As Japan-China tensions rise after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Japan could exercise the right of collective self-defense in the event of a Taiwan contingency, public opinion in Japan on the issue is split down the middle.
Kyodo News reported on the 16th that in a telephone poll of 1,046 voters conducted on the 15th–16th, 48.8% of respondents supported exercising the right of collective self-defense in the event of a Taiwan contingency, while 44.2% opposed it.
On the 7th, in the House of Representatives (lower house), Prime Minister Takaichi, the first sitting Japanese prime minister to do so, said a "Taiwan contingency" could constitute a "survival-threatening situation" in which Japan may exercise the right of collective self-defense.
Regarding Prime Minister Takaichi's push to increase the defense budget, 60.4% of respondents supported it and 34.7% opposed it. The approval rating for the Cabinet led by Takaichi was 69.9%, up 5.5 percentage points from last month's survey. The share saying they do not support the Cabinet was 16.5%.
Meanwhile, the Constitutional Democratic Party, the main opposition, criticized Prime Minister Takaichi's remarks on Taiwan as inappropriate. According to Kyodo News, Constitutional Democratic Party leader Noda Yoshihiko said at a meeting in Nagasaki Prefecture on the 16th that "the prime minister's words went too far, making relations between Japan and China extremely grave," adding, "It was quite rash." He added, "It is an unwritten rule that the prime minister, the top commander of the Self-Defense Forces, must not carelessly speak about specifics."