BEIJING, Jan 24 – China has been closely monitoring the snap general election to be held in Japan on Feb. 8 amid a diplomatic dispute with Tokyo, with state-run media reporting Friday’s dissolution of the House of Representatives by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi as breaking news.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun declined to comment on Japan’s “internal affairs” at a press conference, but some Chinese media reports have highlighted Beijing’s interest in a new opposition bloc, the Centrist Reform Alliance.
Bilateral relations have hit a new low with Beijing angered by Takaichi’s parliamentary remarks in November suggesting Japan could act in the event of an attack on Taiwan, a self-ruled democratic island claimed by China.
The Centrist Reform Alliance was formed last week by the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and the Komeito party, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s former coalition partner for 26 years. Takaichi heads the LDP.
In an article published last weekend, the official Xinhua News Agency explored how the new main opposition party would likely fare against the Takaichi-led conservative ruling camp of the LDP and the Japan Innovation Party.
Komeito has “long been uneasy with hardline conservative policies” and has been “openly critical of Takaichi’s far-right ideology,” the news agency said. As Komeito redirects its support from the LDP to the CDPJ, “election outcomes could be significantly altered,” it added. Komeito has long maintained friendly ties with China.
Xiang Haoyu, a senior research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, told China Central Television last week that the new opposition bloc formed by two “relatively important moderate forces in Japanese politics” could restrain the “extreme right-wing, conservative policies” of Takaichi’s government to some extent.
Chen Yang, a visiting researcher at Liaoning University’s Japan Research Center, told Kyodo News that it is “not desirable” for some political forces in Japan to stir up geopolitical tensions and seek an election victory at the cost of Sino-Japanese relations.
No matter which party wins the upcoming election, the new Japanese government should “rationally deal with” China, Chen added.
