Minato City skyline in Tokyo, Japan (file photo). Photo: David Kernan, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.
China’s Foreign Ministry said Friday that Japan-China relations still face “serious difficulties” a year after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks on Taiwan, as Beijing’s space program lofted Yaogan-51 remote-sensing satellites from Xichang and Chinese security reviewers blocked SoftBank’s planned purchase of ABB’s robotics business. war.gov carried no new Indo-Pacific strike release in the coverage window.
Key figures: 1 year since takaichi’s taiwan “survival-threatening situation” remark · 3 yaogan-51 remote-sensing satellites china said entered orbit · 675 long march mission number for the xichang launch
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a Friday news conference that Japan-China relations are facing serious difficulties and that responsibility “lies entirely with Japan’s side,” Anadolu Agency reported. Relations deteriorated after Takaichi said on Nov. 7, 2025, that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise collective self-defense. Guo said those remarks “have shaken the political foundation of relations between our two countries,” that there had been no progress over the past year, and that Japanese authorities had shown no sincerity or taken action to reflect on their wrongdoing. “Once again, we want to make clear that it is urgent for the Japanese side to correct these erroneous remarks on the Taiwan question,” he said, urging Japan to adopt a “correct attitude” toward historical issues and take a “rational and objective view” of China. No new Japanese rebuttal to Friday’s briefing appeared in the opened wires. Claims and characterizations from Chinese state spokespeople are attributed here Unverified claim, Xinhua/Chinese MFA (Chinese state media).
Yaogan-51 launch from Xichang
State-run Xinhua said China launched Yaogan-51 satellites 07-09 aboard a Long March-2C carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern Sichuan for scientific experiments and electromagnetic environment detection, and that the satellites entered their preset orbits, Anadolu reported. The launch marked the 675th mission of China’s Long March carrier rocket series. Remote-sensing Yaogan launches are routinely treated by outside analysts as dual-use; Beijing describes them as civilian remote sensing. Cross-desk note: today’s Space War package, when published, will track the same launch from the space-security angle.
SoftBank robotics deal blocked
ABB said SoftBank informed it that China’s Office of the Working Mechanism for Foreign Investment Security Review prohibited SoftBank’s acquisition of ABB’s robotics business in China, creating a regulatory obstacle to the planned roughly US$5.4 billion takeover, Anadolu reported. ABB agreed in October 2025 to sell the division at an enterprise value of about US$5.375 billion. The companies said they remain in dialogue and continue to work on the transaction. The Financial Times, as relayed by Anadolu, reported Chinese concern that robotics data could be transferred overseas and used to train artificial intelligence models; ABB did not confirm that rationale in its statement. The same SoftBank block is the lead development in today’s Trade War report.
North Korea channel and U.S. releases
Separately, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called for “continuous growth” in ties with North Korea during a meeting with a visiting Pyongyang delegation led by Kim Song Nam, Anadolu reported, citing the Chinese Foreign Ministry. war.gov’s news feed carried no new Indo-Pacific strike item in the window checked for this edition, war.gov RSS.
By the numbers
Friday’s diplomacy clock runs one year from Takaichi’s Nov. 7, 2025, Taiwan remark. The Yaogan-51 package put three satellites (07-09) into orbit on Long March mission 675, following a low-orbit internet batch that Xinhua counted as mission 674 on Oct. 25. SoftBank’s blocked ABB robotics purchase carried an enterprise value of about US$5.375 billion to US$5.4 billion in the opened reporting. By TBR calculation from those enterprise-value figures, the rounded US$5.4 billion headline is about 0.5% above the US$5.375 billion figure ABB cited for the October 2025 agreement.
Sources
- Anadolu Agency: China says ties with Japan still face serious difficulties
- Anadolu Agency: China launches remote-sensing satellites
- Anadolu Agency: China blocks SoftBank’s acquisition of ABB robotics business in $5.4B deal
- Anadolu Agency: Chinese foreign minister calls for continuous growth in ties with North Korea
- US Department of War: war.gov News and Releases RSS feed
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