Japanese veteran singer Tokiko Kato in TBS’s news talk show Sunday Morning on November 30, 2025 Photo: Screenshot from Youtube

Japanese singer Tokiko Kato explicitly demanded Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to retract her erroneous remarks on the Taiwan question during a TBS program when she discussed the backlash from China triggered by Takaichi's remarks on a so-called Taiwan emergency which resulted in the deterioration of China-Japan relations, chunichi.co.jp reported on Sunday. 

Kato, 81, made the remarks as she appeared during TBS's news talk show Sunday Morning on Sunday when discussing about Takaichi's remarks that a "Taiwan emergency" could constitute a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, chunichi.co.jp reported. 

When addressing the topic, Kato expressed her calling for Takaichi to retract her remarks. She said that she would like to say this to Takaichi once again that despite "Mr Noda (Yoshihiko Noda, leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan) said he would take it as a de facto retraction of her remarks, but that's not what I heard. I'd like Ms Takaichi to retract her statement once again." 

Furthermore, Kato said that Japan's strengthening its defense will end up sounding like Japan is saying it would be fine even if it is made a target of attack, which Kato thinks it's a situation where the sense of crisis is being stirred up. 

Kato repeatedly requested that now that it has been recognized that this much impact has been made, the remarks would be retracted as soon as possible and hoped an explicit shift in Takaichi's attitudes, according to chunichi.co.jp. 

Global Times