Japan Moves To Head Off APEC Snub Of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi

Preventing a Cold Shoulder

Japan wants the optics at APEC to be neutral at minimum. Officials expect Xi Jinping to meet Takaichi with the routine handshake when she joins leaders at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings in Shenzhen on Nov. 18-19, and they have sought assurances she will be treated on par with other heads of government. People familiar with the matter say Tokyo plans to lodge objections if anything unusual is arranged for the conference.

A private meeting between Takaichi and Xi is unlikely, according to those familiar with the planning. Any contact is expected to come via APEC's formal programming, including the leaders' dinner where Xi is slated to greet each attendee. The last time China hosted APEC in 2014, Xi and then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe did manage a handshake during a tense period, but that thaw rested on groundwork put in place months ahead of the summit.

How Ties Frayed This Far

Relations soured after Takaichi stated last November that a Chinese move against Taiwan could be an existential risk for Japan - a long held view among Japanese leaders that had rarely been said plainly. Some Japanese officials say Xi has personally pressed for a retraction. She has declined to back down and has pushed ahead with a security program that irks Beijing, from a May announcement to start maritime boundary talks with the Philippines over overlapping claims east of Taiwan to proposals from senior Tokyo officials that any talks might consider reexamining Japan's prohibition on allowing nuclear arms to come into the country.

Labeling a Chinese assault on Taiwan as an existential threat could provide the legal grounds for Japan to send its forces to fight with the U.S. in a collective action. In China, that has fed a narrative that Tokyo under Takaichi is reviving a militaristic past, a characterization Japan rejects.

Beijing's Pressure Campaign

China has tightened the spigot on rare earth exports to Japan, where it holds near monopoly power. Those materials are vital to Japan's chip and auto sectors. The squeeze has spilled over: U.S. manufacturers that depend on Japanese magnets have been hit, and Donald Trump asked Xi in September to ease the restrictions. Beijing has also urged Chinese citizens to steer clear of Japan on safety grounds, cut seafood imports, and put Japanese firms onto registries that regulate or track access to Chinese goods that could have military applications.

The stagecraft carries risks too. Jeremy Chan, a senior analyst at Eurasia Group and former U.S. diplomat, said Beijing has increasingly aimed its rhetoric at Japan and "demonizing Takaichi to an unusual degree," adding that this raises the odds China could try to embarrass her at APEC by lowering her status or criticizing Japan. Seating charts and the traditional family photo offer chances to sideline a leader. Xi publicly chastised Canada's then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at a G20 summit in Indonesia in 2022, a tense exchange caught on camera.

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The Stagecraft at Shenzhen and the Investor Angle

There has been none of the pre summit give and take that eased tensions in 2014. Back then, senior officials met days before APEC and Tokyo offered an olive branch, which Chinese state media hailed as a diplomatic win after Japan "for the first time" acknowledged both sides' claims over disputed islands. In contrast, this year Beijing's envoys have confined engagement to people not serving in Takaichi's cabinet. Following the death last month of Japan's former prime minister, Yasuo Fukuda, Xi conveyed his condolences in a letter to Fukuda's wife rather than to Takaichi.

Domestic politics matter here. Komeito, a party known for ties to China that helped set up the Xi Abe meeting, exited the coalition when Takaichi became prime minister. Meanwhile, at the APEC venue, Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin intend to meet jointly with China's top leader - a configuration that would represent the first post World War II assembly of those three leaders of nuclear-armed nations. For Takaichi, this increases the likelihood of her seeming isolated from Washington, Japan's only formal ally.

Takaichi has paths to manage the optics. She may be able to meet Trump in Manila at the ASEAN summit just ahead of APEC, creating a way to pass messages to Beijing - an approach she employed in September during meetings held alongside the United Nations in New York. Chinese Premier Li Qiang is expected to be at ASEAN as well, presenting an opportunity for a counterpart-level meeting with Takaichi.

The bottom line: watch the signals. A straightforward handshake, any brief exchange in Shenzhen, and where leaders stand at the Nov. 18-19 events will shape how markets read the Japan China temperature. "There's no need to provoke China unnecessarily," said Masaki Taniguchi, a political science professor at the University of Tokyo.

"Conversely, Japan has absolutely no reason to kowtow to China either."

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