Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

Japanese State Minister of Defense Yasuhide Nakayama has talked nonsense to provoke China from time to time, poisoning the Japanese society's understanding of China. Not only did Japanese officials mention China's Taiwan in an official joint statement with the US, but Japanese media also openly predicted "three situations" under which the Japanese Self-Defense Forces can assist the US military, should a war occur in the Taiwan Straits.

Here I want to tell those arrogant Japanese: Do not provoke China and stop going too far, just be a "semi-colony" of the US; once something goes wrong in the Taiwan Straits, stay away or else you are asking for a beating.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said on Tuesday that the Japan-US joint statement "does not presuppose military involvement at all." I believe this is wise. However, related speculations continue to increase in Japan, which shows that some Japanese radicals want to act conceitedly on the Taiwan question.

We must tell those arrogant Japanese radicals: If a war breaks out in the Taiwan Straits and Japanese Self-Defense Forces implement military intervention to follow the US, then they will definitely become the target of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. The deeper they are involved, the harder they will be hit, or even much harder. If their bases on Japanese soil act as vanguards, then those bases will be hit as well. They should completely drop their illusion of interfering in the Taiwan question.

The author is editor-in-chief of the Global Times. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn