Key choices await Japan

High vaccination rate

Japan now has one of the highest COVID-19 vaccination rates among major economies. An average of 115 infections a day was reported last week, representing a plunge of about 99 percent from the peak in August. That progress has enabled the country to lift virtually all restrictions on its economy.

In terms of Japan's relations with China, Yu points out that Beijing was quick to send friendly signals to Tokyo after Kishida got his new government underway. Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a message congratulating him on his election as Japan's prime minister, and Xi was among the first world leaders to hold a phone conversation with Kishida upon his taking office.

In their conversation, Xi said China stands ready to work with Japan to enhance dialogue and cooperation, and promote the building of a "Sino-Japanese relationship that meets the requirements of the new era in the spirit of taking history as a mirror and opening up the future".

"At present, the Sino-Japanese relationship faces both opportunities and challenges," Xi said, adding that China and Japan should earnestly learn from both the positive and the negative experiences in bilateral relations, strictly observe the principles set out in the four political documents between them, and effectively implement the political consensus that they are cooperative partners and not threats to each other.

In response, Kishida said Japan is willing to work with China to draw important lessons from the history of bilateral relations, and take the 50th anniversary as an opportunity to make joint efforts in building a constructive and stable Japan-China relationship that meets the requirements of the new era.

"The phone call created positive momentum for developing bilateral ties but a growing right-wing sentiment among Japanese lawmakers and in Kishida's government has cast a shadow on the Sino-Japanese relationship," Yu says.

Provocative actions

Since Kishida took office, right-wing lawmakers have taken a series of provocative actions to sabotage the friendly environment for relations between China and Japan, including meddling in China's domestic affairs in regard to the Taiwan question, hyping up the "China threat" and tensions relating to the Diaoyu Islands issue, the scholar says.

He also cites tensions arising from the government's increased military budget, along with some lawmakers' fabrication of "China's human rights problem".

Most recently, concerns were raised when about 100 Japanese lawmakers, including nine vice-ministers and special aides in Kishida's cabinet, prayed at the Yasukuni Shrine on the 80th anniversary of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and days before China's National Memorial Day for the victims of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre.

The shrine, which honors 14 Class-A convicted war criminals among 2.5 million Japanese war dead from World War II, is regarded as a symbol of Japan's past atrocities and militarism. Its Yushukan, a war museum inside the shrine, espouses Japan's right-wing narrative of the war, which portrays Japan as a victim of the war and contends that the country was forced into the Pacific War because of a Western economic blockade.

Days before, Abe, who remains a hugely influential figure in Japan's parliament and heads the largest faction in the LDP, made the comment that "a Taiwan emergency is a Japanese emergency" during a virtual forum organized by a Taiwan think tank.

Given that Japan had colonized the Chinese island for half a century, Abe's remark aroused a fierce backlash from Beijing, which immediately summoned Japan's ambassador in Beijing to express its displeasure with the provocative comment.

In response to Abe's remark and the shrine visit, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said: "Several decades on, some in Japan are still denying and even beautifying the history of aggression and colonial rule.

"History cannot be denied and travesty of justice cannot be tolerated", said Zhao, adding that the "Japanese side should adopt a right attitude, deeply reflect upon the Japanese militarism' fascist atrocities and crimes against humanity and win trust from people around the world with concrete actions".