Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi opened a 69-day Diet session by calling China an important neighbour and pledging a mutually beneficial relationship, while repeating demands over security and human rights.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi opened a 69-day parliamentary session on 5 October with a policy speech of about 30 minutes, The Straits Times reported from Tokyo. She bookended the address with a line from the Book of the Later Han: those with determination will eventually succeed.
She described China as an important neighbour with which Japan shares a long history of engagement, and said she would pursue a mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests. The paper said it was not clear whether the classical quotation was meant as an olive branch.
Ties have cooled since late 2025, when Takaichi suggested Japan could face a survival-threatening situation if a Chinese invasion of Taiwan occurred, language that broke with strategic ambiguity, the Straits Times reported. She is expected to visit China in November for the APEC summit.
In the same speech she said Japan would keep asserting its position on the East and South China Seas, Chinese military activity around Japan, coercive measures, the safety of Japanese citizens in China and human rights, and would demand responsible action.
The account rests on the Straits Times report of the Diet speech. A full official English transcript was not in the sources used here, so wording is attributed to that report.