The Chinese Communist Party is waging a concerted effort to destabilize Japan, seeing its increasingly self-confident neighbor as a rising threat to its regional supremacy.
Tech giant OpenAI announced this week that it has banned a ChatGPT account linked to a Chinese law enforcement agency after it was found to be using the technology to undermine Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.
OpenAI’s principal investigator, Ben Nimmo, reported that the operation “revealed a lot about China’s strategy for covert influence operations and transnational repression,” which sought to disrupt the prime minister’s popularity through information warfare.
“These cyber special operations are large-scale, resource-intensive, and sustained,” Nimmo said in a Wednesday report following the investigation. “It’s not just digital, it’s not just about trolling, it’s industrialized […] It’s about trying to hit critics of the [Chinese Communist Party] with everything, everywhere, all at once.”
The Chinese law enforcement apparatus is reported to have used AI resources to puppet thousands of accounts, amplify genuine dissident voices within the country, and flood political offices with manufactured emails posing as foreign nationals.
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said during a regular briefing on Friday that the “situation threatens the very foundations of democracy.”
Sowing discord within the island nation is only one prong of Beijing’s multilateral campaign to neuter Japan following the rise of Takaichi’s unique brand of self-assured nationalism.
The CCP exploded with fury in November last year after Takaichi acknowledged the hypothetical invasion of Taiwan as a national security threat that could warrant a military response from Tokyo.
Members of the Beijing elite called Takaichi an “evil witch,” and a diplomat stationed in Japan even threatened to “cut off” her “filthy head” following her comments.
That ire has only grown as Takaichi repeatedly refuses to walk back her position, and scooped up a historic victory in a snap election because of it.
“China’s increasing harassment of Japan reflects a broader, long-term strategy to expand its influence and assert dominance across the Indo-Pacific,” a Taiwanese source familiar with the situation told the Washington Examiner.
Earlier this week, China imposed prohibitions on the export of dual-use items to 40 Japanese entities, including the sale of seven rare earth minerals used in heavy manufacturing.
Japan’s Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Kei Sato called the black lists, which included companies such as Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi Materials Corp, and Subaru Corp, “completely unacceptable and deeply regrettable.”
Beijing has justified these restrictions by claiming that Takaichi’s plans to remilitarize the island constitute a direct threat to regional peace. These condemnations often refer back to World War II and “Japan’s history of aggression,” accusing Tokyo of planning to resurrect its 20th-century campaign of imperial colonialism.
The Takaichi government is strategically ignoring Beijing’s incendiary rhetoric whenever possible. When Tokyo does respond, it typically takes a dispassionate, almost exasperated, tone.
When Beijing cautioned its citizens against travel to Japan, warning of a surge in arrests of Chinese nationals, Japan’s response to this accusation was an almost comically simple, three-line data sheet from the National Police Agency showing no such spike.
Meanwhile, Takaichi’s plans for remilitarization march on. The government is slashing restrictions on the development and export of lethal weapons, planning missile defense systems close to Taiwan, and preparing to ultimately push a constitutional change to allow the country to once again establish a standing military.
Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said this week that Japan’s actions have “once again laid bare the Japanese right-wing forces’ ambitions to breach the postwar international order, break free from domestic laws and remilitarize Japan.”
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She added: “The international community needs to stay on high alert, jointly safeguard the outcomes of the victory in WWII and the postwar international order, and firmly reject reckless moves of Japanese neo-militarism.”
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party of Japan approved plans on Friday to bolster national intelligence capabilities amid Chinese threats.
The proposal aims to establish an upgraded intelligence bureau and would establish a mandatory registration process for agents of foreign governments.