During the Qin Dynasty over two millennia ago, a powerful official named Zhao Gao brought a deer before the emperor and proclaimed it a horse. When the emperor correctly identified it as a deer, Zhao Gao turned to the court officials, asking their opinion. Those who valued truth over their lives agreed with the emperor. Those who feared Zhao Gao’s power nodded and called it a horse. This ancient tale zhiluweima — pointing at a deer and calling it a horse — remains strikingly relevant today as China attempts to reshape international perceptions through deliberate distortion.
The latest manifestation of this ancient strategy emerged following Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s recent statement that a forced unification of Taiwan by mainland China would likely require Japan to respond militarily in self-defense. China’s state media and diplomatic apparatus from Washington to Tokyo, Paris to Cairo, immediately launched a coordinated campaign to paint these defensive concerns as evidence of Japanese militarism and warmongering, a classic case of pointing at a deer and calling it a horse.
China’s longstanding portrayal of Japan as a rapidly militarizing threat represents a calculated distortion of reality that serves multiple strategic purposes. Like Zhao Gao testing courtiers’ loyalty, Beijing seeks to identify which nations will echo its narrative despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
The facts paint a starkly different picture. Japan has maintained an unbroken peace for eight decades since World War II, longer than any major power, including China itself. Japan’s postwar Constitution contains Article 9, explicitly renouncing war as a sovereign right. Japan’s defense spending remains modest at approximately 2% of gross domestic product, still below commitments made by former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in the 2022 National Security Strategy.
Indeed, Japan’s postwar transformation from imperial aggressor to peaceful contributor to the international community stands as one of history’s most successful examples of national reformation. Japan has become a leading advocate for nuclear disarmament, maintaining its three nonnuclear principles of not possessing, producing or permitting nuclear weapons on its territory since 1967. It ranks among the world’s top providers of development assistance and has contributed extensively to U.N. peacekeeping operations, human-rights initiatives and women’s empowerment globally. Perhaps most impressive, Japan’s Self-Defense Forces have never fired a shot in anger during international deployments, focusing exclusively on humanitarian assistance and reconstruction.
Yet China persists in painting Takaichi — and by extension Japan — as a warmonger thirsting for conflict. This narrative serves Beijing’s domestic agenda, providing a convenient external enemy to distract from mounting economic challenges at home. Like Zhao Gao using his deer-horse test to consolidate power, Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s government weaponizes anti-Japanese sentiment to maintain domestic cohesion amid slowing growth, youth unemployment and a property sector crisis.
The reality that China desperately seeks to obscure is that Japan’s modest defense buildup represents not aggression but a measured response to genuine security threats. Chinese spending went up by 59% over the past decade (2015–2024), while Beijing has dramatically escalated military activities around Taiwan and intensified incursions into Japanese territorial waters near the Senkaku Islands. China’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, its deepening alignment with the CRINK axis (China, Russia, Iran and North Korea) and its persistent cyberattacks against Japanese infrastructure all represent real, not imagined, security challenges.
Japan’s concerns are widely shared across the region. According to the 2024 ISEAS survey of Southeast Asian elites, just over 73% of respondents expressed unease about China’s growing regional political and strategic influence, and more than 45% of respondents expressed fear that China would use its strengths to threaten their national interests and sovereignty. Even nations that maintain close economic ties with China harbor deep anxieties about its hegemonic behavior and coercive tactics.
Takaichi’s statement about Taiwan reflects not warmongering but pragmatic recognition of economic and security realities. Taiwan produces over 60% of the world’s semiconductors and 90% of the most advanced chips. A forced unification would devastate global supply chains and trigger an economic catastrophe dwarfing the COVID-19 pandemic. For Japan, which depends on sea lanes near Taiwan for virtually all its energy imports, Chinese control of the Taiwan Strait would represent an existential threat to national survival.
Japan’s approach stands in marked contrast to China’s increasingly aggressive posture. While Beijing conducts military exercises simulating attacks on Taiwan and threatens nations that maintain ties with Taipei, Japan promotes peaceful resolution through dialogue. While China imprisons over a million Uyghurs and crushes democracy in Hong Kong, Japan upholds human rights and democratic values. While China claims vast swathes of the South China Sea through dubious historical assertions, Japan adheres scrupulously to international law and the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Three key strategies can help counter China’s deer-horse propaganda campaign:
First, democratic nations must consistently present facts and context when China attempts to distort reality. Every false characterization of Japan as militaristic should be met with concrete examples of its peaceful contributions, from disaster relief in Southeast Asia to funding for global health initiatives. Truth, repeated consistently, eventually penetrates even the thickest propaganda fog.
Second, regional partners should coordinate messaging to avoid allowing China to pick off individual nations through economic coercion. When Beijing punished Australia with trade sanctions for calling for a COVID-19 investigation, other democracies failed to present a united front. Such division only emboldens China’s deer-horse tactics.
Third, Japan should continue its patient, principled approach while enhancing people-to-people exchanges that demonstrate its peaceful character. Cultural diplomacy, educational exchanges and grassroots engagement create authentic relationships that propaganda cannot easily destroy.
The international community faces a choice reminiscent of Zhao Gao’s ancient test: Acknowledge reality or succumb to power’s distortion of truth. Unlike the fearful courtiers who called a deer a horse, today’s nations must find the courage to name things as they are. Japan, under leaders like Takaichi, represents not a return to militarism but a democracy adapting to genuine threats while maintaining its fundamental commitment to peace.
In the end, China’s deer-horse strategy reveals more about Beijing than Tokyo. A confident, secure power does not need to manufacture foreign threats or distort neighbors’ defensive measures as aggression. The very vehemence of China’s anti-Japan propaganda betrays deep insecurities about its own legitimacy and regional standing.
This article was first published on November 18, 2025, at The Japan Times.
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