Reinstalled with a supermajority, Japanese leader Sanae Takaichi is likely to maintain a hard line on China while seeking even closer security and trade ties with the US.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi scored a resounding victory in Sunday’s general election, with her Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) securing a commanding two-thirds supermajority in parliament’s powerful lower house.
Together with its partner, the Japan Innovation Party (Ishin), and several allied independents, the LDP’s ruling coalition now has as many as 352 seats in the 465-seat chamber.
The massive electoral triumph grants Takaichi a mandate to push forward with foreign and security policy initiatives that are going to delight long-standing allies but antagonize regional rivals.
US President Donald Trump was quick to congratulate Takaichi for her “landslide victory,” adding that it had been his honor to endorse her campaign a few days earlier.
In a social media post, Trump added, “I wish you Great Success in passing your Conservative, Peace Through Strength Agenda.”
The response from China, on the other hand, has been muted, with state media on Monday limiting their coverage of Takaichi’s victory to announcing the result.
Analysts say that will change in the coming days as Beijing calibrates its position towards a leader who has now secured a clear mandate — arguably in part as a result of Chinese pressure.
China ‘trying to destabilize’ Takaichi
“China has been trying to destabilize the Takaichi administration by criticizing comments she made in November about Taiwan,” said Ben Ascione, an assistant professor of politics and international relations at Tokyo’s Waseda University.
The already strained diplomatic relationship between Beijing and Tokyo nosedived in November after Takaichi said in the Japanese parliament that a crisis involving Taiwan could be a threat to Japan’s national security and might compel Japanese involvement.
Her comments drew sharp criticism from Beijing.
“Politically, Takaichi and the Chinese Communist Party are at odds and they are doing their best to portray her as a historical revisionist, playing up her support for Yasukuni Shrine,” Ascione told DW, referring to the shrine in central Tokyo that honors Japan’s war dead yet remains controversial because it is also the final resting place of 14 Class A war criminals.
“The question has to be, how much was Takaichi’s victory a result of attacks by China?” the expert said, pointing out that the Japanese public is deeply concerned about Beijing ratcheting up the pressure on Taiwan.
China views the self-ruled democratic island as its territory and vows to bring it under Beijing’s control, even by force if necessary.
Another source of tension between Tokyo and Beijing involves competing territorial claims over a group of tiny, uninhabited islets and rocks in the East China Sea.
Agreeing to disagree
With relations between the two countries at historic lows, the next moves on both sides will be telling, Ascione said.
“There seems little point in Beijing continuing to try to destabilize Takaichi now that she is no longer politically vulnerable, so maybe the two sides can agree that they disagree on matters of history and territory, there is a way forward,” he underlined.
One way for that would be for Takaichi to follow in the footsteps of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who went to Beijing in 2018 after another sharp dip in bilateral relations over the East China Sea islands, known as the Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan. There, he signed a series of agreements on economic cooperation and trade, effectively smoothing the issue over.
Hiromi Murakami, a professor of political science at the Tokyo branch of Temple University, said such a move by Takaichi could provide an off-ramp for the two governments without too much loss of face on either side.
She, however, stressed that cooler heads may not prevail.
“If Takaichi decides that she wants to pay her respects at Yasukuni or she increases defense spending again or if she pushes ahead with plans to rewrite the post-war constitution, then China is not going to respond well,” she said.
“And Beijing has some powerful economic levers that it can apply,” Murakami pointed out.
China has already instructed its nationals not to travel to Japan for vacations and has severely restricted exports of critical rare earth minerals to Japan.
Beijing has in the past also banned imports of marine products and that is another pressure point that could be reintroduced, Murakami said.
“Taken together, the impact on the Japanese economy and society will be very serious,” she noted. “And this is important for Takaichi because although national security was an important factor for voters, rising prices and the cost of living was the top issue.”
A greater defense burden
Relations with the US, however, are on course to soar under the new Takaichi administration.
“We have seen Takaichi already embrace the US as a partner by accepting tariffs and agreeing to take on more of the defense burden in the region with increased spending on the Self-Defense Forces, so Trump has every reason to be happy,” she said.
“And he will know that for as long as Takaichi is in power, she will do what the US wants because Japan needs US security guarantees.”
Ascione agrees that the Japanese prime minister’s foreign policy priority is to “cultivate a stronger relationship with the US as a deterrent against China,” even though the 15% tariffs on Japanese exports have caused problems for Japanese companies and dented the national economy.
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/japan-election-win-improves-takaichis-foreign-policy-hand/a-75875134
