Japan PM Shows Resolve as She Crosses Swords with Xi Over South China Sea Issue

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said she raised “serious concerns” about the South China Sea, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang in a “candid” first meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Takaichi said she told Xi at the APEC summit that she wanted a “strategic and mutually beneficial relationship between Japan and China.” (Photo: PM's Office of Japan X)

Xi, in turn, told Japan’s first woman prime minister — long seen as a China hawk — that he hopes Tokyo will have a “correct understanding” of his country.

Takaichi has been a regular visitor to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japan’s war dead, and a supporter of Taiwan, advocating stronger security ties with the self-ruled island that China claims as its territory.

“It could be a frosty get-to-know-you meeting, as Xi Jinping has not sent a congratulatory message to Takaichi, wary of her reputation as a China hawk,” Yee Kuang Heng, a professor at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Public Policy, told AFP before the meeting.

“Overall, though, stability is a shared priority,” Heng said.

Having both met U.S. President Donald Trump in recent days, Takaichi said she told Xi at the APEC summit that she wanted a “strategic and mutually beneficial relationship between Japan and China.”

However, she told reporters that she also raised a number of thorny issues with the Chinese leader, saying that it was “important for us to engage in direct, candid dialogue.”

She added: “We expressed serious concerns regarding actions in the South China Sea, as well as the situations in Hong Kong and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.”