2025 that a Chinese attack on Taiwan “could constitute a situation threatening Japan’s survival,” many inferred that Japan may come to Taiwan’s aid even if Japan itself were not directly attacked. Her remarks produced a furious reaction from China, while back in Taiwan, the Lai administration of President Lai Ching-te thanked and lauded Japan for its support.
Although foreign-policy observers are used to a contentious Chinese-Japanese relationship, the opposite is largely true of Taiwanese-Japanese relations in today’s contemporary era. Even when Taiwan’s pro-China-leaning Kuomintang (KMT) party is in power, Taiwan and Japan often have a more productive than antagonistic relationship. This closeness peaks especially when Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are in power at the same time. Under the LDP’s Abe and DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen, relations reached new levels of development. Under today’s Takaichi and Lai administrations, we see even stronger fervor for Japan-Taiwan ties coming from each president.
Ever since former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared in 2021 that “a contingency for Taiwan is a contingency for Japan” Taiwanese-Japanese relations have continued to solidify to historic highs. When current Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi stated in November 2025 that a Chinese attack on Taiwan “could constitute a situation threatening Japan’s survival,” many inferred that Japan may come to Taiwan’s aid even if Japan itself were not directly attacked. Her remarks produced a furious reaction from China, while back in Taiwan, the Lai administration of President Lai Ching-te thanked and lauded Japan for its support.
Although foreign-policy observers are used to a contentious Chinese-Japanese relationship, the opposite is largely true of Taiwanese-Japanese relations in today’s contemporary era. Even when Taiwan’s pro-China-leaning Kuomintang (KMT) party is in power, Taiwan and Japan often have a more productive than antagonistic relationship. This closeness peaks especially when Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are in power at the same time. Under the LDP’s Abe and DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen, relations reached new levels of development. Under today’s Takaichi and Lai administrations, we see even stronger fervor for Japan-Taiwan ties coming from each president.
But an understudied question is what Taiwanese voters themselves think of Japan, and whether they think Japan would actually come to Taiwan’s aid if China invaded.
In April, we conducted an original survey of 1,195 Taiwanese voters and asked them what they thought of Japan, Takaichi, and Japanese military commitments to Taiwan. We found that support for Japan is high—even across party lines—demonstrating that positive perceptions of Japan are not simply exclusive to DPP elites. In the same bipartisan pattern, most respondents believe that Japan will come to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a military conflict.
Overall, we found that the majority of Taiwanese voters surveyed see Japan in a positive light. Even the United States, once Taiwan’s mainstay but increasingly seen as a less-trustworthy ally as time goes on, does not have the same overall levels of positive perceptions as Japan. We also see that this lack of negative feeling toward Japan was consistent when we break this number down by party identification.
DPP voters show the highest level of positive attitudes toward Japan. About half of independent voters and a little more than 40 percent of Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voters also see Japan positively. The rest of independent and TPP voters are neutral, not negative, toward Japan. Only the KMT has a meaningful number of respondents who feel negative—but only 21.4 percent, compared to the 33.9 percent who see Japan positively. Surprisingly, even KMT voters do not have particularly negative feelings toward Japan.
Takaichi herself enjoys similar levels of support to those we saw for Japan overall. While the overall positive perceptions of Takaichi are slightly lower among KMT voters and negative perceptions slightly higher, the majority of KMT voters are neutral toward her.
This finding is somewhat novel and counterintuitive—since the KMT supports engagement with China and Takaichi has somewhat harmed Japan-China relations. This finding is also unexpected, because some KMT supporters, like many in China, carry strong anti-Japanese sentiment. It is surprising that so many KMT voters would still have such neutral and positive perceptions of Takaichi as a leader. Her positive messaging toward coming to Taiwan’s aid could be welcomed by more voters than simply DPP voters. At the very least, we do not see strong anti-Japanese sentiment from any specific groups.
Next, we asked whether our Taiwanese respondents believe that Japan will come to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a military conflict, broken down by party identification. While strong perceptions of Japanese aid from DPP voters is unsurprising, we see that a little more than half of KMT voters do not believe that Japan will come to Taiwan’s aid. While coming to Taiwan’s aid and perceptions of Japan are two different concepts, the high level of variation among independent, KMT, and TPP voters demonstrates the sheer number of people in Taiwan who are counting on Japan’s involvement in the event of a military conflict.
Further analysis shows that favorability toward Takaichi strongly shapes how Taiwanese voters perceive Japan’s commitment in a Taiwan contingency. Among respondents with positive views of Takaichi, 64 percent believe that Japan is likely or very likely to come to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a war with China. By contrast, only 20 percent of those with negative views of Takaichi hold the same expectation.
When we compare those who believe that Japan will come to Taiwan’s aid with those who believe that the United States will come to Taiwan’s aid, we see a symmetric relationship. Those who think that the United States is more likely to help Taiwan also perceive their likelihood of Japan’s commitment and vice versa. This makes intuitive sense; the United States and Japan have deepened their military cooperation and expanded the scope of their alliance.
As public perceptions of Japanese commitment and U.S. commitment show a strong positive correlation, this suggests that Taiwanese respondents may view the two as interconnected and, to some extent, reflects their confidence in the credibility of the U.S.-Japan security alliance. Importantly, this finding demonstrates that many in Taiwan perceive a conflict with China as not simply involving the United States, but also Japan, making perceived conflict a matter of regional scale, not simply between the Taiwan Strait.
Japan remains popular in Taiwan—and not just among DPP voters. We see relatively high positive if not neutral opinions of both Japan and Takaichi, even from KMT and TPP voters. When it comes to whether Japan will come to Taiwan’s aid, Taiwanese voters are largely split. But this split reflects how conflict with China continues to be an open-ended question. While many Taiwanese voters see conflict as just a matter of just cross-strait relations, many others see it as a global issue involving both Japan and the United States.
Not all is positive and productive, especially in recent months. In April, Taiwanese Premier Cho Jung-tai flew to Japan to watch Taiwan’s baseball team play. The trip was supposed to be low-key and made in Cho’s private capacity, but it ended up becoming a controversial publicity stunt for Cho and Taiwan, leading to frustration and strain from Japan.
Japan “felt betrayed” by the stunt, which has potentially set Japan-Taiwan relations back a step. While elite-level politics between Taiwan and Japan continue to change with the Lai and Takaichi administrations respectively, civil society relations continue to demonstrate strong, robust relations across party lines—something that is rare in Taiwan in today’s political climate.
However, in the future, this could lead to a tension where Taiwan’s civil society looks far more favorably upon Japan than the Japanese government does on the Lai administration. This disconnect between elite politics and civil society perceptions may matter, especially if Taiwanese voters see the Japanese government as a true lifeline in the event of a future conflict with China.
