Zhou Bo, senior fellow at Tsinghua University's Center for International Security and Strategy, denounced Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's claim that a Taiwan contingency constitutes a survival crisis for Japan as completely unfounded. He pointed out that Japan's WWII atrocities have not been thoroughly reckoned with, leading to a lack of genuine introspection about its history of aggression. This failure, he said, has led Japan to continuously test the boundaries of remilitarization using salami-slicing tactics.