Two Heads of State, One Handshake, Zero for the Rest of Us

Japanese officials are lobbying Beijing for a handshake. That's the headline: the government of the world's fourth-largest economy is working behind closed doors to make sure Chinese President Xi Jinping doesn't snub Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi when the APEC summit opens in Shenzhen on Nov 18, nine days from now. Tokyo has sought reassurances that Xi will give her the same treatment as other world leaders, according to people familiar with the matter, and it plans to protest anything unusual on the program. The sources weren't authorised to discuss private matters, which tells you how these things get decided.

Who Has the Power

The meeting would be their first since a furore over Taiwan derailed ties. Japan and China normalised relations 54 years ago, and the past year has hit one of their lowest ebbs since. Seating plans and family photos, the base article notes, pose opportunities for Takaichi to be sidelined. Jeremy Chan, a senior analyst at the Eurasia Group and former US diplomat, said Beijing has "personalised its rhetorical attacks against Japan, many of which focus on demonising Takaichi to an unusual degree." When former Japanese prime minister Yasuo Fukuda died in October, Xi bypassed Takaichi and sent a condolence letter straight to his wife.

The last time China hosted APEC, 12 years ago, Xi shook Shinzo Abe's hand after groundwork laid months ahead. Komeito, the party with ties to China, helped set up that sit-down. It left Takaichi's coalition when she became prime minister. This time, Chinese officials have only met with figures outside her Cabinet.

Three leaders of nuclear-armed powers, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi, are set to hold a trilateral at the same venue, the first time in post-World War II history those three have huddled. For Takaichi, the source says, that raises the risk of looking isolated from Washington, Japan's sole formal ally. She tried to ensure Tokyo's interests weren't traded away at Trump's White House summit with Xi, working the sidelines of the United Nations in New York in September.

Who Gets Crushed

The fight started when Takaichi said last November that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could pose an existential threat to Japan. Classifying an invasion that way could provide the legal basis for Tokyo to deploy its military as part of a collective response with the US. China answered by choking exports of rare earths, critical to Japan's semiconductor and auto industries. US manufacturers that rely on Japan for certain magnets are also hurting, prompting Trump to ask Xi in September to ease the measures.

Beijing urged its citizens, who made up about a quarter of all visitors to Japan before the spat, to avoid the country. It curbed seafood imports. It put Japanese companies on lists that control or monitor their access to Chinese products with military uses. Factory workers, fishers, tourism workers: none of them were in the room when the remarks were made or when the retaliation was drawn up. They're the ones absorbing the impact.

Takaichi, per some Japanese officials, has been asked personally by Xi to retract her Taiwan remarks. She's refused, and pushed ahead with a security agenda that has further angered China, including plans for maritime boundary talks with the Philippines and suggestions from leading Tokyo officials that they may discuss revising a ban on the entry of nuclear weapons into Japan. A narrative has taken hold in China that Japan is returning to its militaristic past under Takaichi. Tokyo denies it.

What They're Calling "Diplomacy"

The chances of a Takaichi-Xi meeting at APEC are low, people familiar with the planning said. Contact will likely be limited to customary greetings at the leaders' dinner. Takaichi may catch Trump in Manila at the ASEAN summit days earlier, giving her a channel to convey a message to Beijing. Chinese Premier Li Qiang will also attend, where he could meet her.

Masaki Taniguchi, a professor of political science at the University of Tokyo, offered the establishment's advice: "There's no need to provoke China unnecessarily. Conversely, Japan has absolutely no reason to kowtow to China either." Handle things calmly and steadily, he says.

The whole drama turns on greeting rituals, seating charts and who gets a condolence letter, while the costs land on exporters, importers and workers who never got a vote on any of it. Takaichi, separately, said Sunday at a gathering in Tokyo on the abduction issue: "There is no change in my resolve to find a breakthrough at any cost while I am in office."