Japan's prime minister won a decisive victory in parliamentary elections this weekend. The international reaction to the results depends on where you look.
Developments in Japan have just dropped a shadow of intrigue over relations between the U.S. and China.
One of the first things Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi did after her party swept to a broad weekend victory was to thank President Donald Trump for endorsing her just before the election — and to say she's looking forward to visiting the White House late next month.
On Monday, Politico reported that Trump's latest international travel plans include a visit to China in early April. And that's part of the intrigue — because relations between China and Japan have been decidedly frosty since November.
That's when Takaichi suggested a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could draw Japan's military into a conflict.
On Monday, a spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry repeated a call for Takaichi to retract her comments, and said China's policy to Japan “will not change because of any single election.”
But the extent of Takaichi's victory means she's likely to stick around for a while as prime minister. So, a question for Chinese President Xi Jinping is whether there's a way to gracefully reduce tensions with Tokyo — or a desire to do so?
And for Trump, how to preserve relative trade peace with Beijing and develop even deeper ties with an exceedingly popular prime minister of Japan.
