China’s latest confrontation with Japan is more than a bilateral spat. It is a warning shot to all of Asia — and to the U.S., Japan’s treaty ally.

By trying to bludgeon a major democracy into accepting its “red lines,” above all on Taiwan, China is exposing the raw coercive logic now powering its foreign policy. Its willingness to target Japan — a historic great power and today the world’s third-largest economy — telegraphs how Beijing intends to deal with the rest of Asia: through intimidation, economic punishment and calibrated use of nationalist fury.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s warning that a Chinese assault on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan — enabling the country to exercise its right to collective self-defense — provoked not a routine diplomatic protest but a ferocious, full-spectrum backlash. Beijing answered with a sweeping coercive campaign that showcases its new playbook — and its growing willingness, as it earlier demonstrated against India, to impose costs even on countries far too large and powerful to be cowed easily.