A rare visit to Beijing by a cross-party delegation of Japanese lawmakers has failed to produce an immediate breakthrough in strained China-Japan relations, after a senior Chinese Communist Party official reportedly told the group that Beijing would not change its policy towards Tokyo unless Japan revises its position on Taiwan.
The visit comes as relations between the two Asian powers remain at their lowest point in recent memory. It was the first such visit since Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said in November that Japan could intervene militarily in a Taiwan crisis, remarks that triggered a sharp reaction from Beijing and added a major security dispute to already strained bilateral ties.
Shinichi Isa, a Lower House member with the Centrist Reform Alliance who led the delegation, said Lu Kang, deputy head of the Communist Party’s International Department, had told the Japanese lawmakers that unless Japan changed its understanding regarding Taiwan, “the Chinese government has no intention of changing its policy” towards Japan, according to Japanese media reports.
The message leaves little immediate room for a diplomatic thaw. Relations deteriorated sharply after Takaichi told parliament that Chinese military action around Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan. The designation has legal significance because it could allow Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defence and respond militarily.
Beijing strongly objected to Takaichi’s remarks. China claims democratic Taiwan as its own and has since taken a series of diplomatic and economic measures against Japan, increasing pressure on the Japanese prime minister to retract her comments.
The dispute has now placed Taiwan at the centre of the bilateral relationship. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian reinforced Beijing’s position at a regular news conference on the same day, saying that the “root cause of the serious difficulties in China-Japan relations lies in the erroneous remarks and actions on Taiwan”.
Lin urged Japan to “heed and value the voice of reason in Japan, repent for and correct the wrongdoings”, signalling that Beijing continues to regard Tokyo’s position on Taiwan as the fundamental obstacle to improving relations.
For the Japanese delegation, the outcome was far from the breakthrough that might have been hoped for from an unusually high-level political exchange. Isa reportedly described the meeting as “a difficult exchange of views”, while also calling it “an important step toward the next stage”.
The delegation consisted of Isa, Liberal Democratic Party Lower House lawmaker Gaku Hashimoto and Komeito Upper House member Yudai Kawamura. The lawmakers arrived in Beijing earlier this week at the invitation of the Chinese side, making the visit notable despite the absence of any immediate agreement or indication that Beijing was prepared to soften its position.
The diplomatic significance of the meeting therefore lies less in an easing of tensions than in the direct articulation of the conditions Beijing believes must be addressed before relations can improve. Rather than signalling flexibility, the Chinese side used the encounter to reiterate that Taiwan remains central to its assessment of Japan’s current policy.
The episode also demonstrates how quickly political statements about a Taiwan contingency can spill into the wider China-Japan relationship. What began as a debate over Japan’s potential military response to a regional crisis has become a broader dispute involving diplomacy, economic pressure and the political direction of bilateral ties.
For Tokyo, the challenge is now to maintain dialogue with Beijing while navigating the implications of its position on Taiwan. For Beijing, the message from the meeting was more direct: without a change in Japan’s understanding of the Taiwan issue, a broader improvement in relations remains difficult.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said more information on the meeting would be released “in due course”, leaving open the possibility of further exchanges even as the latest encounter underscored the depth of the disagreement separating the two governments.
