Japanese lawmakers visit Beijing seeking to mend ties after fallout from Takaichi's Taiwan remark

TOKYO — A cross-party group of Japanese lawmakers headed to Beijing on Monday seeking to mend strained ties following Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment on Taiwan that angered China and led to tensions that have spilled over into the economy.

The group, which includes Gaku Hashimoto, a lawmaker of Takaichi’s governing Liberal Democratic Party and a former health and welfare vice minister, and a lawmaker each from the Komeito and Centrist Reform Alliance opposition parties, will meet with Chinese Communist Party officials during a visit through Thursday.

“Communication has been severed in all areas and we are beginning to see their impact in many areas,” Shinichi Isa, a spokesperson for the CRA party, told reporters before leaving Tokyo’s Haneda airport. “I hope we can somehow find a clue to restart a dialogue.”

Soon after taking office, Takaichi said a Chinese attack on Taiwan could constitute “a survival-threatening situation” for Japan that would justify the use of force, enraging Beijing.

Isa, who has served as a diplomat at the Japanese Embassy in China, wrote on X earlier this month that bilateral ties have sunk to their worst since the 1972 normalization of relations. He wrote that officials had always remained in communication even during previous lows: “Now all channels between officials and ministries have been cut off.”

The situation is not in the national interest of either side, Isa said at the time, and the Chinese side accepted a request from Japanese lawmakers for a “window for dialogue.”

China’s Foreign Ministry last Friday noted “some people of insight from both Japan’s ruling and opposition parties” are concerned about the state of China-Japan relations and hoping to make efforts to push them back on track. “We urge those running the Japanese government to take these voices seriously … and take concrete actions to create the necessary conditions for normal exchanges between the two countries.”

Takaichi’s remark crossed what China considers a red line in its relations with other countries about Taiwan, which is a self-governing island that Beijing claims as its territory.

Takaichi has not retracted her comment, but when marking Japan’s World War II surrender on Aug. 15, she prayed remotely instead of visiting the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, seen by China and South Korea as lacking remorse for Japan’s wartime militarism and atrocities.