Chinese officials took five days to formally congratulate Sanae Takaichi after her election on October 21 as the first woman to govern Japan. The new prime minister advocates a more bellicose position towards China, maintains a close relationship with Taiwan, and seeks to strengthen Japan's security alliance with the United States and its military presence in the Indo-Pacific.
Given this background, some media channels controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wasted no time in criticizing her "anti-China" rhetoric. However, what bothers Beijing the most are Takaichi's regular visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, a symbol of Japan's militarism and imperial expansion that invaded China in 1931, where several war criminals are commemorated.
Consequently, there was much anticipation in the Asian arena for the first meeting between Takaichi and China's Xi Jinping, which took place on Friday in Gyeongju, South Korea, where both are participating in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum, a regional summit. This time, the Japanese leader significantly softened her usual tough stance towards China by expressing her willingness to "deepen her personal relationship" with the leader of the Asian superpower.
The transcript of the conversation released by Tokyo highlights that Takaichi conveyed to Xi her intention to promote a "mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests," a phrase previously used by other Japanese governments to deepen bilateral ties with the neighboring country.
"Japan and China share responsibilities for the peace and prosperity of the region," Takaichi continued. "While there are various outstanding issues and challenges between our countries, I hope we can reduce them and increase dialogue and cooperation." In turn, at the beginning of the meeting, Xi emphasized his willingness to maintain smooth communication with the Japanese leader to "jointly advance China-Japan relations on the right path."
Takaichi, who this week strengthened the security alliance with the U.S. after hosting President Donald Trump in Tokyo, comes from the more conservative wing of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the party that has almost continuously governed Japan since the post-war period. During the three campaigns she led in her party's primaries before being elected prime minister, the fifth person to hold the position in five years, Takaichi portrayed China as a strategic threat and denied some dark episodes in her country's history, such as the Nanjing Massacre, when the Imperial Japanese Army bombed this city in eastern China before invading it. Chinese officials and state media have been criticizing this episode for decades, pointing out that unlike the attack on Pearl Harbor or the atomic bombing, it is barely mentioned in Japanese school textbooks.
Beijing also disapproves of Takaichi's close relationship with Taiwan, especially when in April she led a Japanese delegation that held a meeting with Taiwanese leader Lai Ching-te to discuss increased defense cooperation.
Regionally, Japanese analysts indicate that Takaichi's government will push for Tokyo's participation in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), a quartet composed of the United States, Japan, India, and Australia that initially emerged as a simple aid group after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, when these countries joined forces to provide humanitarian assistance. Subsequently, with the aim of transforming it into a security alliance against China's military expansion, the group was formalized thanks to the impetus of then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Takaichi's political mentor.
From China's perspective, a more aggressive stance from Takaichi could lead to a scenario where Japan is seen not only as a neighbor and economic partner but also as a strategic competitor in the military field.
For many years, the main point of contention between Japan and China has been in the East China Sea over rocky, uninhabited islands, the Senkaku Islands, located 1,900 kilometers southwest of Tokyo. Japan formally claimed them in 1895, and except for a brief period after World War II when the U.S. controlled the territory, they were owned by a series of Japanese citizens until Tokyo purchased them in 2012, now under its control.
Beijing, which renamed them the Diaoyu Islands, began claiming them as its own in the 1990s after discovering potential oil and natural gas reserves on the islands. Japanese authorities often complain about Chinese fishing vessels invading their waters, prompting the Japanese coast guard to intervene. They also accuse Chinese military aircraft of flying over the disputed area.